Razor Thin–A look at Verdict’s raw data for Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2
At UFC 215, the long awaited rematch between Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko finally took place in the UFC’s first trip to Edmonton, Alberta. Going into the contest, both Nunes and Shevchenko were regarded as the two best women’s Bantamweights in the world. During the 5th round, UFC commentator Joe Rogan stated “I would not wanna be a judge for this fight in particular. This is a hard fight to score”. Joe Rogan didn’t score the fight, but many people using the Verdict MMA Mobile App did. The results were compelling. Let’s take a look.
From Verdict’s global scorecard, we see the world collectively believed Amanda Nunes won the contest with a score of 48–47. The score for each round is determined by the average of all the scores submitted for that round. The average score is then rounded to fit within the 10-point must system. Some data is lost when converting to the 10-point must system. For example 9.6–9.4 rounds gets converted to 10–9 rounds–this leads to inaccuracies. The raw data for the rematch between Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko via Verdict:
As you can see with the raw data, the 3rd round was the closest round of the fight. The difference was razor thin with 0.04. This was likely the deciding round of the fight. When scoring, judges must keep in mind that they have the ability to score a round 10–10 if they feel they can’t determine a winner. According to the Unified Rules, a round is to be scored as a 10–10 round when both contestants appear to be fighting evenly and neither contestant shows clear dominance in a round. It is extremely rare to see a judge score a round a 10–10 in MMA, which is bizarre considering they are able to do so. If a round like round 3 from this fight doesn’t warrant a score of 10–10, then what does?. In this situation, if round 3 was scored a 10–10, the fight would have been declared a draw.
This was a very close fight, with a total difference of 0.31 in scoring. Another topic of conversation when it comes to scoring is what counts more?- More strikes landed? Or takedowns? The 5th round was interesting, as Shevchenko out-struck Nunes 27–8, but lost on the scorecards of two of the cageside judges and lost on the scorecards of the majority of Verdict users. Nunes landed two takedowns in the 5th round, and controlled the final portion of the round. Nunes did not attempt many strikes from top position, but she did have fighting area control (octagon control) which is a criteria of judging. Should octagon control outweigh effective striking when it comes to scoring?
When scoring a fight this close, there is bound to be some controversey. Judges must always be fully aware of their options and fully aware of the judging criteria.
