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Should Tito Ortiz have won the decision at UFC 106?
By Zach Arnold | November 23, 2009
If Jordan Breen thinks MMA judge Glenn Trowbridge is the most dangerous man in the sport, then what will he think about fellow MMA writers who thought Tito Ortiz should have won the decision against Forrest Griffin on Saturday night?
Ortiz didn’t win on the score cards Saturday night, but MMA writers Josh Gross (Sports Illustrated) and Carlos Arias (Orange County Register) believe that he should have.
I had Tito winning the first and second. Griffin obviously took the third.
@titoortiz This is Carlos from OC Register. You won the 1st and 2nd rounds and lost the 3rd. You should have got the dec. Everybody knows it.
Dana has to go w/you and Forrest on TUF 11. That will be huge ratings and set up the rubbermatch. Good luck homie. You’ll get him.
If the tone from Carlos towards Tito is a little off-setting to you, the reality is that it seems to be pretty much the norm amongst the bigger ‘mainstream’ MMA writers. When I was going over the video of the post-fight press conference for UFC 106 on Saturday night, the media sure acted like fans. There was an audible cheer and whooping going on when Dana said that Antonio Rogerio Nogueira won a Knockout of the Night bonus.
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No because even if he won the first two Griffin won the 3rd 10-8 for me. Ortiz offered nothing in the last round and got what he deserved.
I had Ortiz winning rounds 1 and 2 10-9 but possibly 10-8 for Forrest in the third. So that’s a draw.
Both fighters looked quite bad except for Tito’s takedowns and a few elbows from the guard (until he gassed).
Fightmetric had Ortiz with a better accuracy rating, but Forrest landed more shots.
This is all over Yahoo posting pictures of Tito blocking 11 punches and the belief that Forrest’s face looked worse than Tito’s face after the fight. But #1 Forrest bleeds when he pulls a shirt over his head and #2 people have pointed out his face was swollen coming down the the Octagon. Tito definitely won round 1 but not 2 & 3.
I’m not going to cry for Tito here, a little karma for his previous win against Forrest that could have gone either way. People are just looking to make a fuss, it was another close fight but all this “Fighter x” was robbed, etc. is getting so played.
Obviously the judging for the first two rounds isn’t going to account for that pathetic effort in the 3rd where he tried to eke out a 2-1 decision, but it was justice being served for thinking he’d won two close rounds and trying to take zero risks and put on a total stinker in the last round. If it didn’t work for Oscar, it won’t work for Jacob.
I like Josh Gross and Carlos Arias, but they must have been watching a different fight. The only round I can see giving Tito was round one. Two and Three were Griffin all the way.
Forrest Derangement Syndrome
I think Forrest Griffin put up a very good fight and the right man won the match, by Unanimous decision too.
Yeah, I agree, Forrest won the fight…I don’t think the judge that scored it 30-27 was right though. No way I could give that first round to Forrest. This wasn’t Machida/Rua.
I thought Forrest won 30-26. First round he dominated Tito on the feet, took no damage on the ground and got off his back. Second round he did a lot of damage to Tito on the feet, took some damage on the ground, and then reversed Tito and landed some good shots to end the round. Third round was 10-8.
by the way I saw on fightlinker the idea proposed that only the last round of fights should be scored. Perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. No wonder people think the mma media is a bunch of teenagers living in their parents’ basements alternatively watching UFC fights and making fake IDs to try to buy beer with…I don’t just blame the media though, it starts with Dana White. He is incredibly unprofessional and bitches and whines about the scoring after every event. Shut up Dana, the scoring criteria is ambiguous and it isn’t surprising that fights have controversial decisions. There are bad scores in boxing all the time but you don’t see boxing writers say the sport is doomed and have Don King and Bob Arum come out and say the judges suck, and you don’t have boxing writers say only the 12th round should count. Jesus, what a ridiculously stupid idea.
He bitches and whines because he pays the commission a cut of the money he makes on each event to do things like judging fights. And he’s got every right to be angry when he’s got some pretty clueless judges (that he’s indirectly paying for) consistently coming out with retarded scores that piss off paying fans and leave a bad taste in their mouths coming out of the event.
While the scoring criteria is somewhat ambiguous, there’s judges who can’t even come up with logical scores based within the confines of that criteria - so I have little faith they’d be any better trying to apply a different criteria any better.
The people whooping like fans were Anderson Silva nd the Nog crew. they were standing right behind me. The room is filled with people, not just media.
Just FYI.
I had the first two rounds for Tito and the third 10-8 for Forrest. Tito was unhurt by everything Forrest threw in the first round and controlled the fight. He also controlled the action and did more significant work in round two.
