Leonard Garcia had three jaw-dropping decisions come down in his favor. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com
2. Leonard Garcia
Garcia’s place in the history of egregious decision thievery has less to do with quantity than quality. He has a draw that probably should have gone against him and three split decision victories on his record, and all three of them were “Robbery of the Year” candidates with a strong claim for spots on the all-time worst list.
Next came a still-more mindboggling decision against the debuting Chan Sung Jung at WEC 48. To their credit, no judge awarded Garcia the first round in which he was knocked down and out-landed at a brisk 3-to-1 clip, but both Dan Stell and Nelson Hamilton managed to award the second and third rounds to Garcia. No media member scored the fight in the American’s favor, and only MMAJunkie awarded him a single round.
The real capper to Garcia’s reign of undeserved terror over the division came against Nam Phan at “The Ultimate Fighter 12” Finale in December 2010. This was the quintessential Garcia performance, as it embodied the fundamental principle that landing shots matters less than leaving the judges with the impression that the fighter is producing offense. Phan landed 102 strikes out of 227 thrown; Garcia landed only 64 but threw 282. The air produced by Garcia’s flailing arms might have powered an offshore wind farm, and apparently sustainable energy production served as a valid judging criterion for Adalaide Byrd and Tony Weeks.
Garcia provides an object lesson in how to crack the judging formula in MMA. Looking busy is far more important than actually landing strikes; the more impressive those shots look -- and few would deny that Garcia always seems as though he is trying to finish the fight with a single mighty swing -- the more likely it is that the judges will reward misses with rounds scored in that fighter’s favor. Garcia’s constant and pathological aggressiveness did not hurt, either. The terrible decisions in Garcia’s favor may have been few in number relative to some of the other contestants on this list, but for sheer egregiousness, he stands near the top.
Number 1 » In its own totally screwed up way, each of his recent undeserved victories has a lesson to teach about a problem with MMA judging.