The Doggy Bag: Judging Submissions

I watched WEC 43 and was absolutely surprised to see Henderson's hand raised at the end of the fight.

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If you look at both the first and fifth round, I think what lead the judges astray was the intricacies of submissions versus submission escapes. When the audience realizes one of the fighters is caught in a submission tension immediately begins to rise leading to a climax resulting in either a tapout or escape. This translates to a strange dynamic where a fighter can catch guy and almost submit him yet the fighter who gets caught ends up looking good because of drama involved in the concept of "escaping."

Should a submission escape negate or even be worth more than a submission attempt? Do you think this gray area had any part in "confusing" the judges, especially considering how well and dramatically Henderson defended them? -- Conrado Magalhaes

Jordan Breen, FightFinder Czar: I can't say for sure what the judges on the night saw in terms of valuing Cerrone's submission game. As has been well-documented (especially in the blogosphere), I strongly felt Cerrone won the fight and certainly got shortchanged in the first round. Based on the reaction and discussion following the fight, I think we can definitely say that the most defined issue at stake is whatever value submissions should be offered in judging.

The biggest issue is that many people -- some fighters included -- see submissions as an "all or nothing" proposition. Either your opponent taps, or there is no value in the technique at all. If that were the case, submissions shouldn't be a part of MMA at all if the technical application has no inherent value. Some rogue promoters are starting to run shows that feature both striking and ground-and-pound, but no submissions -- maybe that should be our goal.

As you point out, some readers and listeners outright admitted they reward a fighter for escaping a submission more than the fighter attacking, which is illogical on all levels. On top of that, the judging criteria set forth ages ago, which are supposed to be adhered to under the Unified Rules, recognize Cerrone's action. "Repeated threatening attempts at submission and reversal resulting in continuous defense from the top fighter" ... sounds like Cerrone-Henderson to me.

The issue is really about the fundamental value of any submission attempt. With striking, it is easy to assess whether strikes are clean, effective and efficient. With submissions, gauging the value of the technique is much more difficult, especially with regards to reconciling it against strikes, as is the case in the first round of Cerrone-Henderson.

I think in order to have a fair and equitable evaluation of striking and grappling, essentially apples and oranges, scoring needs to actually become a bit more abstract. I like to ask myself, "What fighter is being more dominant or threatening, forcing his opponent to continuously defend rather than attack, with emphasis on quality of technique?" I emphasize the "quality of technique" part, as well; many people lump all submission effort that don't yield taps together. However, there's a vast difference between the quality of execution that someone like Donald Cerrone showed and a fighter aimlessly squeezing a lukewarm guillotine.

How to balance striking and grappling is always going to be a central question in judging MMA. Even FightMetric, which I think is a brilliant metric asset to MMA, has yet to come up with a great way to put an objective value on a quality submission attempt -- it scored the first round of Nogueira-Couture for "The Natural." However, I think the passing of Cerrone-Henderson, people dusting off their rulebooks, and reflecting on the unsuitability of submissions as "all or nothing" will go a long way to striking a better balance going forward.

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