UFC president Dana White shares his thoughts on open scoring in MMA

UFC president Dana White has given his thoughts on the constant debate surrounding the potential introduction of open scoring in mixed martial arts.

The idea behind open scoring is that everyone would be well aware of how the judges are scoring the fight as the contest goes on, whether it be a three round affair or a five round main event.

Many have campaigned for this to be introduced in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but Dana White has been pretty clear in his reasons for not wanting it to happen.

“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 with ESPN+ subscribers and Invicta color commentator Laura Sanko (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.

“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 added. “If you already know you’ve got two rounds in the bag, guarantee if you saw your score up there, all I have to do is stay away from this guy for the next five minutes. That makes for a lot of bad third rounds.

“Its never going to be perfect,” White concluded. “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 Dana White’s assessment of open scoring? Let us know in the comments!