« WEC 10/10 San Antonio, Texas | Home | “Terminator” Sano destroys the competition at The Outsider event in Tokyo »
Donald Cerrone gets royally screwed over by Texas judges
By Zach Arnold | October 10, 2009
That was, realistically, a 49-46 win for Cerrone (four rounds to one) over Ben Henderson. And how did the judges score the fight? 48-47 unanimously for Henderson.
Don’t get me wrong - Ben Henderson showed tremendous heart and flexibility, as much as Clay Guida did against Diego Sanchez. However, Cerrone was the aggressor with the submission attempts and he stayed on offense most of the way. Henderson was not even in Cerrone’s level in terms of finishing the fight.
What a horrible decision by Texas officials. The referee’ng was very spotty as well.
That’s MMA for you. Fight of the year still ends in a bullshit decision. I’m going to go watch boxing and cry in the closet now.
Very fun fight. Scored it even heading into the 5th, which was clearly Cerrone’s. Getting tired of judges overlooking close sub attempts. First round was very tight and you could make a good case either way. Too much weight for a TD. Not enough for someone who stands or reverses.
Topics: MMA, Media, WEC, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Man, the main event of the boxing card (Rogers Mtagwa vs. Juan Manuel Lopez) and the main event of the MMA card (Benson Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone) were fight of the year candidates and I guess both fights (I only saw the boxing card. What a fight!) had screwy scorecards (Lopez winning and Henderson winning). Man…
But Lopez probably deserved the decision, but two of the scores were a little off (116-111, 115-111, and 114-113. The third one is correct for either fighter). I gotta catch the WEC card!
Great, great fight but I think everyone is being little over dramatic about the Henderson over Cerrone
very close fight
BH won rounds 1-3
DC great comeback rds 4-5
close fight but far from a Easton vs. Beebe screw job
Franklin/Hendo
Guida/Sanchez
Easton/Beebe
and now Cerrone/Henderson, I know being a judge is hard but these bullshit decision are killing the sport. Don’t get me wrong it was close but Cerrone won the first and last 2 rounds to win this fight and got jobbed out. I’m so tired of seeing guys give it there all and lost becaues judges have their heads up their asses.
I will say that I was not happy with Cowboy’s gameplan in the fight it reminds me of Condit who squeezed out a win but fought like crap overall. Besides that this was a great show and an instant foty candidate but judging in mma sucks and needs to change.
I had Henderson winning the first three rounds (though two of them were very close), and Cerrone clearly winning the last two rounds.
Zach, you are the only person I’ve seen who suggests Cerrone won 4 rounds. How do you justify that? The only round I feel could be questioned is the first round going to Henderson. 2-3 were fairly clearly Henderson, 4-5 Cerrone. Which round do you take away from Henderson?
FWIW, I think the fight was definitely a toss-up, and its sort of crazy to say anyone got robbed. Easily could have went either way.
Yea, I think everywhere I’ve seen this discussed it has come down to a close first round. But I think that Henderson definately won 2 and 3, with Cerrone winning 4 and 5.
I didn’t think that was a very good fight. Admittedly I was flipping channels and playing Madden Football during it. Seemed to be the same thing every round. Neither guy was good enough to finish the other one. Cerrone kept getting in bad spots, Henderson didn’t know how to finish him. Cerrone who I think is the better fighter never changed his approach and couldn’t finish a gassed opponent.
I’ve seen hundreds of amateur fights like this. They can be exciting because both guys have flaws. That this is for a belt is silly.
There’s something about the WEC that annoys me. THe dark cage, the horrible music and the announcers trying too hard to make a big deal out of things. Though with that said I think Mir would be great on UFC broadcasts.
Bullshit. I had it 48-47 Don, but round 1 could go either way.
Ben def won 2-3, Don 4-5.
It was close enough that no call would be robbery.
Save the indignant posts for actual screwjobs. Henderson won the first three, Cerrone the last two.
It all came down to how you had Round 1. I thought it was a 10-10, but it we’re doing the Sengoku thing where you have to give an advantage, it went to Henderson. Benson clearly won Rounds 2 and 3, and Cerrone came back and took Round 4 and 5. So I had a 48-48 technical decision for Ben Henderson (because title fights don’t end in draws).
