UFC
TUF 12 FINALE RESULTS: Judges rob Nam Phan of UFC debut victory as Leonard Garcia takes split decision
Dec 5, 2010 - 11:05:27 AM TUF 12 FINALE RESULTS: Judges rob Nam Phan of UFC debut victory as Leonard Garcia takes split decision

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

It took until one of the final events of the year, but the "Robbery of the Year" should be all but locked up for the split decision victory handed to Leonard Garcia over Nam Phan on Saturday night at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale.

Despite being out-struck in every round, and battered and bruised with punches to the body and head by an efficient and effective Nam Phan, Garcia earned a 29-28 scorecard from two of the bout's judges and took his third split decision win in his last seven fights.

The crowd heavily booed the decision, as it seemed to be a clear win for Phan. Garcia even expressed disbelief, saying he would have scored it for Phan and trying to deflect the reaction as he doesn't make the decisions.

Garcia is now 3-3-1 over his last seven fights, with five of those fights being split decisions. Arguably, he should be 0-7 in that stretch, and this most recent win highlights the need for accountability in MMA judging. Joe Rogan went on a rant during the next bout on Spike TV about judging in MMA, and most will agree with his opinion that incompetent judges should be held accountable for their decisions.

For Phan, his UFC debut was unjustly spoiled, as he had spent three rounds picking Garcia apart and avoiding much of Garcia's offense. Until suffering a cut in the third round, he was fresh throughout the fight. He even nearly finished Garcia in the second round. But unfortunately, he became just the latest in a string of fighters dropping decisions to Garcia for inexplicable reasons.

Penick's Analysis: This was simply a shocking and unjustifiable decision from the judges. Garcia's swinging and wild windmill punches, the majority of which fail to hit anything, apparently captivate the judges for some reason, and he gets credit for them when he's not actually landing or doing any damage. Only one judge got this fight correctly for Phan, and he had it a clean sweep. This was just an unacceptable result, and it just proves the fact that it's not the ten point must system or the current judging criteria that needs an update, it's the judges themselves. There is seemingly no accountability for the scorecards handed in by many of these boxing judges that are also covering MMA fights, and no amount of tweaking to the system is going to change the judges themselves. They have the criteria and the system to implement, they just can't seem to do it correctly. And this isn't to hold anything against Garcia - he's just going out there and fighting the only way he knows how at this point - it's just wrong that he won this fight. It's wrong that he beat Chan Sung Jung in April. It's wrong that one judge gave him the bout against Mark Hominick (in that case thankfully two judges got it right). He simply shouldn't have been given two rounds in any of those fights by any of the judges. But he did, and he'll keep a roster spot in the UFC for the time being.