The list: Some decision low-lights, or the times judges got it wrong

For too long, our writers’ hyper-specific arguments have been confined to the private corridors of the Internet. Welcome to The List, where we take their instant message bickerings, add a little polish, and make them public. Today: Another weekend, another bad set of scorecards. By now, we’ve gotten used to wacky and downright atrocious decisions from MMA judges. But here are a few that grind our gears.

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Diego Sanchez over Ross Pearson, because it was home cooking at its worst

Ross Pearson and Diego Sanchez

Ben Fowlkes: When people get fired up over a bad decision – such as Beneil Dariush’s split-decision win over Michael Johnson at UFC Fight Night 73 this past Saturday – the word they reach for is “robbery.” Trouble is, that’s a strong enough term that I think we should save it for those special situations where it truly applies. We don’t want the word to lose its power. We want it in fine working order when we really need it, just as we needed it the night Diego Sanchez won a split-decision over Ross Pearson at UFC Fight Night 42.

The stats on this fight paint a clear enough picture. Pearson outlanded Sanchez in all three rounds, avoided Sanchez’s only takedown attempt, and wobbled Sanchez at least twice, while also splitting his eye wide open in the final frame.

Oh yeah, Pearson also somehow lost every single round, according to judge Jeff Collins. Judge Chris Tellez turned in the slightly saner, though still very wrong, scorecard of 29-28 Sanchez. Only the big homie Marcos Rosales got it right, giving Pearson the nod with a 30-27 score.

How did Sanchez win this fight? It’s the same question we asked when he came away covered in blood, yet somehow in possession of a unanimous(!) decision win over Martin Kampmann some three years earlier. At least in that fight it looked like Sanchez was doing a lot. He threw punches in intense flurries (even if they mostly hit air), and he got exactly one takedown (in 15 attempts).

Against Pearson, he did none of that. Instead, he made scary faces (and it must be noted that Sanchez excels in this area), and he also came from Albuquerque, which is where the fight took place. Those are the only things that can possibly explain this win. Sanchez had a friendly crowd there to cheer when his kicks were blocked and sit on their hands when he got his ribs pulverized, and this must have had some effect on the impressionable minds of those two judges. Either that, or they were so busy staring at his angry grimace that they didn’t notice how clearly and completely he lost every … single … round.

Leonard Garcia, because few UFC fighters were as gifted … at getting decisions

Cody McKenzie and Leonard Garcia

Mike Bohn: Now that Leonard Garcia has been retired from MMA competition for nearly a year and out of the UFC for more than two years, some have forgotten some of the truly atrocious decisions “Bad Boy” was involved in.

The worst of them all, however, was actually Garcia’s final “victory” inside the UFC’s octagon.

Prior to his first encounter with Nam Phan at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale in December 2010, Garcia had already formed a reputation for his involvement in highly questionable decisions.

Garcia’s style of charging forward while winging massive haymakers at his opponent had caused four of his five fights before Phan to end in a split decision or draw. He went 2-2-1 in that stretch (and could have easily been 0-5), but no result was more egregious than when he shared the cage with Phan at Las Vegas’ Palm Casino Resort.

The fight played out as many thought it would. Garcia’s tactics were the same as always. He walked forward and launched punch after punch, most of which connected with nothing but air. Phan, on the other hand, wisely used foot movement and counter punching to repeatedly tag Garcia.

With the exception of two ultimately harmless takedowns from Garcia in the second and third rounds, the fight was one-way traffic for Phan. The FightMetric report tells the tale of it all. The numbers are more than lopsided in Phan’s favor. He landed 44 percent of his 227 significant strike attempts while Garcia connected with a mere 22 percent of 282 attempts thrown.

An argument can be made that striking volume can substantially influence the way in which judges view a fight. This should not have been one of those instances. It was clear Garcia did not have the skillset to put Phan in a compromising situation, and when the three-round bout came to an end, the victor seemed clear.

Not so fast.

Judge Junichiro Kamijo awarded Phan all three rounds for an accurate 30-27 scorecard. Adalaide Byrd and Tony Weeks saw it differently, giving Garcia the first and third rounds for a 29-28 edge. From there, utter shock and horror set in as one of the worst decisions in UFC history happened.

Garcia would go on to lose his next five UFC appearances, including a unanimous decision loss to Phan in the rematch at UFC 136 in October 2011. If not for a few scorecards in his favor, Garcia could have ended his Zuffa tenure with 12-straight losses. He managed to squeeze out a few wins, though, and it’s not a stretch to state that he was the best in MMA history at convincing judges he won fights that he should have lost. That’s something, I guess.

“Big Nog” over “Suave,” because top control sometimes does win fights

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Steven Marrocco: Since Bohn is making a futile attempt at measuring statistics against whack scorecards, I propose leaving the pesky vagaries of the 10-point must system for the good ol’ fashioned way of judging fights: as a whole. That’s the way they did it in PRIDE, and they got it right most of the time, except for this one: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Ricco Rodriguez at “PRIDE: Total Elimination 2003.”

Rodriguez, if you remember, had just lost the UFC heavyweight crowd to Tim Sylvia after taking it from Randy Couture. He walked into the PRIDE ring repping the UFC against one of its most talented and decorated fighters, Nogueira, who’d just lost his belt to some no-name Russian guy named Fedor Emelianenko. This was the Nogueira of 2003 – a fast and crafty submission artist with good hands to boot. It was a tough ask for Rodriguez.

And yet, “Suave” made it work, taking the Brazilian down on the regular and avoiding all of his submission attempts. Sometimes, he slipped in a few knees to the head. On the feet, Nogueira was the more accurate puncher. But that’s not where the majority of the fight took place. Rodriguez stayed on top and imposed his will.

With no 10-point must, there were no scorecards to read. Still, Nogueira won the fight according to all three judges. Clearly, they gave “Big Nog” a disproportionate amount of credit for all the submissions he attempted, despite the fact that he finished none and wound up eating shots after many of them.

And if you want a few stats, Nogueira landed 35 percent of his significant strike attempts to Rodriguez’s 33 percent. Not a huge margin. Rodriguez landed more significant strikes in the 10-minute first round and squeaked out the lead in the third. He landed 71 percent of his head strikes to 64 percent for Nogueira and he passed guard four times. The only range where he got beat was at distance, where Nogueira landed 92 percent to his 38 percent of strikes.

But again, most of this fight was Rodriguez on top. I’m not one for top control wins fights, but in this case, he did enough to earn the nod. Based on Fowlkes’ standard for robberies, this one might not hold up, I must concede. It was simply the wrong decision.