Joe Rogan slams UFC Judges: “They need to fire everyone”

On Wednesday 18th December, Max Holloway joined the JRE club by taking a seat on Joe Rogan’s podcast. The former featherweight champion reflected on his UFC 245 loss to Alexander Volkanovski and the hot topic of UFC judge’s credibility was quickly brought into question.

On Saturday 14th December at the T-Mobile arena, “Blessed” embarked on his fifth title defence against the No 1 ranked featherweight contender, Alexander Volkanovski. Whilst Holloway endured the repeated attack of his opponent’s leg kicks, the champion believed he delivered more damage and effective strikes. As a result, he was taken back by the final ruling, a unanimous decision victory in favour of his Australian rival.

“When I was in there, in my mind, I thought I won. When you think about it, I thought I was landing more damaging shots to the head and body,” Holloway said as he reflected on his performance during the podcast. “I know leg kicks he was landing here and there, but I didn’t think it was too much ’til after I saw whatever happened.

“But at the end of the day, it’s what I said, my legs felt fine. I went to the after-party and danced. If I put it this way, out of all of my title fights, this is the least damage I took in a title fight, and I lost my damn belt,” laughed the Hawaiian.

“It’s a game and he outpointed me in the game, so good for him.”

Joe Rogan understood Holloway’s point and highlighted the limitations of the current scoring system:

“I think the system sucks. The 10-point must system. It’s boxing’s system, it’s not our system. We shouldn’t have that system. We should have a more comprehensive system that recognizes everything.”

The 10-point must system is the standard system for scoring a UFC bout. 10 points must be awarded to the winner of each round, and 9 points or less to the loser of each round. In rare instances, an even round will be scored at 10-10.

Rogan thinks a lot of the system’s shortcomings are exacerbated by the UFC judge’s lack of experience.

“I think there’s a real problem with judges not even being martial artists. That’s a giant problem,” he stated.

“The judges should at least have some martial arts experience, and I know there’s a bunch of them that have never even f*cking trained, they just took some courses.

“It’s horrible. It’s horrible, and they don’t do anything about it. There’s people out there that have put in bad decision after bad decision, and then you see them still being listed as judges, and you’re like ‘this is crazy’. I want to ask them questions, I want to show them a video…”

Holloway interrupted as he began to laugh, reminiscing about his last fight press conference when he heard Rogan saying,

“Who. Is. Judging. This.  We need to fire everyone.”

“They do need to fire everyone,” Joe Rogan continued. “You know what they need to do man, they should hire ex-fighters.”

“It’s like passing a written test but never having driven a car. It’s like ‘here’s a driving license’ but you don’t know how to f*cking hit the gas, you don’t know how much brake you should apply.

“When you see some of these people that are judging, you know they’ve never done anything. They don’t have any idea of what’s going on, they just have a cursory understanding of fighting, and that’s not acceptable for the highest level of the game.”

Do you agree that the UFC needs to reconsider their points scoring system and judges? Sound off in the comments below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2FjjLAS6E