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Every UFC fight that goes the distance is scored by three judges, each marking every round on its own under the 10-point must system. The winner of a round gets 10 points and the loser 9 or fewer. At the end, each judge adds up their card, and the fighter ahead on at least two of the three cards wins. A knockout, technical knockout, submission or disqualification ends the fight earlier and the scorecards never come into it.

The framework is the Unified Rules of MMA, maintained by the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC). UFC states that all of its bouts are governed with full adherence to those rules, which set five-minute rounds with one minute's rest and a maximum of five rounds, or 25 minutes of fighting. Regular UFC bouts are scheduled for three rounds, while title fights and main events go five.

Two consequences follow straight away. Judges never score the fight as a whole, so a fighter who edges two close rounds beats one who wins a single round by a mile, unless that big round is scored 10-8. And the judges score independently, so three competent officials can see the same close round three different ways.

Under the ABC's current judging guidance, damage is the most important thing in a round. The ABC's MMA rules committee issued a scoring clarification in July 2025, adopted at the ABC's annual conference that August, which defines damage as legal techniques whose results lessen an opponent's capacity or will to compete. It lists what that looks like:

• Knockdowns caused by legal strikes
• Heavy or concussive legal strikes to vital targets
• Legal strikes that force the opponent to retreat, readjust or switch to pure defence
• Striking or grappling that causes visible injury: swelling, haematomas, cuts or bruising
• Submission attempts that hyperextend a joint or cause rotational damage
• Chokes that cause visible distress

The document also gives immediate damage priority over cumulative damage within a round. In practice, a clean knockdown in the final minute can outweigh three minutes of steady jabbing, because the knockdown came closer to ending the fight.

The committee behind it is full of people who work UFC events. Its members include referees Herb Dean and Marc Goddard and judges Sal D'Amato and Derek Cleary, names that appear on UFC scorecards almost every week.

Successful striking and successful grappling carry equal weight, and both are judged by their result rather than their volume. Successful striking means legal strikes that cause damage. Successful grappling means takedowns, reversals, submission attempts and advantageous positions that prove productive through the damage they lead to.

That is why a takedown on its own is not a scoring event in the way a knockdown is in boxing. The guidance states that merely holding a dominant position does not count as dominance. A fighter who spends four minutes on top without landing meaningful strikes or threatening submissions has given the judges very little to reward.

Only when a judge "absolutely cannot determine even a marginal advantage" in striking and grappling do the tie-breakers come in: aggressiveness, meaning consistent offensive effort, or fighting area control, meaning who dictates the pace, place and position of the fight. The 2025 wording lets the judge use whichever of those two had the bigger effect on the round, instead of working through them in a fixed order as the older Plan A, B and C system did.

Defence is not scored at all. The ABC text says defence allows a fighter to continue in the fight and only offensive actions are scored. Slipping punches for five minutes earns nothing unless it creates offence of your own.

10-9 is the standard score for a won round: one fighter's offensive actions were greater in degree and effectiveness than the other's. Only if the judge genuinely cannot separate them on that basis can aggressiveness or fighting area control decide it.

10-8 now requires significant damage. Under the 2025 guidance, significant damage is enough on its own; cumulative damage that drains a fighter's energy, confidence, stamina or spirit can qualify; and heavy domination with some damage, while the loser offers little or no offence, may be enough. Positional control without damage is not enough, however long it lasts.

10-7 is for a round in which one fighter overwhelms the other in both damage and domination for the whole round. You will rarely see one, because a round that one-sided usually ends with the referee stepping in.

10-10 is for a round where neither fighter established an advantage. The ABC says it is generally reserved for partial rounds and describes scoring a completed round 10-10 as a failure to adjudicate.

Here is why the 10-8 threshold matters so much. Take a three-round fight in which Fighter A narrowly wins rounds one and two, then gets dropped twice and nearly finished in round three, which a judge scores 10-8 for Fighter B. That card reads 28-28, a draw, even though Fighter A won more rounds.

UFC 331 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on 19 September 2026 shows how three judges can agree on the winner and still disagree on the detail. Joshua Van beat Alexandre Pantoja by unanimous decision over five rounds at flyweight, with Herb Dean as referee.

Sal D'Amato scored it 49-46, giving Pantoja round four only. Derek Cleary had it 48-47, giving Pantoja rounds one and four. Ron McCarthy gave all five rounds to Van for 50-45. Every round on every card was scored 10-9, with no 10-8s and no point deductions.

The margin on a card does not change the result. A 48-47 card counts exactly as much as a 50-45 one, and the verdict is unanimous because all three judges had the same winner. The gap between the cards tells you how close rounds one and four were, not how close the fight was overall.

Image: UFC

The heavyweight bout between Robelis Despaigne and Tai Tuivasa on the same card is a textbook split decision. All three judges gave round one to Despaigne and round two to Tuivasa, so the whole fight came down to round three.

Sal D'Amato and Felicia Oh gave the third round to Despaigne and scored the fight 29-28 his way. Jovany Varela gave it to Tuivasa, which made his card 29-28 Tuivasa. Despaigne won by split decision.

