Judging has been a massive problem in the UFC and MMA, but Dana White doesn’t believe open scoring is the answer.
It seems after every bad decision, people call for open scoring. However, one major reason why White isn’t a fan of it as it ruins the anticipation of a title fight when it’s a close fight and who won.
“When we do the fights, I have an idea of who I think won or lost or whatever, but when I’m standing there with the belt, I don’t know what Bruce Buffer is going to say,” White said during an online chat with ESPN+ subscribers Tuesday hosted by Laura Sanko (via MMAJunkie). “He doesn’t tell me anything. The judges tell him, the commission do their thing, they tell him, and I’m standing there waiting to hear too, so I’m just as blown away as the fans are. And I agree with you: It completely takes away the anticipation of who won the fight.”
Not only does it ruin anticipation, but according to Dana White, he also believes it could ruin a fight.
The UFC bossman also believes it will make fights boring as if fighters know they are winning heading into the last round they will start running away.
“If a guy knows that he’s up two rounds and you’re a professional fighter, you can absolutely stay away from a guy for an entire round and make the fight completely horrible,” White said. “If you already know you’ve got two rounds in the bag, guarantee if you saw your score up there, all (you) have to do is stay away from this guy for the next five minutes. That makes for a lot of bad third rounds.”
For now, it appears open scoring will not be heading to the UFC anytime soon.
