Scoring Guida-Sanchez

June 22, 2009

One of the most eventful UFC cards of the year took place on free television Saturday night as the Ultimate Fighter Finale show for season 9 produced exciting fight after exciting fight, as evidenced by the fact that Dana White gave out $25,000 Fight of the Night awards to six different fighters.

One of the more controversial decisions came in the main event as Clay Guida matched up with Diego Sanchez with a lot at stake. The winner most likely either gets, or is one fight away, from a lightweight title shot.

Sanchez wound up pulling out a split decision, winning 29-27 and 29-28 on two judges scorecards and losing 29-28 on the third. Opinions seem to be all over the place on how the fight should be scored. I seem to be in the minority since I had it 29-28 Guida and here’s why:

Sanchez clearly won the first round with a tremendous barage early in the round that badly hurt Guida and a mean high kick to the face that put Guida down. The question isn’t who won the round, but should it be a 10-8 round? I’m of the opinion that you don’t give out 10-8 rounds that often and only do it under the most dominant of situations. Not only did Guida regain his composure in the round, but he also spent a portion of the round controlling Sanchez on the ground. To earn a 10-9 decision from me, you need to dominate a round from the first second to the fifth minute, and I didn’t think it was enough to give Sanchez a 10-9.

Round 2 saw Guida switch from the standup and take down Sanchez and spend the entire round on top of Sanchez. While he struggled to consistently do damage from that position, he still hit Sanchez with plenty of shots to the face and bloodied his nose despite taking a bunch of elbows to the head. The takedown, position control and enough damage from strikes on Sanchez’s noggin gives Guida round 2.

Round 3 went down to the wire as not much happened early on. Nobody took the advantage in the standup and when it eventually went to the ground, Guida found himself on top. Very close round, I have no problem with calling it a 10-10 draw, but I thought Guida had just enough of an advantage on the ground to earn the round and get the 29-28 victory.

Posted in Fights