As the year is wrapping up, I am sitting here reflecting on all these controversial decisions we witnessed over the year. We keep seeing one judge score a fight one way, only to see another judge come to a diametrically different conclusion! How could this be? I think that the whole system needs to be improved.

We are using a system that was created for boxing, but MMA is a sport that involves a lot more variables. But let’s leave that for another day. How about we start with much more simple procedures? So let me ask a question: What are the requirements these judges have to fulfill in order to sit ringside and judge these hard-working athletes? Specifically, I am wondering about the most basic requirement of all. Are these judges required to do eye tests?

Obviously, if an individual doesn’t have good eyesight, it will be very difficult to judge a fight correctly, right? I have a feeling they are not put through these exams.

How about a psychological test to understand if said individual is up to correctly scoring a fight when the crowd is going nuts, the fight is going all over the place, and there is blood spattering all around. Is this individual up to this task? Not everyone is capable of doing this! Anyone being in that pressure-cooking environment better be required to prove he is up to it.

How about toxicological and sobriety tests? Wouldn’t it be fair that we ensure that said judge is clear-minded and not under the influence of anything, when he is judging results that have such a large effect on peoples lives and careers? I would go farther and require referees to submit to this requirement, too. It’s only right. Lives depend on these guys’ split-second decisions.

How about motivated reasoning screening? It’s is a scientific and overlooked fact that a human being has great difficulty correctly judging anything with which he has an emotional involvement. Are judges requested to fill out a questionnaire asking if they have any kind of relationship to any one of the fighters in the match they are judging? I doubt it.

These fighters dedicate a lifetime to turn themselves into professional fighters. It takes hours of training, day after day, year after year – so much hard work and sacrifice, and with such an uncertain outcome. The fighters deserve, and we all deserve, to know who is judging them, to be sure that said individual is 100 percent up to the task in the same way that the fighters are required to prove that they are up to the task and able to get in there and perform.

It’s obvious that there is much improvement needed in many areas regarding MMA. We must learn to discuss these things as a community. We must include in this discussion the people that know most about the sport: the fighters and the coaches. They must be heard.

The questions above are a start – an important start. They should be answered for a better MMA. The fighters and all the other hard-working individuals in this sport deserve to know that the people judging them are held to the same standards they are.

Alex Davis is a lifelong practitioner of martial arts and a former Brazilian judo champion. A founding member of American Top Team, Davis currently oversees the careers of a number of prominent Brazilian fighters, including Edson Barboza, Antonio Carlos Junior, Rousimar Palhares, Thiago “Marreta” Santos, Antonio Silva and Thiago Tavares, among others. Davis is a regular contributor to MMAjunkie, sharing his current views on the sport built through his perspectives that date back to the Brazilian roots of modern MMA.