Round three was obviously a massacre.
In my opinion, Tito landed the more effective and damaging strikes in the first two rounds and controlled the fight with his takedowns. The 3rd round was dominant for Griffin but without even as much as a knockdown I don’t know how any of you justify a 10-8 round for Forrest. Even still that would only make it a draw. What do you guys score a round where there is a knockdown but no finish? 10-7? Give me a break.
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for fighters who sit back and try to get a decision win.
Finish the fight or take your chances of being screwed over, like they are screwing over the fans for not giving a maximum effort.
You know sometimes I feel like people like to bitch for because, there was no controversy about who won between Forrest and Tito. Anyone trying to say there is either is blind or has no idea how to score fights, sadly they could probably get licensed to judge fights like some of the current judges right now. Forrest won it was close just like the first fight which Tito won, if they want to do a third fine but imo the right guy won each fight time to move on and focus on the next mma card.
Funny that Breen thinks that, since Josh Gross scored it the exact same way as Glenn Trowbridge. So did MMA Junkie.
Personally, I thought Tito won the 1st & 2nd rounds and the 3rd round was a 10-8 for Forrest making it a draw. I’ve only watched it once though, and frankly have no desire to watch it again. What a dogshit main event.
Unfortunately that’s been 3 in a row for them…thought it’s tough to blame them for this one since it was never intended to be a main event until the wheels fell off the wagon.
Zach-
I was sitting in the room at the UFC106 press conference. I’ll agree with you that there are a lot of fanboy media in there (usually anyone covering for the spanish speaking media) but the hooting and hollering that you heard were all the brazilians there with Noguiera, they were not credentialed media. Just thought I’d clarify that for you. The press conferences are a mess, populated with almost as many friends and family as working media. Since most of the seaoned media save there questions for 1-on-1 interviews afterwards, all you get in the open presser are softball questions from “journalists” who are there more because of a free ticket than looking to do coverage.
When I was at the UFC in Montreal, one of the press people got scolded by the publicity chick for putting on a GSP headband and another was asked to turn his GSP shirt inside out.
And round 1 was close enough that however you slice it, it doesn’t reflect either way on your knowledge of MMA.
Criticizing the media and then getting something as simple as the Nogueira thing at the press conference wrong in the same post doesn’t exactly do your credibility any favors.
I had Tito winning the first two rounds as well. Most of Forrest’s punches were missing while Tito had more on his shots. Combine that with the takedowns and he was the winner.
Either way, it was another close fight. No judging criteria is going to fix that. It was a close fight that was hard to score. And I’m nit disappointed in the decision either as Ortiz barely won the first fight. Sets up a nice trilogy. Hopefully they go away from their normal practice and make the last one 5 rounds.
I do find it foolish fir the people who said Forrest won 30-26. Not sure which fight they were watching. And the last round was not 10-8. To me, to have a 10-8, you have to be close to finishing the fight in a round that you dominate in. And despite Griffin winning that round, he never came close to finishing it.
FWIW - I know judges rarely actually follow scoring criteria, but nowhere in the unified rules does it state you have to be “close to finishing” while dominating your opponent in order to get a 10-8 round.
“2. A round is to be scored as a 10-9 Round when a contestant wins by a close margin, landing the greater number of effective legal strikes, grappling and other maneuvers;
3. A round is to be scored as a 10-8 Round when a contestant overwhelmingly dominates by striking or grappling in a round.
4. A round is to be scored as a 10-7 Round when a contestant totally dominates by striking or grappling in a round.”
Quite frankly, whether he was close to finishing Tito or not - he fit subsection 3.’s description of a 10-8 round to a T.
The rules also allow for 10-10 rounds, but we never see that. There is a difference between the rules in writing and how they are used. And typically a guy has to be close to ending it to get a 10-8 rounds. There are countless UFC events that back this up more often then not.
I was against 5 round non-title fights as I had not seen enough of then to warrant that change. I think 2009 has changed my opinion on that. It us time to start selectively putting in 5 round non-title fights. They can’t use it too much, but fights like Couture/Vera, Belfort/Franklin, and Ortiz/Griffin should have been 5 rounds.
Tito lost round one.
He got 1 easy takedown and was almost immediately thrown off from guard. Forrest’s sweep was as, or more impressive than Tito’s lucky takedown.
On the feet Tito was defending the entire round, and never threw anything of note.
