A few that spring to mind in the US... Shogun/Machida 1 - Machida was the new golden boy at LHW with Shogun the stepping up to lose. Bisping/Hamil - Bisping was looked at as the ey to the UK market and wins. Randy/Vera - Couture obviously a bigger star and wins. Forrest/Rampage - Forrest was the massive TUF star. Bader/Lil Nog - Rising TUF star vs foreign ex Pride guy. Fuji/Fastino - More popularly US girl with an exclusive deal gets the close decsion. Thomson/Kawajiri - Thomson was SF's #2 LW fighting in his home town. Hardy/Gono - Again Hardy viewed as a way to target the UK market, Gono was just a mid level Japanese name brought in to play off the Pride vs UFC fued. Machida/Jackson - Machida's no longer nearly as hot and now suddenly loses a poor decision to a popular american fighter. Uno/Fischer - Old Japanese guy vs young american with the old Pride vs UFC fued being played up(yes I know Unow as never a Pride fighter). The vast majority of the time we don't see rematches happen, its only when you get an outcry as with Machida/Shogun that it happens. In that case I'd say it was bias judging being caught out but a 5 rounder, they thought they could get away with giving Lyoto the reasonabley close opening rounds only for Shogun to become mroe dominant as the fight progressed. You look at the scorecards for alot of these fights aswell and its noteble that the judges seem to be using the old tactic of making sure the promoters favoured guy gets all the close calls early until he's built up an insumountable lead then even things up a bit, seemed to happen with both Shogun/Machida and Forrest/Rampage. If these decisions were happening in an enviroment where the promoters were directly employing the judges there would be much more of a reaction agenst them. As it is the AC's provide a nice supposidly non bias scapegoat, of all places I'd guess a boxing forum would be one where that image of there legitmancey the UFC has promoted so hard would be questioned.
The decision to go to an instant rematch was instant for Lyoto/Shogun..that was noway a case of them being forced into it by a backlash. And if the fix was in like you said then why the **** were the commentators talking about how Shogun was winning and starting to discuss who he'd make his first defence against. And again I don't see any particular reason why the UFC would care which non-English speaking Brazillian they had as champion. If anything it had to be uncomfortable having one manager manage two of your champions (soon after three). Bisping/Hamill was a bad one and of course the UFC had appointed the judges. The point to always make about that one is that the one UK judge gaved it to Hamill. Vera/Couture was a pick 'em and could legitmatey go either way. At ringside I had it for Vera but on reflection would give it to Couture. Forrest/Rampage was a again a close fight that probably should have been a draw but judges are encouraged to pick a winner. On that basis I think Forrest won the fight. I don't think there's any evidence that the UFC would have been desperate for Griffin to win - Jackson was a big star in his own right and they had paid big money to get his contract by buying WFA. Plus Griffin is a pain in the ass to deal with and is very unpopular as a person within the organisation. Jackson may well have gotten the rematch if he hadn't gone nuts. Machida/Jackson - again I'm not convinced that the UFC do want Jackson to propser. They picked an opponent who was a bad stylistic matchup for him, they denied his request to face Griffin and they've now paired him up against Thiago Silva - a tougher, less high profile fight than say Couture who they've given to Machida. And I don't really see that fight as being controvesial - the scoring system stinks but it is the scoring system used and on that basis Jackson clearly wins two rounds to one. And surely nobody would want to see a rematch of such a shitty fight.
People often retroactively name the guy who got the bad decision the "favored guy" even if that was not seen as the case beforehand. The use and overuse of the 10-10 score is just a cop out; in any fight there is going to be a difference, no matter how small, as to who won; I doubt there has ever been a truely perfectly even round. Having the 10-10 round won't change what you think it will; if you think judges are giving a guy an undeserved boost to make them a winner 10-9, why on earth wouldn't the same thing happen to give the same guy a boost in a round he lost to make it a 10-10? You aren't really solving what you are arguing against. It happens all the time in K1, a guy being given an extra round when he clearly lost the fight.
