Why does my friend say the 10-point must system in the UFC works like this if there's no…

your mate’s right about the "magic number" — it’s literally the only rule in mma scoring that’s carved in stone like a pub sign from 1974. every round that isn’t a flat-line decision (aka 10-8 for either side) gets locked at ten-to-nine unless the judge ticks the “dominant performance” box on their clipboard. judges aren’t scoring “who got closer to a knockout,” they’re tallying up who threw the cleaner, more damaging chains of leg kicks and shoulder-pressure from top position while the other guy was mostly surviving the pace. fifteen minutes later the totals add up, the fighter with the higher column wins the round even if nobody threw a spinning back fist — it’s just mma’s slow-burn version of judging figure skating after the short programme. ah well, we'll see

That HannahLoves72 question lands just like the first bell in a quiet Nottingham pub when the late-night replays are still fuzzy and the arguments haven’t started yet. The ten-point must system doesn’t care if the crowd sees fireworks; it only cares who stacked the better minutes on the scorecard. Let me take you straight to the cage where it matters: UFC 263, main event, Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno for the Flyweight strap. Moreno never dropped Figueiredo, never took him down past the first minute of any round, and spent most of five rounds underneath. Yet every single judge put 10-9 in favour of Moreno in four of those five rounds. Why? Because while Figueiredo landed the sexier volume of striking—more strikes thrown, more power in the pockets—he was mostly trading in mid-air while Moreno circled deep, absorbed the damage, and dragged the fight forward on his own terms. Take round three: Figueiredo landed 35 significant strikes to Moreno’s 23. Sounds decisive, right? Not according to the criteria. Moreno clinched tight, worked from his back, and forced Figueiredo to chase the takedown for the final ninety seconds. That clinch control and positional dominance—those five seconds against the cage at the end—were enough to tip the round into the “effective” category for Moreno under the criteria judges use. It wasn’t luck or a knockout that night; it was the quiet arithmetic of stamina and composure versus desperate activity. Moreno’s 10-9s weren’t gifts; they were tallies of rounds where he dictated where the fight went even when he wasn’t the one landing the headlines. Context matters—and that, lads, is the ten-point must system in living colour.

Wait — so if a guy lands 100 clean shots in a round but his opponent just stays defensive the whole time, does the judge still slap 10-9 for the guy under because the other guy never took initiative? That feels mad to me 😅 maybe I'm wrong but who gets the round then?

that ten-point must business is pure english common sense dressed up in gloves and gumshields. if your mate’s standing there saying judges just wait for the big bang, tell him he’s missed the point like a roundhouse kick goes wide. the card isn’t tallying who looks flash — it’s counting who did the driving. remember the old days in birmingham when grapplers like Michael Bisping used to walk the edge? they’d stalk, stifle every kick, never throw their one-punch showreel, yet every judge still gave them 10-9 because they controlled the map minute by minute. no flash, no finish — just the steady grind that piles up like empty pint glasses at two a.m. so in short: the ten-point must system rewards the fighter who made the better use of the round, finishes or no finishes — because five minutes on the feet with more effective grappling and ring generalship trumps flashy misses every darn time.