Round 3 Tito was a punching bag, he lost that one 10-8
29 27 Forest
In all practical purposes, a 10-8 round means it is close to finished. If it was just simple statistical dominance, GSP and Anderson Silva haven’t had a 10-9 round in like forever. Silva vs Leites for example would literally be a 50-40 or 50-41 fight.
Basically, if you make give Griffin a 10-8 round for round 3, you’d have to re-score a ton of rounds 10-8, which I don’t approve of.
Well to each their own, but I’m not sure I subscribe to the logic of, “Well they’ve been incorrectly applying/interpreting the rules before when scoring, so I’m just going to stick with the precedent of incorrectly applying the rules in the future because that’s just the way it’s done.”
Hey - whatever floats your boat, but I don’t think people would scream bloody murder if the judges started to more liberally and correctly use 10-8 or 10-10 rounds. What it boils down to is that the two close first rounds shouldn’t be scored equally to the third round total domination, especially since they’re equally weighted. Maybe the non-title rounders is the answer, but I sure as hell didn’t want to see another round of Tito-Forrest II or Handy-Vera.
This was more than a dogshit main event. Kos-Johnson was filled with more eye pokes then the announcers let on. How about the eye rakes on the ground when Koscheck’s elbows starting getting through? He added to more rakes to the eyes I felt more then ever like I was watching WWE.
I agree 100% with the Gaijin in post 27. It’s weird…I feel like I’m one of the only people adamant that rd 3 of Forrest/Ortiz should be a 10-8 and Forrest is literally my least fav fighter.
In a 3 round fight, a 10-8 round basically means you cannot lose the fight. Out-striking someone while never hitting them hard enough to put them in danger of getting TKO’d doesn’t do it for me.
Hasn’t most of the recent controversy been about how the fighter that did the most damage didn’t win the round, like Couture/Vera? So damage should be the main factor when determining who wins a round, but the magnitude of that damage doesn’t determine whether the round is 10-8. Makes sense, but only if you ignore about trivial issues like being consistent in your judging criteria.
10-10 and 10-8 rounds also lead to a lot of draws. I’m sure you think that’s just dandy, but a fighter with a 10-3-8 record is not cool. It’s a competition, there should be a winner and a loser.
Yeesh, check out the number of injuries on the UFC 106 card. Not even counting the various concussions, there was Forrest Griffin’s broken foot, Marcus Davis’ broken nose, Brock Larson’s broken nose, and Luiz Cane’s broken eye socket/orbital bone.
Oops, I forgot to include the link to the medical suspension info in my previous post. It’s http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=10078&zoneid=13
IceMuncher is correct on this one. Go watch Shooto or Pancrase and see the number of draws they have. Guys end up having really weird records. It works for smaller Japanese organizations, but it doesn’t work for the biggest organizations like DREAM or UFC. And if you notice, neither of the companies rarely has any draws. People pay $45 for a PPV or $100+ minimum for a seat. They want to see a winner.
And interestingly…Tito Ortiz’s name is conspicuosly absent. Bulging discs in your neck is a serious medical condition that can cause paralysis. No way that escapes medical suspension. Oh surprise, Tito was less than honest about being hurt.
While I won’t vouch for Tito’s injuries, I think it’s safe to say that the cursory medical checkup after a fight isn’t going to be capable of locating or diagnosing a problem like that.
@ Ice/45 - I do agree that no one wants to see a draw, but (a) how often do we really see a fighter score a 10-8 after getting beat 10-9×2? Rarely. You see some 2-1 (10-9) rounds, but not many guys losing close rounds and then blowing a guy out in one - and if people were more likely to use a 10-10 that would help too because you’d get for example - 10-10, 9-10, 10-8 (29-28).
And it’s probably too radical of a change but here’s a thought - while people are clamouring for more non-title 5 rounders, there’s a lot of close 3 rounders that I would NOT want to see as 5 rounders (esp. where the fighters are gassing). Why not look into adopting a K-1 style OT/sudden death round. If we’re worried about all these draws happening - you pull an NHL and make sure they can’t…4th round, winner of that round wins the fight - and at least we might see guys taking a shot at finishing a fight and not have to worry about clogging cards with grinding 5 rounders. Probably will never happen, but I think that would be a better solution.
As far as I know they’re only X-Rayed and it would take an MRI to reveal disc issues. And those are hard to get over the weekend unless you’re in the emergency room for a car wreck or something.
But he should have to offer proof of the skull fracture and discs like Penn did for his rib injury against Hughes if he’s going to work the injury factor this much.
I’m wonder if there’ll ever be more strict requirements on disclosure of any pre-fight injuries (e.g. NFL, NHL) since there’s betting allowed on the fights. I’m guessing no, since the AC’s don’t want to be admitting they’re allowing anyone that’s less than 100% healthy step into the ring to fight.
