7 Takeaways From UFC 213

Let me preface this by saying I scored the fight 29-28 for Alistair Overeem. That's an important distinction as we open this debate.

Overeem edged a nondescript first round, and clearly won the second, without doing a huge amount of damage. Fabricio Werdum was able to turn it around in the third round, rocking Overeem with a big knee, taking him down and dominating the entire round.

Who did the most damage in the fight? Werdum. Who had the longest periods of effective control in the fight? Werdum aswell. So how did Alistair Overeem win the fight?

Two reasons. The Unified Rules of MMA are no longer unified. Coming in on 1 January this year, some commissions haven't adopted them. The Nevada State Athletic Commission haven't over six months later, and thus we were under old rules at the weekend.

The 10-point must system is another bug bear for many. Under the new rules, judges are instructed to be more liberal with 10-8 rounds. Werdum's third would have clearly been a 10-8 under new rules, but as such, only one judge scored it that way, scoring the fight a 28-28 draw.

The crowd booed the decision, but in all honesty, the judges did what they had to do under the current system of deciding fights. Overeem was two rounds up going into the third, so Werdum needed a finish to win, or a destructive round to avoid defeat.

The way we score fights is fundamentally flawed. This fight was the latest to expose it.