‘The Judges Were Wrong’: Matt Brown Unhappy Advocates Open Scoring System In MMA

MMA judging is one of the hot topics making rounds in the combat circle and it has just flared up following Matt Brown’s controversial split decision loss at the UFC Colombus event.

Brown (23-19, 15 KOs) was left in disarray after he ended up on the wrong side of a split decision following a thrilling three-round battle with Bryan Barberena this past Saturday. The fight went back and forth and could have gone in favor of any one of the competitors but it was Barberena who left the arena with a victory.

Following the fight, ‘The Immortal’ raised serious reservations regarding UFC’s judging system and believed that he had done enough to win.

Brown let his heart out in an appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, expressing his disappointment.

“I think my feelings are pretty obvious,” Brown told Helwani. “I definitely thought I won. I think the common consensus was that I won, and then these judges they just — what are we gonna do, right?”

The third round proved to be a deciding factor as the judges had one round for each fighter before that. But it was Barberena who closed the show by earning a pair of 10-9s to secure the victory on the night.

Brown believes that he had an upper hand for the most part of the fight and should have been awarded the win. But it’s not the first time ‘The Immortal’ has been involved in a fight where the decision went against him.

His unanimous decision loss to Carlos Condit in January 2021 is one of the pages of the same story. Brown feels like he has been robbed on both occasions and it’s all due to poor cage-side judging.

“I think there’s a lot broken with the entire scoring system altogether,” Brown said. “I’ve watched my fight a few times. That’s just one example. I’ve had a couple of other fights that I’m very sure that I won a decision, but they gave it to the other guy. I don’t know exactly what they’re scoring. I’ve been in this sport for 20 years, I’ve been in the UFC 14 years now, I don’t know exactly what they’re scoring.”

The veteran fighter also suggested that MMA should have an open scoring system where fighters should know where they stand after the end of each round.

“It’s kind of ridiculous. In any other sport you get to see the score, right? Other than boxing, I guess, not necessarily combat sports, but in wrestling or if you’re playing football and it’s the fourth quarter, you know that you’re down by a touchdown, you’ve got to go for it. You’ve got to throw the Hail Mary.”

When asked if his corner could have been more vigilant in providing the proper read of the winning fighter, Brown stood up for his team and blamed the judges for the consequence.

“My corner told me I was up two rounds,” Brown said. “[I’m not mad at them] – they were right. The judges were wrong, not my corner.”