Lots of negative talk non-stop throughout the month. But on the brightside, they’re sure to get a monster rating in a few days with Kimbo-Houston. It will just be too bad when Alexander knocks him out and they can’t explain away the loss on him being too fat since Kimbo will outweigh him by 10-20 pounds. Strike one.
What they need is to make it more of a 100 point must system instead of a 10 point must system. The rounding (lack of points of difference) is what would turn so many fights draws. Imagine if they judged the 100 meter dash in increments of half or full seconds.
Even with more liberal use of 10-8 you will still end up with borderline 10-7s being graded as 10-8s. Of course, the problem is that judges cannot even determine which side the 10 should go to as it is. But at least you make the difference between an error smaller.
Instead of 10-9 turning into 9-10 (two point swing), a 10-9.5 may turn into a 9.8-10 which is only a .7 swing.
Of course, then people would complain about losing fights by tenths of a point. But it’s better than not knowing what the hell happened.
You could make it out a 1 million… But a close fight is still a close fight. And the judging can’t turn into point fighting or it hurts the sport.
“I’m wonder if there’ll ever be more strict requirements on disclosure of any pre-fight injuries (e.g. NFL, NHL) since there’s betting allowed on the fights. I’m guessing no, since the AC’s don’t want to be admitting they’re allowing anyone that’s less than 100% healthy step into the ring to fight.”
If the athletic commission finds something, they have to act on it. So extensive testing would only hurt the sports they are sanctioning and reduce revenues for them. All AC’s are there to do is reduce risk for the states while generating revenues.
The NFL isn’t exactly a standard for athlete safety. They have constantly tried to downplay the effects of concussions. The sad fact is that a lot of NFL players will have brain damage due to the pads being used. And that’s not to mention the guys who have a problem walking while only being in their 40’s due to the nature of the game.
My comment re: injury disclosure had little to do with the safety aspect. It was just an observation that many sports have mandatory injury disclosure requirements, that are basically masked “market disclosure” for sports gambling. All of these secret injuries, etc. create an unbalanced world for bookmakers and bettors alike.
I’ve seen people comment on hearing about certain fighters having a nagging injury at a weigh in and running to the cage to make a huge underdog bet.
As for your thoughts on the commission - that’s basically what I was saying. They can’t be doing all this testing and providing disclosure because (a) a fighter is for all intents and purposes supposed to be in good health to be cleared to fight and (b) you don’t want to be killing your one revenue generating cow (the fights).
9.5’s would go a long way to fixing some of these problems. As would a “sudden victory” round. I suggested the 9.5 that has worked well in K-1 after the Shogun fight and got jumped all over.
The bottom line is the current system doesn’t work for a fight comprising of only a few (3 or 5) long (5min) rounds. Boxing’s judging criteria works about 90% of the time and it is because you have lots (8-12) of short (3min) rounds. So you can get a better sample size of dominance divided by time increments.
Minus the favoritism certain Japanese fighters received, I think PRIDE’s judging criteria had it best. Judge the fight overall. There’s no way looking at the whole 15 minutes of work to argue that Forrest, Vera and Shogun did not win the past 3 main events.
On a side note, if this were boxing Tito/Forrest would have been on HBO. It’s borderline criminal that this was a $45 main event.
Personally I come down on the ‘no solution’ side of this discussion. Judging combat is unavoidably subjective, especially at the highest levels where often very little separates the champion from his top 5 contenders. Any scheme we come up with is just a reconfiguration of subjectivity, but you never get rid of it. All you do is risk getting closer to point fighting, and removing the huge incentive for fighters to keep the matter out of the judges’ hands.
I know roadblock was guesstimating, but I don’t think he was far off by saying boxing judges get it right something like 90% of the time. But if you think about it, that is a TERRIBLE number. Still after decades nothing better has emerged. It is simply the nature of the beast with professional combat sports.
So don’t change the scoring system but perhaps with only 3 rounds we would benefit from open scoring? Or announced scores after two rounds?
Taveras -
What do you think happens in R4 and R5 vs. Rua when Machida realizes he has a decision in the bag after 3 rounds?
From my vantage point, my couch, Tito\’s face blocked more punches than Griffen\’s. Tito won on the ground, but Forest was able to get it back standing up and do the most damage. Tito did not deserve to win that fight. I have covered numerous shows with Carlos Arias, he has always been bias toward the Mexican fighters. I think it had more to do with him supporting his boy, then unbiased journalism.
