The Criteria Hierarchy Judges Are Told to Apply
The scoring criteria are ranked rather than weighted equally. Judges are instructed to look first at effective striking and effective grappling, and only to consider effective aggressiveness and control of the fighting area when the first category does not separate the fighters. That ordering matters more than it appears to, because it means aggression and cage control are tiebreakers rather than currencies. A fighter who spends a round pressing forward and holding an opponent against the fence has not, under the criteria as written, earned the round on that basis alone.
Both categories are defined around outcome rather than activity. Striking is meant to be judged on impact, not on the number of punches thrown or technically landed. Grappling is meant to be judged on successful attempts at meaningful positions and submissions, not on time spent in a position that produces nothing. In principle this is right, since it asks what the work accomplished rather than how much of it happened. In practice it hands each judge a subjective definition of accomplishment and asks three people to apply it in real time.
