UFC middleweight shares hilarious take on controversial judge Doug Crosby

A general view of the Octagon prior to the start of the UFC 250 event at UFC APEX on June 06, 2020 (Image: Getty)
A general view of the Octagon prior to the start of the UFC 250 event at UFC APEX on June 06, 2020 (Image: Getty)

MMA judge Doug Crosby has become renowned for his questionable scoring of fights. Crosby's capabilities as a judge came under heavy scrutiny most recently at UFC 282, when he awarded Paddy Pimblett rounds one and two in his controversial win against Jared Gordon.

It looks like UFC middleweight Derek Brunson has had enough of the controversial judge. In a recent tweet, the No. 5-ranked middleweight suggested that Crosby should be relieved of his judging duties:

"FREE Judge Douglas Crosby… of his damn job [laughing emojis]"

Brunson is far from the only one in the MMA community who is concerned with the MMA judge.

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In the wake of his UFC 282 controversial scorecard, Dominance MMA CEO Ali Abdelaziz, who represents many high-profile fighters like Kamaru Usman and Justin Gaethje, tweeted that he was going to recommend every MMA promotion to boycott Crosby:

"I’m going to ask every commission out there not to have Douglas Crosby as judge, and I would like the support of all promotions these guy are ruining people life and ruining the sport enough is enough we have to stand together on this topic."

According to MMADecisions.com, the controversial figure has been judging UFC fights all the way since UFC 28 in 2000.

He has been a part of numerous controversial decisions, including the high-profile lightweight title fight between B.J. Penn and Frankie Edgar at UFC 112. Doug Crosby gave all five rounds to 'The Answer', while the other two judges saw the fight as a closer affair.


Doug Crosby responds to judging criticisms

In a recent appearance on the You're Welcome podcast with UFC legend Chael Sonnen, Doug Crosby reponed to questions on his credibility as a judge, saying that MMA is still a young sport and mistakes are unavoidable:

"We are in the infancy of MMA… it’s twenty, twenty-five years, and that’s a blink of an eye when you think of the time other sports have had to develop a grammar and to develop a system that rewards successful achievements. We are working towards that, but other sports older than MMA by a hundred years still have controversies in scoring. "

The judge went a step further and added that errors might in fact help in the development of the sport:

"Maybe that’s unavoidable. Maybe the controversies are what moves the sport forward. Imperfection makes things stronger sometimes, like alloyed metals.”

Following the judging controversy, Doug Crosby is currently under review by the Mohegan Athletic Department. The action focuses on the 50-45 scorecard he turned in for the Bellator fight between Raufeon Stots and Danny Sabetello.

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