Judging and refereeing has always been near the center of combat sports controversy and discussions, recent UFC history is no different. UFC 143 saw a mildly controversial decision in the main event with Carlos Condit taking the win over Nick Diaz as well as odd refereeing in the Josh Koscheck vs. Mike Pierce and Alex Caceres vs. Edwin Figueroa bouts.
While Dana agreed that Condit had earned the win over Diaz, that didn’t stop him from talking about the state of judging and reffing in the sport today:
Transcription (via MMA Mania):
I’ve said it many times. In the evolution of this sport right now, one of the big problems we’re having right now is judging and reffing. It’s one of the things that drives me crazy and attention needs to be paid to scoring and reffing. First of all, it affects guys careers as far as legacies go. Jon Jones? Jon Jones should be undefeated right now but he’s not, he’s got a loss on his record and there’s tons of guys in the UFC that have those. There’s guys who’ve absolutely, clearly won fights and lost on the judges’ scorecards. Nobody’s perfect. There’s always gonna be problems. But the judging and the reffing is so bad in mixed martial arts, it drives me crazy. The fans hate it too and it hurts the sport. These athletic commissions really need to tighten up and start working on educating their refs and judges.
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