Am I crazy?
I had it 3-2 for Henderson. 1st round was so close it could go either way.
Cerrone told us after the show that he felt Henderson won rounds 1-3 and that he won 4-5, which was the same way the judges and most people on media row saw it. I’m astounded that anyone thinks Cerrone won four rounds.
I had Ben winning the first 3 rounds and Cowboy the last two.
I don’t see the problem with the decision.
Round one was close but I thought Ben stole the round with more damage and top control.
It was clearly a win for Henderson as he took the first three rounds. The judges did a great job all night and the right people won. Tremendous fight!
I agree with most the guys above, Zach. What fight were you watching? Are you sure you aren’t related to Cerrone? It sounds like Cerrone’s mom hacked the site and posted using your name.
Even Cerrone says that you are wrong, Zach. He says himself that he felt Ben won. Case closed!
http://mmajunkie.com/news/16455/donald-cerrone-on-wec-43-main-event-benson-henderson-definitely-won-that-fight.mma
I was actually there live. I guess I should see the fight again, but to me Henderson rightfully snuck off with the decision. I can see how some people could think Cerrone should had won. Watching it live Henderson came off looking like he was in control for most of the fight. Yes, Cerrone did play Nate Diaz and threw on a shit load of submission attempts, but none of them seemed to of had any effect on Henderson. So can’t really consider them counting for much.
IMO “cowboy” should had submitted Henderson easily. But he couldn’t lock nothing in, in spite of his numerous opportunities. The only other time I saw Henderson in potential trouble was when he was facing Cerrone’s up-kicks. (Some what reminiscent to Jacaré’s KO to Mousasi in Dream’s middleweight final.)
Well, none of those submissions were close to finishing the fight, realistically. They were on extremely tight and Henderson seemed fine. The first round was tough, there were 3 submission attempts and then Henderson controlling the rest of the round.
Henderson was almost in complete control for the rounds he won, with Cerrone having some good submission attempts against a guy that is simply Gumby.
No robbery. I had it 3 rounds to 2 for Cerrone but there were a bunch of close rounds.
I had it 48-47 Cerrone, I don’t understand how someone can give 4 rounds to Donald and then argue that 48-47 Henderson is horrible.
49-46 for Cerrone is as horrible as 48-47 for Henderson.
I could understand Henderson-Cerrone being scored either way, even though I personally had it 48-47 for Henderson.
Zach this is not proresu. Henderson did agreat job of taking Cerrone down the first three rounds and breaking his guard game from the top position with great control and GNP. Any subs he was attacked with he calmly defended and escaped. Henderson wins 1-3.
I think the judges ruled from emotion over Henderson’s escapes
People are crying wolf with this one.
IMO, not even close to a robbery. Even fight turning on how you score the incredibly close first round.
Time for the fightmetric report.
Reading reports online, it looks like the 1st round was split in terms of who people thought won it. The remaining 4 rounds were pretty much clear cut, with Henderson winning 2 & 3, and Cerrone winning 4 & 5.
That doesn’t making it a screwjob. That doesn’t make it a bad decision. That doesn’t make it corrupt. That just makes it a close fight.
My read was the same as ULTMMA and Ivan…I had no problem with the decision at all.
Again it comes down to not letting it go to a decision. If Cerrone wanted to win that fight, he needed to do a lot more than wake up in the 4th and think that fighting two rounds of a five round fight was enough.
[...] fight has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. A lot of people feel Cowboy won the fight — some even say it was a “bullshit” decision, Cowboy was robbed, screwed, etc. — but I thought it was just really close and could have gone either way. While I wouldn’t [...]
Complete robbery.
Henderson wins R1? On what planet? For a lay and pray?
In my mind, if there are people who say that they had the fight for one fighter and other people say that they had it for the other fighter, then you cannot really call it a robbery.
If the fight is so close that no clear cut winner emerges, say four rounds to one, I do not think that you can really call it a robbery.
I do not think that you can really call it a robbery.
Can we talk about Fabiano getting tapped? Because wow.