“Of the 10,529 people in attendance at UFC 106, 3,898 of those were given comp tickets…”
From MMA Weekly
Those were high priced tickets for UFC 106. As soon as Lesnar dropped off the card, the UFC stood no chance of selling the remaining tickets based on that card.
A $3 Million gate is still good for that event with everything considering.
I’ve put on shows before, and they always count the face value of the comp tickets into the total gate. I’m not sure about how they do it in Nevada.
I’m looking it up in the statutes now.
Came across this:
NAC 467.332:
… 1. A promoter may not issue complimentary tickets for more than 4 percent of the seats in the house, equally distributed between or among the price categories for which complimentary tickets are issued, without the Commission’s written authorization.
and also this:
The Commission does not consider complimentary tickets which it authorizes under this section or NAC 467.337 to constitute part of the total gross receipts from admission fees for the purposes of calculating the license fee prescribed in subsection 1 of NRS 467.107.
So the comps don’t get figured in.
Wait!
(sorry to keep posting consecutively, Zach)
467.337 doesn’t deal with comps that are given to the general public, from what I’m reading. Therefore, the comps to the general public DO get figured in to the total gate receipts.
(Unless I’m reading it wrong)
If the gate is $3mill and 6,600ish tickets were sold then that’s a $454 per ticket average. Seems like the face value of comps must be included. That would put the average price right around $300 per ticket.
UFC is also responsible for giving te commission it’s cut on the face value of the comps, of I recall correctly.
MMA Junkie originally posted it wrong. The way they understood it was that the entire gate was around $3 Million with the comps included. Keith Keizer posted on The Underground to clarify it…
“The Nov. 21 event drew 6,631 paid tickets worth $3,003,250. Comp tickets are seperate from gate.”
Not sure how they are supposed to be announced…. But the UFC sold $3 Million worth of tickets…. And then comped out an additional $2 Million worth of tickets.
Overpriced tickets really….
Here is the link to the post….
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=1557746&page=1&pc=11
The original post has been updated, but it started off with the wrong information. And both Keith Kizer and Dann Stupp explained it out further…
Kizer needs to re-read his own regulations then. Comps given out to firemen, cops, journalists and fight teams are exempt from the calculation into the gate. Comps for anyone else are supposed to be added into the gate total.
Paid attendance: 6,631
Comp attendance: 3,898
Empty seats: 223
Value of tickets sold: $3,003,250
Value of tickets given away for free: $2,331,250
Kizer is missing out on revenue for the state by not enforcing that rule!
Also, this ain’t great: “WEC 44 draws 1,132 paid, 1,845 total, 39% comps, $131,200 gate.”
Any word on how many PPVs were sold?
Prelims on Spike did a 1.0 rating and 1.3 million viewers.
Source: http://www.wrestlingobserver.com
The WEC’s events often draw less than 1,000 paid fans in Las Vegas. In addition, one of their biggest events of the year, headlined by Mike Brown vs. Jose Aldo, only drew 414,000 viewers on Versus. So now they’re drawing less viewers than they were two years ago, and it’s not just because of DirecTV, as they were drawing those kinds of weak numbers even before they lost DirecTV.
Those same featherweight and bantamweight fighters, who are among the best in the world in their weight classes, could draw far greater ticket sales, TV ratings, and yes, even PPV buyrates if they were properly promoted on a cable network that doesn’t consider you its #1 show when you manage to draw 500,000 viewers.
If Zuffa’s reasoning for the WEC fighters’ pay (which is shamefully low for some of the best fighters in the world) is, “Well, they’re not drawing right now!” that’s not a valid reason because that is a problem of their own creation and of their own choosing.
I believe that rating is deceiving. People get together for UFC PPV events. That would cut down on the number of houses for the ratings. Either way, it wouldn’t be a blockbuster rating, but the ratings do likely suffer somewhat from it….
Ivan,
1) What other network would be better? I highly doubt ESPN wants the WEC. They didn’t want Bellator…
2) Do you think the top WEC fighters should go into the UFC?
So the CBS rating was also a deceiving rating due to the “get together” theory?
People don’t typically get together for free events like the one on CBS or Couture vs. Vera….
I’m not sure what high school seniors do, but the biggest crowd I ever had at my house for fights was Kimbo/Thompson. I also had a healthy crowd for Fedor/Rogers.
“People don’t typically get together for free events like the one on CBS or Couture vs. Vera….”
That’s ridiculous…people do it for all types of sporting events - 99% of which are for free.
You really believe on a Saturday night that people wouldn’t have all gone to a buddy’s house to watch the Fedor or Randy fight? Plz.