There have undoubtedly been thousands and thousands of articles and posts on the Internet regarding the 10-point must system and how it should be abolished from combat sports, MMA in particular. Partly, because it has produced so many questionable decisions, perhaps mostly because it was developed with the sport of boxing in mind — most MMA fans like to distance themselves from the cousin sport.
However, introducing a more complicated scoring system for judges who can’t seem to utilize the 10-point must system properly would most definitely produce more variability and more chance for corruption.
Take the typical 3-round UFC fight for example, where there are no “obvious” 10-8 rounds, no even rounds and no point deductions. Without caring about the round-by-round particulars, each card can be scored 4 different ways (30-27,27-30,29-28,28-29). Looking at that and other popular proposed scenarios.
| Scoring Method | Potential Totals Per Card |
| 10-pt must (as is) | 4 |
| 10-pt must w/ 10-10 rounds | 8 |
| 10-pt must w/ half-points | 8 |
| 10-pt must w/ half-points & 8.5 rounds | 14 |
| Rounds vary from 10-9 to 10-5 (no half points) | 26 |
| Rounds vary from 10-9 to 10-0 (no half points) | 56 |
[#1 W145] 
[#5 FW] 
[#6 FW] 
[#1 W105] 
[#16 W105] 
