I don't post ever in the MMA forum...but...

MMA lovers will watch all the events, but when the average person who isn't an expert tunes in to the fights on FoxSports 1 and watches someone like Spencer dominate his opponent, and then the judges say that Spencer lost convincingly...that's when people roll their eyes and turn the channel and don't watch the next event.  

I didn't have any money on that fight, but as a MMA novice I know what I saw, and to have three professional judges tell me that Spencer lost that fight in all 3 rounds is an insult.  

I really hope UFC comes up with something to avoid situations like what we saw tonight.  

I could not agree more...

It's cute to see Joe and Dana smile and mention it, but they need to have a loud voice.  I've met Dana White when he was here in Indianapolis for the worst UFC event of all time (the all heavyweight event), and I talked to him about for about 1 minute about the disastrous event and his passion about UFC could not be more obvious.  He and Joe Rogan love MMA , and they need to speak out and let the public know that decisions like this are not acceptable.

Look at the complete lack of leadership from Goodell in the NFL, and people aren't OK with that.  It's only going to take a few more decisions like the Spencer decision to get people openly complaining about Dana and the UFC. 

The sport is in it's infancy so still working out issues like this unfortunately. I've heard rumors of using a fight analytics database similar to fightmetric to act as either 1 of 3 judges (break ties) or as the exclusive judge. It may score significant strikes as 1, takedowns as 2, sub attempts as 1.5...whatever. If you haven't looked at fightmetric.com, it's a great tool. 

 I don't know what the solution is, but it starts on the state level. Each state athletic commission picks their own judges, refs, etc. In Las Vegas, at least the judges have 20 UFC events there per year. In Boston, these judges may have only had the pressure of one UFC event in the last 3-4 years (not sure exactly how many). They're likely not at all trained in MMA - most judges are ex-attorneys that the athletic commissions ask to unbiasedly judge MMA events, give them a 2 day tutorial on what constitutes "good scoring", and then throw them out there to judge a fight that could cost a guy his job, 50% of his paycheck, etc. It's nuts.

Controversy is not good for sports.  Great athletes, great stories, and great presentation is good for sports.  Attention on the athletes and the event is good for business.  Attention on the people running and judging the sport is bad for business.

Great info on the judges.  I had no idea, and I bet most viewers don't know that either.  

No problem. In the Hall-Stallings fight when the cut occurred, Joe Rogan said something along the lines of "they wouldn't have called this fight in Nevada", meaning the doctor wouldn't have stopped it. Because the doctors in Nevada have seen a cut like that 100 times and they understand the ramifications for stopping the fight. 

Unlike any other sport, guys get paid on a structure something like $20k to show and $20k to win, meaning they only get half of their money if the doctor, ref, or judges F something up. Apparently, the UFC takes care of the guys that are screwed, but at the end of the day, that's not the point.