Yeah a robbery is a fight like Nogueira’s gift decision against Ricco Rodriguez even though Rodriguez clearly dominated the fight. This was just a close decision. I thought Cerrone won, but he didn’t get robbed.
And I can’t believe someone is still saying Clay Guida got screwed against Sanchez. There was a possible 10-8 round in there, how in the hell is that a screwjob? Are you a Guida family member, EJ?
I feel that DC won round 1, fairly clearly.
However, what I want to know: WTF was up with the slippery mats? Every fighter of the night had trouble kicking and staying on their feet. I think THIS is the big story, how many fighters couldn’t utilize their skills because of the bogus fighting surface.
On an unrelated side-note, a lot of these fights happens when you have fighters who are mediocre finishers. I am not saying that they bard bad fighters, but they probably tend to get more decisions than finishes.
And Fabiano getting tapped was the biggest surprise to me.
I haven’t seen the fight yet, had the DVR set to record and it didn’t tape.
But unless its a Easton/Beebe style screw-job, I think its more an example of how the 10 point must doesn’t work for MMA.
I don’t know if there’s a better scoring system out there. I don’t know if it should stay with the judges, or if there’s a point scoring system like in grappling that can be used. Maybe we should just call fights that go to the judges cards draws. If you don’t finish, you don’t win.
The other, and more pressing issue, is that most states have boxing referees judging MMA fights. Guys who have never stepped in a dojo, much less know how to pull guard. Its difficult to judge a sport you’ve never competed in.
But, the more fights these judges see, the better they’ll get.
Honestly, I’m not a fan of the 10 point must system at all. I think if you judge based on the criteria of who is trying to finish the fight and who was closest to finishing the fight you’ll get better results. The only problem with that is when you have a close fight and how do you define a fight being close to being finished?
The 10 point must system seems to work better for wrestlers who can take guys down and dominate without really going for a finish.
10 point must system has nothing to do with this decision. It’s the judges who can’t use it properly. They somehow valued Henderson g’n'p attack at the end of the first round over Cerrone three tight submission attempts.
BTW Nogueira over Ricco was perfectly fine. Takedowns and doing nothing with them while your opponent is constantly threatening with submssion attempts it’s not the way anybody should win a fight.
Jonathan, I don’t know who you are calling mediocre finishers, but the fact is that Henderson has only won 2 fights by decision and Cerrone has only won 1 fight by decision. They’re very strong finishers, the reason the fight went the way it did is because they’re both tough as nails. Cerrone has a granite chin, and Henderson is apparently invincible to submissions.
If you’re talking in general, I’d love for you to point out 3 WEC fighters that win by decision more often than finish.
There’s far too much to fix in MMA judging before you can start working a way out of the 10 point must system. Would you really want some of these buffoons who don’t realize working from the bottom counts as offense judging who is finishing a fight? They’re still going to believe any fighter on top = finishing attempts, so the wrestlers will still dominate. Let’s get some solid MMA judges in place first. Intelligent judges working under 10 point must is fine.
Here is the problem…. And let me give you a few hints…
1) It’s not the 10-Point Must scoring system
2) It’s not the judges (usually)
It’s the CLOSE FIGHTS. No matter what system you have in place…. No matter what judges you have in place…. A CLOSE FIGHT will be hard to judge. Heck, the hardcore fans can’t even agree on who won the fight. And we are the “experts”.
This discussion comes up everytime a close fight happens. If a fighter wants to not worry about losing a decision they either need to dominate the fight or finish their opponent.
When a guy like Cerrone admits that he basically had to get things going starting with the 4th round…. It shows he wasn;t doing what needed to be done to win the fight. No judging system or judges are going to fix that. This is such a non-issue it’s not even funny. Cerrone admits he lost….. And combine it with what Meltzer said and it’s a joke people are complaining about it….
“On all three cards, Henderson won rounds one through three and Cerrone won four and five. Even though watching on TV, and the announcers clearly called the fight as if Cerrone won round one, I’m told that live at ringside, the power of Henderson’s first round punches were such that most thought he won the round. There was not any significant talk live that Cerrone was robbed and nobody even asked him any questions regarding the judging.”
