Few things make MMA fans more furious than a fight that is recorded incorrectly, although the term “robbery” is usually tossed around recklessly and is often riddled with. With Robbery Review, we look at controversial battles and see if the judges have been rightly criticized for their decision, or if experts should investigate their own knee-jerk reactions.
We introduced Robbery Review to the site this year and we had a few doozies to research to get things started. Israel Adesanya’s star match against Yoel Romero made fans wave and question whether ‘The Last Stylebender’ did enough to retain his title. The UFC on ESPN 8 gave us a trio of controversial calls that needed further investigation, and Alexander Volkanovski scored another decisive victory over Max Holloway, albeit a much closer second.
It was, after all, the fight that appeared in the very first issue of Robbery Review, which I consider to be the most notable in terms of close calls for 2020 due to the scale of the fight, the erratic response on social media and the long-term nature of the verdict. on the warriors and their division.
So let’s talk once again about Jon Jones against Dominick Reyes and hand over the cases of the Verdict MMA for their opinion on the most controversial decision of 2020.
Jon Jones against Dominick Reyes (UFC 247February 8)
Jon Jones was no longer invincible.
At least it was one popular theory that was on its first – and as it turns out, one-off – 2020 title defense. Sure, “Bones” was still undefeated, but for the first time since his earliest UFC days, there were questions about his dominance. . His issues outside the cage (a charge of disorderly conduct in July 2019, a DWI and firearm-related charges in March 2020), as well as some faint title defenses, were an easy feed for critics to jump on.
Jones won a skewed decision over Anthony Smith at UFC 235, but was so rarely in danger during the match that the lack of finishing was disappointing. In his next defense against Thiago Santos at UFC 239, Jones passed a card from the referee when he lost his belt when he pronounced a split decision in a striking duel with ‘Marreta’.
Dominick Reyes was next and expectations were moderate. On most betting sites, Reyes was around a 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 underdog, similar to Santos, and his run after a title shot took her up and down. After a little more than seven minutes needed to reduce his first three UFC opponents, Reyes looks excellent in a decisive victory over veteran Ovince Saint Preux, and then makes significantly less excellent decision against recent title contender Volkan Oezdemir. A drop from former middleweight champion Chris Weidman in the first round looked good on his resume, good enough to drop Reyes into a fight with Jones, but was not exactly an indication of whether he was one of the greatest fighters of of all times.
On paper, Reyes had the tools to be a threat. A former NFL hopeful, ‘The Devastator’, has no athletic shortage against the gifted Jones, and he was blessed with the kind of quick knockout power an underdog needs to dethrone kings. He was also advertised on the fight night and looks loose and confident in the opening round against Jones.
The evasive and divergent tactics that Jones displayed during his best championship performances were nowhere to be seen (a problem that also came up in the Smith and Santos fights) and from the outside it looked as if Reyes was in control of the action. . . Was Reyes actually winning the battle or did he just do better than expected?
While watching live, I let Reyes win the first three rounds on my own scorecard, and that did not change when I watched the battle for the first Robbery Review again. If I want to establish basic criteria and set out my own prejudices, this is what I wrote at the time:
It is important that I make known that my standards for what a robbery means are high as I consider the term to be very overused and disrespectful to the efforts of the winning fighter. I must also add that during the main meeting on Saturday I worked consciously to do the bias of the “challenger” better than expected, not to give Reyes more credit than his actions prescribed.
Even though I paid extra attention to what Jones was doing, I still leaned toward Reyes. The judges disagree and give the fight to Jones with scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46.
I considered the fight a robbery, especially after recording the official UFC stats (Reyes won one through six major attacks, two with 11 and three with seven), which was an inaccurate indication of striking effectiveness, but that they certainly helped Reyes’ case. in this case. None of that means Reyes Jones blew out of the water, but if decisions were supposed to rest on who won more rounds, then Reyes was the better man that night. Jones just didn’t do enough in my eyes to retain.
The ensuing discussion surrounding the fight was so massive that it overshadowed the actual robbery of the year, Lauren Murphy’s victory over Andrea Lee that took place at the UFC 247 preliminary round. According to MMA decisions, not one media member recorded the fight for Murphy and more than 90 percent of the users who assigned Lee were in favor of Lee. The decision was in the first place on the list of the most controversial decisions on the site, based on the average percentage of media and fans who agree with the judges. Jones-Reyes did not even reach the top 10, but only an honor.
