Igår var ”The Chael Sonnen podcast” igång med ytterligare ett avsnitt. En av gästerna var MMA-domaren Douglas Crosby som berättade varför han tror att domare i dagsläget inte behöver redogöra för varför de bedömt matcher på ett visst sätt.
Douglas Crosby har bedömt UFC-fighter sedan år 2000 och har under den tiden hunnit samla på sig erfarenhet från drygt 200 stora matcher som gått tiden ut. Det var därför intressant att höra vad han tycker om att domare knappt står under någon som helst granskning utan i vissa fall får fortsatt förtroende trots huvudlösa poängkort. ”Do I think judges should be accountable? Yeah. Of course. But in every other instance, judges are not only accountable by name, but they also give opinions on why they judge things the way they did. It’s those opinions that make the machine move everybody forward. If the judge says, ‘This is what I think and this is why I think it and this is why I made the decision,’ which is what the Supreme Court does and what other court judges do, that allows everyone to analyze and critique that judges’ reasoning. That’s the way to me that everyone moves forward and gets better. But there’s no system in place to do that, and I don’t know if one is ever going to exist”, säger Crosby till Chael Sonnen under en intervju i hans podcast.
Crosby fortsätter med att säga att förändring inte kommer ske förrän antingen någon vill investera pengar i att domare behöver förklara sig eller att fansen tar ett starkare ställningstagande: ”If there’s no way to make money at it, no one is going to do it. There’s no reason to do it because there’s no way to make money at it. I don’t know if accountability would make people happy to be honest with you. I don’t know if it would give them any greater satisfaction. I think the people who are interested in the sport will be happy with the decision even if they don’t personally agree with it.
There’s a very small percentage of people that carry around this portfolio of grievances where every decision they don’t agree with is a call to arms and an opportunity to get on the Internet. That’s their right. They’re welcome to do it, but I think the overwhelming majority of people who are interested in MMA watch the fights, enjoy the fights and get on with their lives whether they agree with the decision or not. I don’t know if there’s that much of a call for it. I think if there was that much of a call for it, somebody would have already figured out how to make money at it, and somebody would have monetized it. Nobody has”.
”Domarna kommer att utvecklas tillsammans med sporten”
Han ser inte att domare kommer att hållas ansvariga i större utsträckning inom den närmsta framtiden, men det betyder inte att han är emot det då han hävdar att alla faktorer inom MMA behöver utvecklas i samma takt som själva sporten gör: ”Mixed martial arts is literally the blink in the eye on the timeline compared to just about every other sport in existence. “I think a lot of the things having to do with the language of how that sport is appreciated are still being formulated now. It’s a little early in any appraisal of MMA to say there are any absolutes yet. There’s too much to evolve and develop as it grows. That’s the same thing with the judging. I think the judging continues to evolve and develop”.