I think people over-value submission attempts. The reason why it’s a submission “attempt”, rather than an actual submission is because either A) you didn’t do it right, or B) the other guy defended it properly. Honestly, how close to a finish is it, if it was impossible for you to finish the fight due to one of the above reasons. In my opinion, not very close at all. It’s worth points, but it’s not worth a lot.
It’s another story if the sub comes at the end of a round (Penn vs Pulver 1, round 2 for instance). But if it’s a failed sub attempt that the guy successfully gets out of by himself, it’s worth a couple takedowns maybe.
So Frank Mir sitting cage side was wrong, but the judges also sitting cage side were right?
Cerrone vs. Henderson is not an example of a close fight. It was competetive, but there was a clear winner in each round. The problem with the first round is very common in MMA scoring - takedowns and top control over tight submissions. Instead of saying “this was a close fight, so it could have gone either way” I’d rather point out this obvious flaw of mma judging.
Not to mention other examples of terrible officiating on this card: 30-27 for Jabouin by one judge or Jon Schorlie stand-ups after 10 seconds on the ground in Jansen vs. Crunkilton.
Frank Mir is wrong a lot of the time. He is horrible at calling who wins a round. It has been well documented. Are you calling Dave Meltzer’s assessment wrong? He has a much better track record of either calling a fight or at least talking to the right people to determine what happened. In this situation, he went to people who who close to the fight and found out what was seen on TV was deceptive due to the power shots not coming across the TV as good as they should have been.
IceMuncher is correct. Submission attempts are definitly overrated. Typical BJJ nuthugger stuff. I’ve seen some fans want attempt for sweeps to count, even if they fail. It’s crap. BJJ needs to be on the offense to count effectively. Too many BJJ fans think that the defensive stuff that is happening is somehow important to scoring a fight. It is not.
To me, a fighter has to be really really close to tapping for a submission attempt to have much meaning. The only other time it matter is if for the vast majority of the round a fighter is going for submission attempts and completely stops the top fighters offense with those attempts.
I’m not sure what people like Wolverine are still complaining about. Cerrone admits he lost. That ends the discussion right there. His coaches were pissed at him during the fight for not doing enough. That doesn’t make it a top control bias. It means Cerrone was losing the fight.
I was a lot more annoyed by the 30-27 for both fighters result, but at least the fight ended with the decision I expected (I expected a split decision).
Mir was pretty restrained in general with his calls on this show. There was a lot less of every potential submission being a “lock.” I can only think of one or two that Mir said were tight that didn’t look tight to me, and I can chalk that up to the perspective.
Submission attempts as part of the “scoring” are fine, but don’t say that a guy should win four rounds based on submission attempts that pretty much only happened in two rounds.
I was mildly entertained when the ref for the final fight started his introduction with “WB…uh…WEC Interim Lightweight Championship.”
Which walks into another issue, some of the quick standups. Although I think that was potentially justifiable given how little had been done in some of the earlier takedowns.
Part of the problem is that BJJ is a defensive art by nature (at least in MMA). There are certain instances where being on the bottom is to your advantage if you are a jiu-jitsu guy. If you have your opponent in your guard? That really isn’t a superior position for either fighter. A closed guard at least. Part of jiu-jitsu is waiting for your opponent to make a mistake and open himself up for a submission or to improve your position.
It is really hard to get concerned with “position” with jiu-jitsu, plus as we saw, just because you get a submission hold on doesn’t mean your opponent has to submit.
Henderson’s standing open guard is clearly an offensive position and he was in control during the whole time he had that open guard.
KJ Noons boxed and won in Texas last night. Hadn’t seen any of the usual suspect blogs pick up on that yet.
Jonathan, I don’t know who you are calling mediocre finishers, but the fact is that Henderson has only won 2 fights by decision and Cerrone has only won 1 fight by decision.
This would be meaningful to me if they had fought a large number of solid fighters. Tyson Griffin had finished every bout he took part in entering the UFC, and you can see what happens when the level of comp increases. Hell, look at Cerrone. He’s fought 4 guys that are gatekeepers or prospects in the top 50 and he went the distance with all of them. The two best fighters Henderson’s faced he went the distance with. They should be able to finish off guys like Cruz Chacon or Mike Maestras because those guys are nobodies with no future and mediocre talent whereas these guys are being touted to be world class (and worthy of some variant of a “world title” from Zuffa!).
