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Unanimous decision

Winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports

A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighter won the match.

In boxing, each of the three judges keeps score (round by round) of which fighter they feel is winning (and losing). This only includes landed blows to the head or the body. In MMA, judges look for different criteria such as kicks, take-downs, punches, knees, elbows, cage control, submission attempts, and aggression. A decision is not required to be unanimous for a boxer or mixed martial artist to be given a victory. In the modern era of Olympic boxing, UD is utilized more often than other outcomes, including stoppages. Unanimous decision should not be confused with a majority decision or split decision.

History

In the early days of combat fighting, winners were determined only when one party was unable to continue the fight. The National Sporting Club started to promote professional glove fighting. It introduced the use of officials and their capacity to declare the winner of a fight. Officials began using a scoring system to determine the winner of the fight, and this made unanimous decisions a logical outcome.

Any combat sports decision has the potential to be overturned. Some reasons for this may include counting errors, misdeclaration, and retroactive disqualification due to rule violations. One notable case of a unanimous decision being overturned is a 1983 fight between Luis Resto and Billy Collins Jr, where Resto won the fight, but was later revealed to have fought with tampered gloves. The discovery of the tampered gloves turned the Unanimous Decision into a no contest.

Notable unanimous decisions

May 2, 2015	Floyd Mayweather Jr	Manny Pacquiao	Retained WBA (Unified), WBC, and The Ring welterweight titles;

Controversial unanimous decisions

Date	Winner	Opponent	Notes
April 10, 2010	B.J. Penn	Frankie Edgar	last=MacDonald	first=James	title=The 10 Most Controversial Judging Decisions in UFC History	url=https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2072171-the-10-most-controversial-judging-decisions-in-ufc-history	access-date=2021-05-01	website=Bleacher Report	language=en}}
February 4, 2012	Carlos Condit	Nick Diaz	Won the interim UFC Welterweight Championship.
July 2, 2017	Jeff Horn	Manny Pacquiao	Lost WBO welterweight title
February 12, 2023	Islam Makhachev	Alexander Volkanovski	Retained UFC lightweight Championship.
February 8, 2020	Jon Jones	Dominick Reyes	Defended the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.

Notable athletes

Boxing

Floyd Mayweather Jr. – 20 wins by UD
Muhammad Ali – 18 wins by UD
Manny Pacquiao – 18 wins by UD
Joe Louis – 9 wins by UD

MMA

Jon Jones – 9 wins by UD
Anderson Silva – 9 wins by UD
Georges St-Pierre – 10 wins by UD
Kamaru Usman – 9 wins by UD

References

"Decision - BoxRec".
"Unified Rules - Learn the Rules of MMA {{!}} C.O.M.M.A.N.D.".
Nelson, Murry. (2005). "Sports History as a Vehicle for Social and Cultural Understanding in American History". The Social Studies.
Riess, Steven A.. (January 2014). "Major problems in American sport history : documents and essays".
MacDonald, James. "The 10 Most Controversial Judging Decisions in UFC History".
[https://web.archive.org/web/20230212061802/https://verdictmma.com/event/makhachev-vs-volkanovski/fight/islam-makhachev-vs-alex-volkanovski Verdict MMA]

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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