Free MMA scoreboard

Why score MMA with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for MMA
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How MMA scoring works

Each round is scored separately under the 10-Point Must System: the round winner receives 10 points and the loser 9 or fewer (an even round may be scored 10-10). Judges prioritize effective striking and grappling, then effective aggressiveness, then control of the fighting area. A fighter who does not finish early wins if the majority of judges award them the higher total.

Match format

A regular bout is 3 rounds of 5 minutes; a championship or main-event bout is 5 rounds of 5 minutes. A one-minute rest separates rounds. Duration can vary by federation and format (notably in amateur competition).

How to win

You win by KO, by referee stoppage (TKO), by submission, by the opponent's disqualification, or by judges' decision. A bout may also be ruled a draw or a no contest.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

In ScoreZen, MMA is counted by simple addition: tap +1 for each point awarded to a fighter (the app does not run the "10-Point Must System" or per-judge score entry). A round counter (3 standard, 5 for a championship) and a 5-minute round timer pace the fight; you end the bout yourself (submission, KO, decision).

How an MMA round is really scored

An MMA bout is scored round by round, and a round closes at the bell. Under the 10-Point Must System the round winner takes 10 points and the loser nine or fewer; 10-10 is kept for a round with no difference or advantage between the fighters, and the rulebook calls that rare. At least three judges score every bout, each of them independently. A professional round is five minutes with one minute of rest, and no contest may exceed five rounds or twenty-five minutes. The unified rules allow bouts of one, two, three, four or five rounds — three, or five for a title, is promoter practice, not a rule.

The criteria are ranked, and the ranking is the part people skip. Effective striking and grappling comes first — Plan A in the rulebook. Effective aggressiveness (Plan B) and control of the fighting area (Plan C) are not taken into consideration unless Plan A is even. And effective grappling is not about positions: a successful takedown is not merely a changing of position but the establishment of an attack from the use of that takedown, and top and bottom fighters are assessed on the impact of what they do, more than on where they are.

Then the margins. 10-9 is a close win, and the ABC officials' handbook expects nearly 95% of rounds to land there. 10-8 is a win by a large margin, weighed on damage, dominance and duration, and the handbook puts it at fewer than 5% of rounds. 10-7 is a round in which a fighter is completely dominated, overwhelmed to the point where a stoppage is arguable — extraordinarily rare.

Damage is not only swelling and cuts: it covers whatever diminishes an opponent's energy, confidence, abilities and spirit. On dominance the text is blunt — merely holding a dominant position is not a primary factor, what you do from it is. Incomplete rounds are still scored, and points taken off by the referee are deducted by the scorekeeper when the round is totalled, not scratched onto the judges' cards.

(Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports, Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, amended August 6, 2025, and the ABC MMA Officials Handbook — round duration, judging criteria and the 10-10 to 10-7 definitions.)

What the rulebook says, and what gyms still get wrong

The referee is the sole arbiter of the bout and the only person authorised to stop it, and a foul is his call and his alone: he calls time, checks the fouled fighter's condition and safety, then assesses the foul for point deductions and time considerations. Timidity is a foul like any other: avoiding contact, faking an injury, consistently dropping or spitting the mouthpiece out.

Deductions are not all the same size. An intentional foul that injures while the bout is allowed to continue carries a mandatory two-point deduction. A fence grab is different: the referee may take one point, and only if the foul caused a substantial effect in the fight; if the infraction left the offender in a superior position, both fighters are restarted standing in a neutral position.

Two rules moved in 2024 and a lot of coaching still lags behind. The downward 12-to-6 elbow, a foul of its own for years, was struck out by the amendment of July 23, 2024, with a requested implementation date of November 2024 — each commission adopts it on its own timetable; in the published list the numbering now runs straight from 9 to 11, where the 12-to-6 elbow used to sit. And a grounded fighter is now anyone with any part of the body other than the hands or feet in contact with the canvas.

Know the thresholds, they change what gets written on the sheet. An accidental foul stopping the bout before two of three scheduled rounds, or three of five, gives a No Contest; past that it goes to the cards as a Technical Decision. A fighter fouled in the groin or poked in the eye may have up to five minutes to recover, and a fighter hurt badly enough to need the ringside physician may be given up to five minutes, at the referee's discretion, before a decision to continue is made.

Running the table on fight night

Three judges, one on each side of the fighting area, working separately and simultaneously, speaking to nobody during the bout — the central referee excepted, if it is necessary — and not leaving their seat until the decision has been announced. Around them: a scorekeeper who goes round the fighting area during the rest minute, collecting the round's cards and checking that each judge has scored the round just ended without reading the score, then totalling the cards at the end; an inspector per corner, whose job is the coaches and the corner, not the scoring; and the official delegate who records and signs the result off.

Build the bout sheet before anyone walks out: names, red and blue corner, contracted weight and the weight actually made, number of rounds, ruleset. If a fighter misses weight and the two land in different classes, the heavier may not exceed the lighter by more than five pounds. Settle that at the scale, not at the cage door.

The minute between rounds is the whole job. Collect the three cards, check each carries a number for the round just finished and — the failure that recurs most — that a deduction the referee announced is on all three before you add anything. A card has to be legible, signed and free of crossings-out, or it gets written again. The other classic is naming the decision wrong: unanimous is all three judges for the same fighter, split two against one, majority two for one fighter and one card scored a draw.

On an amateur card the day is the constraint. Bouts are short, a competitor may fight more than once, and no contestant may exceed five rounds or twenty-five minutes of fighting in a twenty-four hour period. The French federation caps it tighter still: three bouts in a day under 18, two a day for U21 and seniors. Doctor checks, cleaning the canvas and the walkouts push the order back fight by fight: keep a real clock against the sheet.

What ScoreZen changes for MMA

You run the bout from your phone. Set the number of rounds and their length — three five-minute rounds by default, five for a championship — and the countdown runs the round while you tap +1 for each point awarded, with a knockdown counter for the bout. ScoreZen counts the bout; it does not stand in for the judges' cards, and you close it yourself on a submission, a knockout or a decision.

Then you share it: a link, or a QR code on the door. The family who could not travel, the coach cornering someone else, the members at home all follow the bout live. Spectators are free, unlimited, and never need an account. In the room, TV mode fills a screen or a laptop plugged into a television, and if the event is streamed the transparent overlay drops the live count into OBS.

For a full card, ScoreZen runs knockout brackets with an optional third-place bout, home-and-away championships, pools then a final bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, and rotating teams. One QR code covers the whole event: each competitor scans it, finds their own bout and follows it, while you watch every cage from the desk.

Afterwards the replay and the vertical story make the night shareable, the club site embeds the widget, the whole card exports to CSV, and the public read-only API — no key needed — feeds your own pages. Print the A4 score sheet for the paper trail. In a hall with no signal it keeps counting and resyncs when the connection returns, in 25 languages. Three trial matches are free for life; after that, one payment of €1.99unlocks it for life.

Frequently asked questions