Anyone catch UFC 105: Couture vs Vera? Boy oh boy… in what is becoming a blemish for the UFC, the judges yet again fail misserably at their jobs. I’m a huge Couture fan but this should be such a hollow victory for him. Just a quick recap for how judges score a bout:
Judging Criteria
Judges are required to determine the winner of a bout that goes to it’s full time limit based upon the following criteria:
-Clean Strikes
-Effective Grappling
-Octagon Control
-Effective Aggressiveness
Round 1 really didn’t have much going on but if someone had to win that round it should have gone to Couture for pushing Vera to the cage and holding him there for a good portion of the round.
Rounds 2 and 3 were pretty much the same thing from Couture. However Vera landed some effective strikes in both rounds and rocked Couture in both rounds with some clean strikes. Couture really didn’t do much of anything except try and hold Vera in place. Points for him for octagon control but Vera showed effective aggressiveness and landed clean strikes in both of those rounds.
Midway through the second round, Vera landed a high kick followed by another left leg kick to Couture’s side. Another body kick, followed by a big right and a knee to the chest and Couture was on the ground.
The judges got the score right but the decision completely wrong. It should have been 29 – 28; the winner being Brandon Vera.
I don’t even think Couture felt that he had won. He had the look of someone who was quite disappointed and in all honesty I thought he was possibly entertaining the notion of retirement before they announced him as the winner. Couture didn’t defend his win with much conviction and his explanation for the score was that “I controlled the tempo of the fight. It probably wasn’t the most exciting thing to watch.”
Unfortunately this isn’t the first time the judges have gotten it wrong. One only needs to go back to UFC 104: Machida vs Shogun to see poor judge scoring.
I blame this on the mentality that ‘one must beat a champion to become a champion‘. Of course you have to win… but I feel that people take this to mean that one must dominate a champion to get on top. We need to get rid of this though process. The fights should be judged as any other fight… the criteria used should be the same regardless of status.
As Bruce Buffer would say… “It’s Time“… Time for change. C’mon Dana White… it’s time to get competent judges or otherwise train them properly. I barely have a background in fighting and yet could do a much better job than any of these guys who you have judging the bouts. Even Joe Rogan is disgusted by the outcomes from these past two fights.
Tags: brandon vera, couture, couture vs vera, dana white, Joe Rogan, randy couture, ufc, ufc 105, vera
