There have been ninety gabillion things said about the Griffin vs Jackson fight on July 5th. Sadly, most of the people talking are so busy hugging one of the fighter’s nuts that they are missing a bigger issue. Although it can be difficult I ask that you please try to remove any and all bias you have for any of the fighters that I will be mentioning. This has nothing to do with them personally. It just so happens that their experiences from July 5th provide us sound foundation for a general discussion.
What I hope to draw peoples’ attention to has nothing to do with who won the fight, or even who was in it. This isn’t about the people themselves, but rather the system under which they fight. The system under which they are judged.
Here is how the round scoring broke down for the fight between griffin and jackson.
Round 1:
Judge #1 – 10 – 9 Griffin
Judge #2 – 10 – 9 Jackson
Judge #3 – 10 – 9 Griffin
Round 2:
Judge #1 – 20 – 17 Griffin
Judge #2 – 19 – 18 Griffin
Judge #3 – 20 – 18 Griffin
Round 3:
Judge #1 – 30 – 26 Griffin
Judge #2 – 29 – 27 Griffin
Judge #3 – 30 – 27 Griffin
Lets stop there and take a look at how the scoring stood at the end of round three from another fight from this event.
Round 3:
Judge #1 – 30 – 26 Kos
Judge #2 – 29 – 27 Kos
Judge #3 – 30 – 28 Kos
Now excluding “outliers” (that’s statistical speak for hardcore nuthuggers) I haven’t seen anyone claim that Kos vs Lytle was a *CLOSER* fight than Griffin vs Jackson. Whether you are a Jackson fan, a Kos fan or even Chris Lytle’s mom you have to see a problem with this.
From a systematic point of view there are two potential explanations for how this could happen:
1) The scoring system is flawed
2) The judges messed up
These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, so it’s possible a bit of both played into the results. Having said that, it is possible that the system is flawed, that the judges messed up, but the proper fighters still won these fights. Generating the proper result though does not guarantee the process is correct. Again, this isn’t about any one fight or even any one event. All fighters work too hard and put too much on the line to be judged by a flawed system.
Lytle has some fans (although not enough) and Kos has some haters (although not enough 8P) and according to the judges this fight was *CLOSER* than the Griffin vs Jackson fight. Yet for some reason there aren’t ninety gabillion articles/posts talking about how Lytle got robbed. People aren’t screaming for an immediate rematch. No one is claiming racial prejudice factored into the scoring or that the judges were bribed into picking Kos.
It’s important to understand that the flaws that currently exist in the scoring system don’t only hurt the person who loses the fight, but the winner as well. If the system were better it would be significantly harder for the fight’s loser to question the decision. If situations like the one above didn’t happen people wouldn’t be so quick to question the system and the judges themselves. Sadly, when you see the above results from the same event it forces people to acknowledge something is askew and opens the door to numerous other questions.
As a final note, I’d ask that people realize that this problem isn’t going away. Just because the system may have gotten it right this time, or potentially erred on your side doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. It also doesn’t mean that the system won’t get things very wrong in the future. Ask yourself this simple (although somewhat wordy question):
Would you continue keeping your money at a bank that you knew had faulty accounting software even if it hadn’t messed up yet and/or had only erred in your favor?
Tags: systems