Are you calling Dave Meltzer’s assessment wrong? He has a much better track record of either calling a fight or at least talking to the right people to determine what happened.
Meltzer’s track record of calling fights is spotty at best, considering that there’s little if any actual record of the man analyzing a fight. I’m not even going to bother touching that second part. Its too comical. Sad part is I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened.
Right because it has nothing to do with the fact that the guys they are facing are damn hard to finish. That is beyond stupid, Cerrone vs. Henderson wasn’t a great fight because they can’t finish it was a great fight period anyone with any appreciation of mma can see that.
If only Cowboy had raised his hands at the end, it might have been enough to sway the judges…
[...] fight has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. A lot of people feel Cowboy won the fight — some even say it was a “bullshit” decision, Cowboy was robbed, screwed, etc. — but I thought it was just really close and could have gone either way. While I wouldn’t [...]
The first round was the only disputed round.
Don controlled the first half with 2 catches, neither seemed to cause any damage.
Ben got the take down and for the last 2 minutes controlled on top with hard punches.
I think Ben one that round as he survived Dons attack and returned with damaging punces.
Although i’d score the round to Don if the action was reversed with Ben controlling the first half and Don the second half, ending the round with a catch.
Right because it has nothing to do with the fact that the guys they are facing are damn hard to finish.
They’re damn hard to finish because they don’t suck. I’m not going to give someone credit for finishing shitty fighters. Why do you? Desperation to create emotional interest in nobodies? I don’t understand.
Henderson won rounds 1-3, and Cerrone took the last two. It was a close (and great) fight, but I thought the decision was right on the money. In fact, it’s rare to see three judges get it right in the same bout. One could argue that Cerrone took 3 rounds, but 4? Sorry, no.
It was a classic fight with a good decision. And it also reminded me why I love Cerrone’s fights — he’s incapable of being boring.
Has Zach actualy qualified which four rounds he thinks Cerrone won? If not, could he?
I’ve yet to see a single anyone else (even on MMA forums) score four rounds to ‘Cowboy’.
He almost never analyzes the fights, most of his play by play analyzes crowd reactions than analyzing strategies. I guess he sees the ridiculousness of Bryan “Super Chico~!” Alvarez offering fight advice in his reviews and doesn’t want to go there. But that’s part of Bryan’s charm is he doesn’t seem to realize people are laughing at him and not with him.
I value sub attempts to a point, but I view them somewhat like trying to hit a homerun. You either get it over the fence or it’s just a long fly ball.
And I have to disagree when people say that guard is a neutral position. If you gave any fighter the choice of bottom or top position, they would take top undoubtedly. You can finish a fight from bottom, but the control, positioning and striking are all generally dictated by the fighter on top.
Last - Cerrone is a beast. He really marginalizes guys like Varner and Henderson. Even when they blast him with shots that would floor 99% of other LWs (BJ excluded), he doesn’t even flinch. That’s where he managed to sway some people in R1.
Not that he isn’t talented, but if Cowboy’s stamina and durability were any less he would have been finished in 3 rounds in both of his past two fights.
“In my mind, if there are people who say that they had the fight for one fighter and other people say that they had it for the other fighter, then you cannot really call it a robbery.”
With that kind of logic there could never be a robbery or a bad decision.
I don’t mean to disrupt the thread, but I just wanted to point out CBS was advertising the Strikeforce show a few times during football yesterday. The ads weren’t very effective IMO, they were less than 30 seconds and just showed Fedor working a punching bag and announcing he was the best fighter in the world. They didn’t even mention who he was fighting.
And on another side note, CBS’s favorite announcer Gus Johnson showed that he went to the Jim Ross school of broadcasting so bad even ESPN was mocking him for his screaming today.
“If only Cowboy had raised his hands at the end, it might have been enough to sway the judges…”
The judges turn in their scorecards after every round, and Cerrone won the 5th round on every judges scorecard.
I don’t see how raising his hands would changed anything.