That is how most disputed decisions work in practice: not a judge watching a different fight, but one swing round landing differently on one card. It was not a one-off either. Five fights at UFC 331 went to the scorecards, and three of them, Despaigne vs Tuivasa, Alonzo Menifield vs Iwo Baraniewski and Michael Aswell Jr. vs JooSang Yoo, were split decisions.

Image: UFC

The type of decision depends only on how many judges picked each fighter, not on the margins. The Unified Rules define them as follows:

• Unanimous decision: all three judges score the bout for the same fighter.
• Split decision: two judges score it for one fighter and one judge for the other.
• Majority decision: two judges score it for the same fighter and one scores a draw.
• Unanimous draw: all three judges score it a draw.
• Majority draw: two judges score it a draw.
• Split draw: all three judges score it differently and the totals produce a draw.

Draws are uncommon for a simple arithmetic reason. With an odd number of rounds all scored 10-9, the totals can never be level, so a drawn card in a three-round or five-round fight needs a 10-8 round, a 10-10 round or a point deduction to cancel out a round won the other way.

Only the referee can assess a foul. UFC's rules page states that judges must not factor an uncalled foul into their scoring, and that the official scorekeeper, not the judges, applies any point deduction to the total. A deduction comes off the fighter's score in the round it happened, so a round won 10-9 by a fighter who was docked a point becomes 9-9.

The penalty scales with intent. An intentional foul that causes an injury but lets the fight continue brings a mandatory two-point deduction, and one that ends the fight on the spot is a disqualification. Grabbing the fence can cost a point if the foul had a substantial effect, and if it won the fouling fighter a better position, the referee restarts both fighters standing.

When an accidental foul stops a fight, timing decides the outcome. If it ends before two of three scheduled rounds (or three of five) are complete, the result is normally a no contest. After that point it goes to a technical decision for whoever is ahead on the cards, with the incomplete round scored by the judges.

The rules keep moving. The ABC approved a further set of amendments on 5 August 2026, with a requested implementation date of November 2027. The headline addition is that a fighter who visibly loses control of bodily functions during a round loses by TKO due to medical stoppage.

The UK has no statutory athletic commission. A September 2026 governance review from the Good Governance Institute sets out that British MMA relies on promoter self-regulation, voluntary medical standards such as Safe MMA and general health and safety law, with governing bodies like the English Mixed Martial Arts Association still emerging.

That puts more responsibility on the promotion, but the rulebook does not change when UFC comes to London. UFC says all of its bouts adhere fully to the Unified Rules, so a UFC London card is scored on the same damage-first criteria as a card in Las Vegas or Los Angeles.

UFC publishes official scorecards on its scorecards page after each event, round by round and with every judge named, so you can check any decision for yourself. If you are following the fights live from Britain, our guide to where to watch MMA online covers the options.

• Association of Boxing Commissions: MMA Bout Scoring, Judging Criteria Clarification (7.2025)
• Association of Boxing Commissions: Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts (amended August 2026)
• Association of Boxing Commissions: Unified Rules
• UFC: Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts
• UFC: Crypto.com UFC 331 Van vs Pantoja 2 official scorecards
• Good Governance Institute: Governance and regulation of MMA (mixed martial arts)
• Combat Sports Law: Damage! Brand new MMA judging criteria approved

How many judges score a UFC fight?

Three judges score every UFC fight, and each one scores every round independently under the 10-point must system. When the fight ends, each judge totals their own card. The fighter ahead on at least two of the three cards wins, so a decision can be unanimous, split or majority depending on how the three cards fall. Judges only matter if nobody is knocked out, stopped or submitted.

What makes a 10-8 round in the UFC?

A 10-8 round needs significant damage. Under the ABC's 2025 judging guidance, significant damage on its own is enough, and cumulative damage that saps a fighter's energy or will can count. Heavy domination plus some damage, with little or no offence from the loser, may also qualify. Holding a dominant position without causing damage is not enough, however long it lasts.

Can a UFC fight end in a draw?

Yes. The Unified Rules allow a unanimous draw, a majority draw (two judges score it level) and a split draw (one card each way and one level). Draws are rare because a fight with an odd number of rounds all scored 10-9 cannot finish level. A drawn card usually needs a 10-8 round, a 10-10 round or a point deduction to balance a round won the other way.

Do takedowns score points in the UFC?

Not automatically. The ABC's criteria count grappling by its result, so a takedown scores when it leads to damage, a submission attempt or a productive position. The guidance says merely holding a dominant position is not dominance. A takedown followed by strikes or submission threats helps win a round, but a takedown that leads nowhere earns very little on the cards.

What is the difference between a split and a majority decision?

In a split decision two judges score the fight for one fighter and the third judge scores it for the other. In a majority decision two judges pick the same winner and the third scores it a draw. Both count as wins. At UFC 331, Robelis Despaigne beat Tai Tuivasa by split decision after the judges divided 2-1 over the third round.

Does defence count in UFC scoring?

No. The ABC's judging guidance says there is no scoring for defence: defending allows a fighter to continue, but only offensive actions are scored. Good defence helps indirectly by denying the opponent damage and opening counters, but a fighter who only avoids punches for five minutes, without landing anything meaningful, gives the judges nothing to award them.