Dana White Not A Fan Of Open Scoring, Could Lead To ‘Bad Third Rounds’
UFC president Dana White is not a fan of open scoring in mixed martial arts.
The topic of open scoring has been a prominent one within the sport due to dodgy scorecards from judges with strong calls for it particularly following the UFC 247 event last February.
Fighters like Max Holloway are also supporters of the idea with the Kansas Athletic Commission (KAC) experimenting with it at Invicta FC events.
However, White feels the drama of learning the scorecards at the end of the fight will be taken away with open scoring.
“When we do the fights, I have an idea of who I think won or lost or whatever, but when I’m standing there with the belt, I don’t know what Bruce Buffer is going to say,” White said during an online chat (via MMA Junkie). “He doesn’t tell me anything. The judges tell him, the commission do their thing, they tell him, and I’m standing there waiting to hear too, so I’m just as blown away as the fans are.
“And I agree with you: It completely takes away the anticipation of who won the fight.”
Additionally, White feels open scoring could lead to some boring final rounds especially when a fighter knows he’s up and has to take far fewer risks.
“If a guy knows that he’s up two rounds and you’re a professional fighter, you can absolutely stay away from a guy for an entire round and make the fight completely horrible,” White said. “If you already know you’ve got two rounds in the bag, guarantee if you saw your score up there, all (you) have to do is stay away from this guy for the next five minutes. That makes for a lot of bad third rounds.”
At the end of the day, it’s up to the various commissions and whether they choose to adopt open scoring. But even if open scoring was put in place, scorecards can still remain dodgy as far as White is concerned.
“Its never going to be perfect,” White added. “There are always going to be fights that absolutely drive you insane and piss you off, blow your bets, there will always be all these other things that go with the fight business. At the end of the day, watching the fight and waiting for the results are fun.”
Do you agree with White?