I would have picked out every one of those fighters as being the favoured guy/girl before the matchs happened. Japan obvious isnt free from bias but it seems to me that we see favoured fighters lose questionable decisions there far more often than we do in the US, when you have a close fight like Randy/Vera the result is generally obvious well before the decision is given. The 10-10 score can be overused its true but at the end of the day what are you doing? not giving one guy who had a slight advanatge his due. Under the current 10-9 only system your potentially giving a guy who had no advantage the nod and not rewarding the guy who did alot more to finish. Something like Machida/Rampage is a far worse decision than anything I recall seeing in K1, Jackson gets the nod in a first round in which he was outlanded, the nod in a close second round and then Machida's dominant third round is only worth the same as one of them. The matches we see moaning about in Japan tend to be closely contested fights, there you had one guy who clearly came off as looking inferior winning due to the 10-9 only system. As far as Coolings comments go, do you really think Machida/Shogun wasnt due to the backlash? why didnt we see rematches in many of the other questionable fights? I'm not talking about some crackpot(impossibly well co ordinated) conspiracey theory to fix the match and deceieve the fans, I'm talking abiout the judges clearly knowing who was the favoured guy before the fight and giving him the close calls. I doubt theres any direct corruption/bribery but the judges know who's ultimately keeping them in their jobs. Randy might be a bigger name but at this stage I very much doubt beating him moves you closer to a title shot than Thaigo. Theres little money to be made with Shogun/Machida 3, theres alot to be made with Shogun/Rampage 2.
I would have to disagree with the favored guy getting a decision he should have lost being more common in the US, especially in K1. Having a 10-10 round isn't going to help the problem, it is just going to shift it, and make it even easier to justify a bad decision. If a round can be argued as close at all, then it raises much less anger to give a round fighter A won as 10-10 rather than to give it to fighter B, and this is why you see so many extra rounds in K1. Musashi's career is the clearest example of a guy being given far too many extra rounds. Your basic premise is that judges give rounds to the favored fighter. If we accept that to be true, then a 10-10 doesn't change anything, they are still going to do the same thing by giving rounds that fighter loses as 10-10.
I can think of a fair few close matches where the favourite has gotten the call in K1 but I can think of alot more involving MMA in the US and as I said I don't recall any match in K1 having calls as poor as Machida/Shogun 1 or Machida/Rampage. The relative levels of bias involved are debateble but I think the US system is more inately flawed even without judging bias with those flaws tending to favour the promoters favoured guys(in this case often american wrestlers). The vast majority of those Musashi fights that I'v seen were close contests, more a reflection on his style, technically sound but lacking in KO power. Not saying there wasnt some bias involved aswell but he wasnt getting the decision in fights he'd clearly come off looking second best as with Machida/Rampage. As I said I think alot of the fuss about K1 decesions and decisions in Japan generally comes down to the org hiring the judges(and not having the extrensive "legitimancey" PR the UFC does) rather than the actual outcomes plus of course its generally coming from americans who are obviously going to be less likely to speak out about judging that favours their nationals. Theres obviously still potential for bias in the K1 system but as I said I think that bias is less damaging. Basically you can have one fighter having a slight advanatge not being rewarded for it where as under the US system you can have a fighter rewarded for having no advanatge at all and his opponant not rewarded for a dominant round because of the fear of a draw. MMA to me seems like it would benefit from 10/10 and 10/8 being more common due to the basic problems with its criteria. I think most people agree that a near finish should count for more than anything else and 10/8 being more common allows for it to carry more importance. When on the other hand you have a round in which neither fighter had the other in any danger then opinion becomes far more divided, how exactly should striking and grappling be weighed agenst each other? 10/10 means those kinds of decisions don't have to me made as often.
You must be joking? Those were very close fights that could be interpreted differently. Remy/Overeem and Choi/Schilt were far worse, just off the top of my head.
As much of a fan of Overeem as I am his fight with Remy was in no way close to those Machdia matches in terms of being a bad decision. Remy was thrown around(which should count for nothing in terms of judging) but in the end not ever hurt or in danger from Allistair and then knocked him down in the 3rd. Rampage on the other hand never had Machida in any trouble, he only landed a handful of punches in the entire fight before getting rocked, takendown down, mounted and almost subbed. Jackson winning is a perfect example of how flawed giving almost every round 10-9 is, rounds in which Rampahe had little or no advantage count for the same as one in which Machida obviously had a big advanatge and an incorrect decision followed. As I said I think its a system that suits wrestlers and fighters who look to fight for decisions generally since control is rewarded over effort to finish the fight.
