Beat him silly, wow! Course, they called it a draw, Fitch was robbed!

An argument could easily be made that BJ won one of the first two rounds. He took Fitch down and got his back almost getting a rear choke twice. I would say BJ won one of those two rounds, and one of them was a draw because it was too close. The third round was clearly dominated by Fitch. The question is, did the judges give Fitch a 10-8 round in the third? Apparently at least one judge did. If you don't give Fitch a 10-8 round, or you give BJ the first two rounds, it's easy to come up with a draw. It's always tough to watch a guy dominate the end of the fight and not win. And BJ didn't really do much in that last round to get out from the bottom which was disappointing considering he stood up from every other take down.

To me it was clearly 29/28 Fitch.

I didn't catch the fight live, as the local Indian casino bar where we watch the fights was closed for remodeling, and no one else in town was showing it so we just went to dinner. Just finished watching the fight just now. I scored it 29/28 for Fitch, with a 10/10 second round and a 10/8 third round. Not too upset by the draw as the second round was REALLY close and could have gone either way. Don't have a problem with the judges seeing that round for Penn as he had the most dominant position during that round.

It was a fun little fight and every bit the strategic chess match I expected.

Brian.

I thought the 10-point "must" system meant that one of the fighters must win the round?

The 28/28 judges had the card as follows:

10/9, 10/9 Penn
10/8 Fitch

So Penn won two close rounds and Fitch won big in round 3- draw.

The hard part is watching Fitch finish strong and not getting the win. Such is life in the hands of the judges.

That's an old wives tale perpetrated by the UFC and Marc Ratner specificly. The Unified Rules clearly allow for 10/10 rounds in the advent that A)There is no clear offense by either fighter (think the first two rounds of Mir vs. Cro Cop) or B) that the offense from each fighter is so close that it is impossible to discern a clear winner.

The UFC (and specificly Marc Ratner's) position on the matter is that the judges are paid to descide a winner. They are of the opinion that 10-10 rounds are for slackers and that anyone can score a 10-10 round. They're afraid that in any fight where the action is anything near close, fights would be scored 30/30 or 50/50. Obviously, that line of reasoning is a bit silly.

Brian.