While most fans have chosen to focus in on how great the fight between Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua was, there has been lingering frustration over the scoring of the fight. Many fans felt that Shogun’s domination in round five was enough to give him a 10-8 round and thus (with Hendo winning rounds 1,2 and 3 and Shogun winning 4) earning him a draw.
However, when the final scores were read all of them gave Henderson the 48-47 (3 rounds to 2) edge.
There was some question over if the judges possibly gave round 5 to Shogun 10-8 while scoring round 4 as a 10-10 even round which would have arrived at the same score, but this photo of the official cards puts an end to that line of thinking (via MMA Weekly):
All the judges scored every round 10-9.
There has been a case made by some that simply beating a guy up on the ground and repeatedly moving to mount doesn’t earn a 10-8 round, that Henderson was never that close to being finished. But one of the points of the ten-point must system is to measure dominance.
A knockdown shouldn’t be necessary to score a 10-8 in MMA. It isn’t in boxing, why should it be in a UFC bout? Shogun controlled that round completely and did a lot of damage to Henderson while having the ref on the verge of jumping in at several moments. That seems to me to be clear enough to grant Shogun the two point advantage for the round.
The problem doesn’t seem to be that judges are discouraged from scoring 10-8 rounds, but that they simply aren’t schooled well enough on when they should be applied. After all, we saw them used in the Bonnar vs. Kingsbury fight twice in far less dominant rounds.