Shut up Teddy Atlas. 4-1 Jones is bullshit. 3-2 either way is perfectly legit. Reyes won the first two and Jones won the last two. Round 3 was a close, swing round. It ebbed and flowed.
I think you summarized it well there...I was thinking about it, and realized that I could have more easily accepted two judges giving Jones 48-47 if the third judge gave Reyes 49-46.
Then you'd get some impression that there was some justice among the judges.
If you look at three of the fights earlier that night, you see how bad some of the judging was:
Andre Ewell def. Jonathan Martinez [judges gave Ewell
2829, 2928, 3027, which meant that one judge gave Ewell 1 of 3 rounds, another judge gave him 2 of 3 rounds, and the final judge gave him all 3 of 3 rounds, LOL...as if all three judges were watching a completely different fight!]
Lauren Murphy def. Andrea Lee [judges gave Murphy
2829, 2928, 3027, yet again a result in the same format is the one directly above, which means that one judge gave Murphy 1 of 3 rounds, another judge gave her 2 of 3 rounds, and the final judge gave her all 3 of 3 rounds, LOL...where is the consistency in judging here??]
Trevin Giles def. James Krause [judges gave Giles a split decision victory in this one, with
2829, 2928, 2928 for Giles, which meant one judge gave him 1 of 3 rounds, and both other judges gave him 2 of 3 rounds...I would have given Krause round one and Giles round two, making them go in to round three 19-19, and then scored round three a draw! I don't know if that would have made the fight a 28-28 draw, because I don't know if draws are given scores. If I absolutely had to pick a winner, I would have gone with Giles...so I can accept this outcome, but I wish judges were more willing to score fights draws. No one is going to be upset with a judge awarding two fighters a draw if the fight is very close].
Derrick Lewis def. Ilir Latifi [all three judges gave Derrick Lewis
2928, 2928, 2928. Lewis would have won the third round for sure, but I'm not sure which of the first two rounds were given to Lewis...man, is Lewis one scary N when he goes on a flurry/rampage of punches! Powerful dude! I really don't know why Lewis should have been awarded either of the first two rounds though...I feel like he was just given one of those rounds due to name favouritism]
And then we have the Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes decision...I could have handled a straight up 48-47 Jones, and a split decision, with two judges giving Jones 48-47, and the final judge giving Reyes 48-47 - or even better, the third judge giving Reyes 49-46.
That would have shown everyone that the fight was close, but that there was at least one "rogue" judge, who felt that Reyes won - and not exactly closely at that!
Or even GSP vs. Hendricks style, with one dissenting judge giving Reyes 48-47, the same way that one gave that to Hendricks, which allowed GSP to squeak out a decision victory, but only narrowly.
The awarding of 49-46 for Jones is what annoys me here.
tl;dr
My question is:
Are the judges who score these fights even trained officials, or are they just fight fans? After all, it's not like UFCs come to Houston, Texas every weekend...so how do they pick the judges for each state? Are they just fight fans with vague ties to MMA, or are they more qualified than that?
I think one of the commentators was saying that they just pick boxing commissioners to judge UFC fights. If so, that might make sense why the judging is a bit off, because boxing judges wouldn't know how to judge other aspects of fighting, that we see in MMA.
I've seen far worse decisions happen [including this very night], but it would have been cool if Reyes had the upset victory.
As for Jones...someone wrote in this thread that he isn't a big PPV draw. Why would that be? Dude wins every fight he's in, lol. He doesn't bring the UFC money? Why would that be?
