Alexander Volkov saw his fight end with yet another split-decision at UFC 321 against Jailton Almeida, but fortunately, this time, it was in his favor. However, the judges’ way of scoring the Brazilian’s dominant top control in comparison to Volkov’s significant striking was a letdown for a lot of people. Henry Cejudo even brought up another fight where he did not agree with the judges’ scorecard, which has prompted him to support Dana White regarding some changes.

Mackenzie Dern finally realized her UFC dream and became a champion at UFC 321 after beating Virna Jandiroba for a second time. She earned a unanimous decision win, but the fight was a close affair. However, one of the judges scored the fight heavily in Dern’s favor, and that has left Henry Cejudo disappointed, and he wants technology to solve this issue.

Henry Cejudo backs Dana White to introduce AI judges

“The reality is, this is what we do need. This is something that I will agree with Dana White. Okay, we do need AI judging, bro. Like straight up, dude,” said Henry Cejudo on the Pound 4 Pound podcast to co-host Kamaru Usman. ‘Triple C’ believes that bringing in the use of technology will bring order to MMA and give us accurate results and numbers. If we think about it, Cejudo may not be wrong because many other sports make effective use of technology. According to the needs of the hour, Dana White and Co. may just benefit from the use of AI judges, but the former double champion claims it needs to start from the regional promotions to test its effectiveness.

“AI judging would really make the biggest difference… With technology nowadays, bro, it’ll be able to get down to the number a little bit [accurately], and it would only get better,” Henry Cejduo added. “I believe regional MMA companies, if they actually have the ability to actually use AI to do the judging, bro, I think that’s the route to go… This could probably kick off. Get it into the UFC so we could have a lot more fair judging, bro.”

On the other hand, Kamaru Usman pushed back against Henry Cejudo’s calls for AI use. Why? Well, he explained that ‘computers’ cannot determine a fighter’s condition in the way a human judge can. “Unless you put an impact chip or something on someone where you see their brain is rocked after getting hit with a shot, I don’t think we can equate that,” he responded. Well, Usman may not agree with Cejudo, but a Hall of Fame legend does. And he wants that implemented not just in the judging process, but in the ranking process as well.

Another UFC legend had also called for AI in MMA

Much like judging, rankings also create massive debates in the fight community. Just a few months ago, Reinier de Ridder made an 8-place rise in the middleweight rankings after his win over Robert Whittaker. But in his next fight at UFC Vancouver, where he took on someone who was ranked lower than him, Brendan Allen, on short notice, he gave up at the end of the fourth round after getting dominated. This left fans scratching their heads, and his ranking jump came into question. Was it biased? This certainly calls for AI, which Michael Bisping has been calling for even before the de Ridder situation.

“First of all, AI. That is going to be implemented in the ranking system. We’ve seen Dana White [talk] about this for quite some time. He’s often had some issues, and there’s been some crazy rankings, to be honest,” Michael Bisping said earlier this year. “Having an AI ranking system that is going to remove all of the bias from it. It’s as simple as that, right? It’s that easy, ok? And they’ve used AI judges before. I think it was with Tyson Fury [vs Usyk] for Saudi Arabia. The AI judge agreed with the human judge, okay? So, essentially, they got it correct.”

Well, there’s always one controversy or another in almost every UFC event, and in most cases, judging has been the primary issue, besides refereeing errors. Do you believe it will be good for the sport to adopt the use of AI in judging? Let us know in the comments down below.