Cole Miller beat Andy Ogle via unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 30 on Saturday in Manchester, England but that doesn’t mean he’s happy with MMA judging. He was a guest on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour on Monday and went off on mma judging:
“I knew I had to win,” Miller said on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “I’ve kind of been up and down, but I’ve only been up and down because of what some 50 and 60-year-old judges have said about my fights. If you actually went back and looked at them, as far as I’m concerned, this is four wins in a row.
“I thought I won that (fight against Gamburyan) and so did the media. So did everybody, in fact; Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, everybody came back and told me what was up,” Miller said. “I read all the play-by-plays from the media. They all said that I won the fight and that I won every round of the fight, so as far as I’m concerned, I had momentum going into this fight.
“These [officials] want to say that I ‘lost,’ but I’m the one doing all the damage.
“They’re not even qualified to be making the calls they’re making,” Miller said of MMA judges. “That’s kind of disgusting and that’s really unfortunate in our sport, because it changes the whole landscape of our sport. When you have unqualified people judging mixed martial arts, it changes the way that mixed martial arts is actually fought, because fighters are now adjusting their styles to please people that don’t know anything about our sport.
“Then coaches are training their fighters to please these people that don’t know anything about our sport. Right? And people want to think, ‘Oh, he’s just bitching. He’s just complaining because he hasn’t won these fights in a while.’ Look, you can keep all these decisions. I’m a martial artist, and I walk out with my head held high. I fight my kind of fight.
“I love this sport,” Miller continued. “I really do. And I want to see it make progress. I don’t want to see it regress. With the judging in mixed martial arts, and how coaches are coaching the fighters, and how fighters are manipulating and molding their styles to please people that know nothing about MMA, it makes the sport regress. That’s really unfortunate, and that’s something that I’ve been seeing for a long time, and it really makes me sad.”
Miller has an excellent point. Stubborn and frankly, ignorant MMA judging has distorted the sport causing fighters to forego offense from their backs and instead train solely to sweep or stand up from bottom position.
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