You can disagree with the system and I would agree 100% with you, but there's a difference between a bad decision and a corrupt decision. I look at that fight and I score it 29-28 for Jackson even though I thought Machida won the fight. Why? Because Machida did very little in the first two rounds. Everyone knows how these fights are scored and Machida shouldn't have expected to get the benefit of the doubt when he was doing so little on offence in the first two rounds. If we're to keep the current system (and sadly if it changes it will simply be to introduce half points which is a slight tweaking) then open scoring is a must. At least let the fighters know the true picture of the fight so they can adjust tactics accordingly. On Shogun-Machida the reason I said it wasn't because of the backlash was because the decision to go to a rematch was virtually instantenous. It wasn't like White ummmed and errrred, waited to see what the internet and media was saying and then announced it the following week. Pretty much before the press conference he had announced the rematch. And again moreorless I don't understand how you can claim that the promoter is manipulating judges to get the 'right' result when they don't even bother to ensure that the commentators they do employ commentate to the same 'script'.
You could argue that a system that favours a certain kind of fighter is inately biased even if the judging is not although I think the current US system combined with its hopelessly vague criteria provides a good cover for bias judging aswell. Close rounds are always likely to be more common than dominant rounds and with those vague criteria and the expectation that every round must be 10-9 its very easy to give them to the fighter you favour without facing much criticism. With no 10-8's its much more likely those close rounds are going to deside a fight so in turn more likely that bias will deside a fight. It depends what your talking about doesnt it, some grand conspiracey involving promoters paying off judges directing and then telling there commentators they've done so is what your talking about but realistically thats highly unlikely due to the risk involved. I'm talking more about a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" kind of bias where the judges are pushed towards favouring one fighter because they know the promoter(and often as not the crowd) does so. As I said I think if you look at the number of times the favoured fighter gets the close call in the US its hard to believe some kind of bias isnt at work. Compaired to Japan though we have the UFC(and to a lesser degree other orgs) putting up a much more active PR campaign with an obvious scapegoat in the AC's, Dana might rubbish the judging, they'll be talk of the need for change and then **** all will happen as the promoter exploits the result he wanted often as not. The fans will put it down to another close fight and poor judging while not seeing the pattern of who seems to consistantly benefit from such calls. Leaving aside the whole bias debate which Beebs introduced though I just think that a system that allows for judges to score rounds 10-10 and 10-8 more often is a system that suits the kind of judging most fans say they want to see. Don't we all want to see fight ending situations valued more highly? well 10-8 is the obvious answer. Most seem to agree its hard to judge grappling and striking agenst each other in a close round in which neither guy was threatened don't they? well 10-10 seems like the obvious answer.
No, a close round means a close round, not a tied round. 10-10 means tied, exactly, not just close. There are 10-8 rounds now, and they are used about as often as they should be, maybe a tad less. The fact is though, that there is for all intents and purposes never an exact tie, and as such the guy who won should get the point for the win. I mean really, when was the last time there was a round where there was no difference at all between the fighters?
I'm but it just doesn't make any sense to believe that the promoters want somebody to win but they don't instruct their commentators to back the favoured guy. Look at EliteXC which did have a number of questionable referring calls and clearly favored certain guys - the commentators didn't go ape**** at the bad standups involving Kimbo or Arlovski. It just seems that the first thing you do if the fix is in is make sure that your announcers don't call attention to it. And again I just think you can do this game no matter what result you get. For example at the end of Shogun-Machida what fight was Rogan excitedly talking about being made next? Shogun-Silva a fight that would have been far bigger than anything involving Machida would ever be. A fight that would allow the UFC to intensify the push of the fighter they had been pushing as the P4P Number 1 for years. So logic would say that the UFC would actually want Machida to lose, remove the obstacle to Silva moving up and book a Champion vs Champion match that could do over a million buys. When the promoter owns both fighters who can usually construct a good argument for them wanting either guy to win, particular the UFC which tries to book win-win matches.
