They also should understand the fighters that they are judging and should be forced to review their previous fights to understand what they are doing. This shortcoming was clearly evidenced by Cecil Peoples in the Shogun/Machida fight. I’m not even going into whether that was a bad decision or not, my point is People’s reasoning for why he scored Machida more favourably was clearly misguided.

I don’t have the links to the articles but Peoples did 2 interviews where he said the following:

1. Machida was moving backwards and therefore forcing Shogun to come forward. This was good ring generalship by Machida.
2. Shogun was unable to take Machida down in the clinch and therefore he doesn’t get any points for not doing what he was trying to do. Machida on the other hand does score points for defending the takedown because that is considered successful grappling.

Regarding point (1). If Peoples understood both fighter’s styles he would know that Machida’s style always consists of moving backwards and Shogun’s style always consists of moving forward. He somehow was unaware of this and then viewed Machida’s backward style as “good cage generalship”.
Regarding point (2). I’m not saying Shogun should get a lot of value for being unsuccessful in what he was trying to do but to me at least he was on the offensive and did have Machida in a defensive position and in a position where he did not want to be. Giving Machida a points edge for these cageside clinches seems to illustrate a real lack of knowledge about what is worth what.

In addition to a Judges version of COMMAND, judges should also be required to know the styles of all the fighters they will be judging and therefore understand things like Shogun moving forward isn’t a result of chasing Machida, it’s simply his style. Similarly if a guy like Big Nog or Palhares or other skilled BJJ guy pulls guard it’s not being taken down, it’s taking the other fighter into “his own area of expertise” and points should be given to a fighter like Nog or Palhares in this example.

Why isn’t there a judging course complete with videos and a BJM type guy leading it and explaining what counts for what and why. If they had that, there would still be “open to interpretation” moves but there would certainly be more consistency than what now exists.

I would recommend creating a national MMA athletic commission. They would then update the rules and be in charge of training all refs and judges.