What is more important to me, however, is that the ripples of Reyes’ loss are still being felt. Jones remained champion, diligent or not. He showed little interest in rematch with Reyes of Santos, but was rather embroiled in a public dispute with the UFC over the compensation of fighters who would eventually end up evacuating the light heavyweight championships and announcing his intentions for the heavyweight title. to chase. The light heavyweight title will only be contested again in September.
Instead of tackling his next battle with the belt around his waist, Reyes is thrown into a vacant title contest against Jan Blachowicz and he eventually becomes the youngest victim of Blachowicz’s brand Polish power. Similarly, Reyes went from the prospective champion to the first losing streak of his career. Jones’ absence also opened the door for UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya to step in for a super-fight with Blachowicz that is expected to take place next March, with Uana president Dana White hoping for a rematch between Jones and Adesanya is still in the cards.
It’s fair to say that none of this happens when Reyes gets the judges at UFC 247. He did not, and look where we are now. Therefore, it remains the most important contested decision of 2020.
Based on how much the fights can actually be considered robbery and the impact it had on the immediate prospects of each contestant, I give the eight fights I judged in 2020:
- Jones teen Reyes
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Anthony Pettis vs. Donald Cerrone 2 (UFC 249, May 9)
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Claudia Gadelha vs. Angela Hill (UFC on ESPN 8, 16 May)
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Dan Ige vs. Edson Barboza (UFC on ESPN 8, May 16)
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Alexander Volkanovski vs. Max Holloway 2 (UFC 251, July 11)
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Song Yadong vs. Marlon Vera (UFC on ESPN 8, May 16)
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Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero (UFC 248, March 7)
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Frankie Edgar vs. Pedro Munhoz (UFC on ESPN 15, August 22)
But let’s be honest, what do I know? There are people who are looking for the hard numbers about these things in the truth, and so I turned to the Verdict MMA group to get their opinion on what the biggest robbery was in 2020, and the answer surprised me.
‘The most controversial decision of 2020 was the second chance between Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway at UFC 251, “David Chung, chief data scientist of the ruling, emailed MMA Fighting. Judgment MMA’s Global Scorecard shows the averages of all the scores on the platform. It goes back to Aristotle’s “wisdom of the crowd”, which theorizes that the collective opinion of a group of individuals is more accurate than that of a single expert. The average scores show how close or how dominant a round was by dividing the numbers into decimal points. Judgment takes a more detailed approach to scoring in MMA. ”
“According to the data, rounds one and two were clearly recorded for Holloway,” Chung continued. ‘The fight started getting closer with the third round. Holloway won the third round on the Global Scorecard marginally with a difference of 0.04. Volkanovski won rounds four and five, which was just as competitive as the data shows. ”
The Verdict MMA system places more weight on dominant rounds, which is why Holloway scored big points in the first and second rounds. He made Volkanovski visibly falter at the end of both rounds (although it should be noted that the official statistics do not lead to Holloway taking a knockout in the fight).
“There’s a clear difference between dominating Holloway’s first two rounds compared to Volkanovski’s third round, so why would these scores weigh the same?” Chung said. “This is according to the official scores, but not on the Global Scorecard.”
Round three was extraordinarily close and there seems to be little argument that Volkanovski fought back to erase the championship rounds. While Volkanovski’s first win over Holloway was more convincing (he won two 48-47 scores and one judge even gave him 50-45), the second was as close as it gets to Volkanovski winning by a pair of 48s -47 scores to Holloway only 48-47.
That said, I did not see the fight as a robbery. Here is what I wrote in my review:
Holloway had the two best strikes of the night – there is no argument about that. But with the benefit of a look back, one can see that Volkanovski committed himself to many hard blows, especially in the later stages of the match. In no way did he just throw ‘pitter-patter’ shots, and although he could not injure Holloway on the face of it, there were certainly moments where the challenger got a rest.
I also think Holloway’s early success shaped the narration of the third round, as well as the fact that he did so much better than he did at UFC 245. Volkanovski’s own efforts should not be overlooked, and it is not his fault that the current points system results in a deficit of 10-8 seconds. He fought a win-win given the criteria.
I also added: “the 10-point must-have system is struggling.” But do not take my word for it, here is Verdict MMA with the last say on the matter.
“Holloway beat Volkanovski on Verdict’s Global Scorecard with a total difference of 1.23,” Chung said. ‘If you look at our scorecards, you see a lot of fights that have a final score difference that is below 0.5. These are close battles. A difference of 1.23 is very important and that is why we have listed the second chance between Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway as the most controversial decision of 2020. ‘