When Joe Rogan, Ultimate Fighting Championship event announcer and mixed-martial arts participant, was asked at the UFC Fan Expo what he thought about the judging at UFC events, this is what he had to say:

“In my personal opinion I think that [judges] need to have training and should have competed at some point in martial arts, and I think for sure [judges] have to train in grappling. I don’t think anybody can understand what’s truly happening on the ground if they don’t have any knowledge of grappling.

“A lot of these people, although they are judges, they are not even fans of the sport. I’ve talked about this so many times and I think a lot of [fans] could do a way better job of judging…. I read on forums … people that have normal jobs who have a very detailed analysis of why they think each person won each round. I’m like: ‘This guy should be a judge. This is someone who should be doing this.’ Not these people that have been grandfathered into the system because they were judges in boxing and they got a better job judging MMA now, so they have to learn what a triangle choke is, what an arm bar is.

“It’s silly. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the fact of why this sport is growing so quickly and the judging hasn’t caught up.