I admit it: for all intents and purposes, I missed the front runner for fight of the year the first time around. As my friends left for a party, I fired up a stream of the Spike prelims in order to get in a few games of NHL 10. I chalked it up to hyperbole when I heard Goldberg and Rogan losing their minds two minutes in. When the Hyperbole Train hadn’t checked into the station at the end of round two, I knew I had missed something good.
Oops. Not only did I miss unnamed organization’s Griffin-Bonnar moment, it turns out the judges royally messed up the decision.
Before we dive into the FightMetric stats, here’s how some of the top MMA media members scored the bout:
Brent Brookhouse scored it 29-28 Garcia (Jung won round 1)
The Sherdog Staff (Breen, Fridley, and DeSantis) scored it unanimously 30-27 Jung
Ray Hui (MMA Fighting) scored it 29-28 Jung (Garcia won round 3)
MMA Weekly scored it 28-28 draw (Jung won round 1 10-8, Garcia won rounds 2 and 3)
MMA Junkie scored it 29-28 Jung (Garcia won round 3)
Josh Gross (Sports Illustrated) scored it 29-28 Jung (no round-by-round)
Brent Brookhouse will be playing the part of Douglas Crosby.
A lot of people thought the judging was wildly incorrect. First, let’s take a look at the FightMetric Effectiveness Scores and their extrapolated ten-point must decision:
| Garcia | Jung | TPM | |
| Round 1 | 53 | 198 | 10-9 J |
| Round 2 | 160 | 158 | 10-10 |
| Round 3 | 110 | 145 | 10-9 J |
| Total | 323 | 515 | 30-28 J |
Eek, not looking good for the judges.
The raw striking stats throw some sand on the fire. For the fight as a whole, Jung outlanded Garcia in every category with the exception of leg kicks, including total strikes (106-71) and HiPer strikes (78-52).
Jung dominated round one. He outlanded Garcia 51-18 (36-10 HiPer strikes) including a clear knockdown during the fracas. I saw Garcia missing a lot of strikes during the round, but even I am surprised by the “elusiveness” of the Korean Zombie.
It’s rounds two and three that make the fight difficult to score and keep it from becoming an Easton/Beebe level of robbery. Jung outlanded Garcia 32-25 in the second frame, but landed a virtually equal number of HiPer strikes. Garcia outlanded Jung in round three, though Jung landed the more effective power shots to the head (13-8).
It should be pointed out that Jung took Garcia’s back in the middle of round two, albeit briefly.
As usual, this isn’t the travesty some might make it out to be, though Jung, in my mind, is the “rightful” winner.