[...] fight has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. A lot of people feel Cowboy won the fight — some even say it was a “bullshit” decision, Cowboy was robbed, screwed, etc. — but I thought it was just really close and could have gone either way. While I wouldn’t [...]
“I don’t see how raising his hands would changed anything.”
He was being sarcastic.
@ jj: “With that kind of logic there could never be a robbery or a bad decision.”
Of course there could. A robbery is when fight that is cut and dry for all to see is given to the wrong fighter by two or more judges to the chargrin of *everyone*.
If there are one or more rounds that are massivly open to debate, to the point that the viewing public are split on the outcome of the fight, *that* is when you can’t call it a robbery.
the fightmetric is out and really does not support anyone calling this fight a robbery.
I think Zach wishes he could have this post back.
His silence on which four rounds he thinks Cerrone won is deafening.
ya think a guy called Cowboy woulda got the nod Texas
@ Steve 4192:
“I think Zach wishes he could have this post back.
His silence on which four rounds he thinks Cerrone won is deafening.”
Either that, or it was a deliberatelly inflamatory remark intended to generate traffic, in which case, well played!!
\”Of course there could. A robbery is when fight that is cut and dry for all to see is given to the wrong fighter by two or more judges to the chargrin of *everyone*.\”
Thanks for your opinion on what a robbery is, now go back and re-read what he said but apply some common sense this time around.
Apparently in American MMA scoring:
- 1 takedown = 100 clean strikes landed
- submission attempt from bottom = nothing
- 1 takedown attempt > stuffing a takedown
- 1 successful takedown (even if it leads to little or no offence) > 3+ submission attempts
- escaping a submission > attempting one
- standing/lying in guard and not attempting to pass or finish for more than 50% of a round = automatic 10-9 round
By this criteria, which is apparently what WEC scores by, Ben Henderson was the clear winner.
IceMuncher Says:
I think people over-value submission attempts. The reason why it’s a submission “attempt”, rather than an actual submission is because either A) you didn’t do it right, or B) the other guy defended it properly. Honestly, how close to a finish is it, if it was impossible for you to finish the fight due to one of the above reasons. In my opinion, not very close at all. It’s worth points, but it’s not worth a lot.
Gotta agree with this. ATTEMPTING is a try and fail. Escaping submissions IS greater because you just saved your butt from getting finished.
Bullcrap.
Attempting a submission is a) an attempt to finish a fight, and b) putting yourself at risk to attempt the finish.
That should count for something.
Imagine if every fighter fought like Ben Henderson (or Dan Henderson, or Gray Maynard, etc.) You’d see nothing but takedowns, no attempt to pass guard or finish, no submission attempts, and some sloppy boxing to top it off.
Yeah, no submission attempts like when Huerta put his arm behind his back and asked Maynard to wrench it for him.
GSP doesn’t use many submissions either. Perhaps he should be banished as well.
I don’t think I’d lump in GSP with one-dimensional guys who can only wrestle. He has several submission wins and very dynamic striking.
My point is that when the rules, the octagon, and clearly the scoring system all heavily favor wrestling, it encourages fighters to do just what Ben Henderson did: not pass guard, not go for submissions, and do nothing more than attempt takedowns and wing punches.
The more fighters get wise to this, the more lay-and-pray we`re going to see.
I just re-watched the fight. Based on the 10 point must system scoring for striking, grappling, aggression, and cage control it goes to to Cerrone 48-47. R1 is a draw. R2 & R3 go to Henderson 10-9 for both. R4 goes to Cerrone 10-9. And R5 goes to Cerrone 10-8. He controlled all aspects of the fight in the last round and was seriously dominant in the grappling and aggression.
If it was in Japan it would go to Cerrone no doubt. Even against a Japanese fighter. Well, most Japanese fighters.
I guess we can also add shogun/machida to the silly decision list.
It was a good fight imo though
cerrone won, the ref should have stopped the fight in the 4th or 5th rounds due to the fact the those arm cranks could have broken his arm and of course cerrone or anyother fighter knows how far they can take them without doing damage. its unfortunate that a brute who lives by reckless abandonment for his limbs will stay and take that abuse because he knows the other fighter wont rip his arm off.
there should be a new rule where the refs stop the fight as they do from multiple strikes to save a fighter.