alnorth |
01-03-2016 10:57 AM |
I came up with an idea for revamping how MMA fights are scored, but I then thought of an obvious fatal flaw right when I was about to post it. I was going to argue that since this is a fight, not a game, we should do away with scores and the judges should each simply vote for a winner at the end based on who would be more likely to win the fight if we had unlimited rounds. The idea here is that the only reason we have judges at all is that we aren't going to wait all damn day for someone to drop, so we should decide who would have won if had had unlimited time.
The big problem with that idea is it would encourage slow, cautious fighting and defense. If you go for it and don't get it, then you don't want to be the fighter who is gassed and beat up. Fighters would probably just focus on not getting hit and not using much energy.
We're probably institutionally stuck with the 10 point system for a while, so I think the best solution is to strongly encourage judges to use scores other than 10-9 more often. If neither fighter did much, just make it a 10-10. You don't get 10-9 anymore unless you clearly won the round. What we would today call a 10-8, make that a 10-7, and lets have 10-8 more often for when a fighter didn't just win, but hurt the other fighter. This would probably result in more draws, but thats fine.
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