Rauno

Thompson won the fight, Melendez won the competition imo. (Although i scored it for Thompson as well).

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StandThemUp

One cool thing I heard on Sirius Fight Club today was that, if anything, JT may have lost the fight, but has won the war. In the sense that he made a really awesome showing for himself, showed he is one of the best at 155, and now, has no reason to stay in SF and may be able to turn this loss into a trip to the UFC.

In contrast, GM may have won the battle, but is stuck with the curse of holding the SF LW belt and has no chance of moving to the UFC anytime soon.

So in terms of long term success. Josh may have come out in top.

That being said, I heard a couple things that bothered me. Many, many MMA "commentators" and interviewers saying round 1 could have been scored 10-10. Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that supposed to be impossible in a true 10 Point Must system, where the winner get's 10 and the lose get's 9 or less (barring any deductions).

On that note - Why wasn't round 4 scored a 10-8 for JT? Can anyone honestly say that GM won either rounds 1,2 or 3 as definitively as JT won round 4?

And in there lies the problem.

ProdigyPenn

Not sure if it is possible to give it a 10-10. But indeed, the first round is razor thin and could have gone either way. I gave this round and the 2nd to Melendez and 3,4,5 to Thomson.

As for a 10-8 round, Judges will normally only give a 10-8 round if a fighter is truly dominate from the start to finish and is on the verge of finishing the other guy off. (i.e round 1 of Maynard/Edgar 2.)

For this fight, round 4 is clearly a 10-9 for Thomson. He didn't really dominate the round. It was actually pretty even initially. He only manage to sink in the RNC near the end of the round and even that wasnt close enough to finishing the fight.

So either way you look at it, it was 10-9 for Thomson.

edlavis88

10-10 rounds are possible. Some athletic commissions actively encourage judges to use them and some actively discourage their use.

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Hawndo

I had it scored for Josh. I've been reserving judgement until he fights a solid UFC level fighter, but after last night nah, never been that impressed but last night confirmed his overratedness (did I just invent a word?). I'd say you can easily argue top 10 but certainly not 5 and a snow balls chance in hell of him being the best.

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Hammerlock2.0

To be honest I never considered Melendez to be a top 5 guy. I always thought of him as Strikeforce's version of Clay Guida. Thomson beat him up good (and won the fight) and Thomson has never beaten a top 10 guy in his whole career. Neither has Gilbert (I'm not counting the Aoki fight because in fights stuff usually happens). I guess that makes them both top 20ish.

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Rusty

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StandThemUp

Based on those rules, Round 4 was clearly a 10-8 round for JT.

But I guess this whole system just sucks, because it's totally subjective and there is too much room for error.

For instance, it says it should be a 10-9 if one guy wins by a "Close" Margin and a 10-8 if one guy wins "Overwhelmingly".

Well, the problem is, there are a lot of ways to win that are inbetween Overwhelming and a Close Margin.

Clearly the first round was at most, a close margin, But there is no way in hell round 4 was an "equal" close margin, the margin was much bigger, but maybe not overwhelming in some peoples eyes (Though I think it clearly was).

I don't know. I just don't like it. There is no reason they can't come up with a more definitive way to judge these fights and not leave it so open to interpretation and judges bias.

That being said, it creates controversy, which can be the best thing for generating interest in a sport. ie: College Football. They could have a playoff system, but then what would everyone argue about all day long?

Term

I agree. I think if you judge the fight overall Thompson won, but under the current system it was Melendez. Why call it a 10 point system when you leave no room to go below a 10-8. Just give 3 points to the round winner, 2 to the loser went it's close and 1 when it's not. Why waste all those other points.

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Dtwizzy2k5

Melendez is a top 10 fighter, but he is not UFC champion calibur. The scoring system should be a 5 point must where the loser gets 4 points for an arguable loss, 3 for a clear loss, and 2 for a dominant loss. The final two points will be reserved for potential deductions so as to avoid instances of "negative points", and 5 is a nice round number for fans and judges to work with.