Dana White opposes open scoring: It leads to ‘bad third rounds’ and ruins ‘anticipation’
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Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
While there’s been trial runs and increased calls for open scoring in mixed martial arts, one of the most powerful people in the sport is completely against it. UFC President Dana White brought up one of the old arguments against it, saying it could lead to boring rounds, with fighters trying to coast.
“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 said on an ESPN+ virtual Q&A (transcript by MMA Junkie). “If you already know you’ve got two rounds in the bag, guarantee if you saw your score up there, all (you) have to do is stay away from this guy for the next five minutes. That makes for a lot of bad third rounds.”