The Scorer’s Table
Cageside
There’s an idea in combat sports that to win a title you shouldn’t have to simply win the fight, but you should have to clearly beat the champion – the so-called Champion’s Advantage. I recall this coming up again after Robbie Lawler defended his UFC Welterweight Championships against Carlos Condit, narrowly edging the challenger via split decision.
Between the three judges over five rounds, there were fifteen total rounds scored and there was agreement on all of them except one. That is, 14/15 rounds were scored the same.
One judge gave Carlos Condit the third round, thus scoring the fight 48-47, the other two did not. That all three were unanimous in their view for the other rounds is actually somewhat impressive, and it speaks volumes as to how close the third round was in relation to 1,2,4,&5. One more punch landed by Condit in the third round could have conceivably won him the title.
Now, there is no Champion’s Advantage on the books. Judges are told there is no such thing as a Champion’s Advantage; title fights are judged in a vacuum, and every individual round is also judged in a vacuum: a round happens and a judge has less than a minute to process five minutes of potentially blitzkrieg like action and write down who he thought won that round. They add it up, yada yada, and that’s how the sport works. This essentially means that every title fight sees the champion “vacate” his belt right before the fight starts
But is there an argument to be made that even if Condit had won, that the judges were split the other way in his favor, it shouldn’t count? Should the UFC have a Champion’s Advantage?
Why we don’t have a Champion’s Advantage – blame boxing
Historically, there is no Champion’s Advantage. And this is the fault of boxing, pure and simple. The Champion is, in theory, the best. That’s it. He has the belt and that means he is the greatest in the world and all are free to challenge him and take it from him (or her).
But giving a champion an advantage in a title fight when there are half a dozen “sanctioning bodies” is absurd. It’s more absurd when some of these bodies actually take money to let title fights happen – that is, they essentially accept a bribe from the champion to fight a lower ranked “non-mandatory” opponent. Since these Alphabet Soup titles have no real value, and certainly have little to no basis in declaring who is the best, no “champion” deserves an advantage as the man holding the belt is no more “the best in the world” than you or I. (Ok, he’s probably closer to it, by virtue of his being a pro fighter, but only barely.)
UFC Title Legitimacy lends itself to a Champion’s Advantage
MMA, and specifically the UFC, is historically different. The UFC has managed to do what boxing has failed at for decades: create champions that are unchallenged as to their legitimacy. Now, the recent trend towards prostituting championships is a bad one but, compared to boxing, being a UFC champion still means a lot. Daniel Cormier is only illegitimately the champion to the extent that Jon Jones still fights, not because there are five other guys roughly his equal, in other companies, with belts. Criticize the UFC for many things, they tend not to protect champions from tough fights. Anthony Pettis wouldn’t have fought dos Anjos if the UFC was worried about making sure a more marketable champion held the title; many of the guys Demetrious Johnson fought wouldn’t sniff a title shot in boxing because they’re dangerous but bland (Kyoji Horiguchi, Ali Bagautinov).
Sadly, a Champion’s Advantage will never happen. The athletic commissions around the country are too entrenched in their ways. It would be too confusing to people and conspiracy theorists everywhere would have a field day.
But just because it won’t happen doesn’t mean it shouldn’t. Look at Mighty Mouse. He’s defended his Flyweight Championship a billion times now. If he fights, say, Henry Cejudo and loses a split decision with the same scorecard as Lawler vs Condit, should he lose his belt? He’s proven himself as champion time and time again for years on end, coming up on four years with barely more than a few lost rounds, and yet he’d no longer be the best based on the narrowest of decisions? A 48-47 across the board split decision isn’t a real win, it’s basically a tie. More so, because judges in MMA never hand out 10-10 rounds, and you know if they did then many of these close rounds would be draw rounds. Cejudo won’t have proven himself the best flyweight on earth, he’ll have shown that on one night he was maybe the equal.
Johnson has shown that he’s the best and until someone can definitely show otherwise the title should remain his.
The Champion’s Advantage: Defending is not the same as winning
Think of it this way. You rule a town, literal King of the Castle. The town is yours; you own it and all the peasants and cattle and whatnot inside the walls. A bunch of Vikings show up and try to raid your little village. They shoot arrows and throw fireballs and all kinds of stuff. They are challenging you for your claim as King. Now, do you as King need to beat them? Do you need to kill all of the Vikings? Or do you merely need to defend what is already yours? They have to breach the gate. They have to storm the castle. They have to cut your head off. If you stop them from taking over the town, even if they’re still alive and free to roam somewhere else you’re still King. The town is still yours. The burden is on the challenger to kill the King, not on the King to kill the challenger.
The Kings of the UFC’s divisions shouldn’t have to kill the challengers; the challengers should have to kill the Kings. Until the Kings are dead, Long Live the Kings of the UFC.
