Judges for the South Korea-based ROAD FC promotion might need to start bringing an abacus to the cage with them.

ROAD FC, starting with its next event, Saturday’s ROAD FC 27 in China, will do away with the traditional 10-point must scoring system in favor of a new scoring method: the “Unlimited Points System.”

ROAD FC officials recently announced the new scoring system, as well as the criteria that will be used by judges at its events. In the new method, points will be given or taken away based on specific actions in the fight. For example, one point is granted for a “clear strike, takedown, near submission, full mount or back mount, clear control on the ground, and aggression.” If a fighter scores a knockdown, five points will be granted.

Fighters also can have points taken away for penalties. Yellow cards will be given for fouls, along with a five-point deduction. Two-point deductions for blue cards will give given if a referee determines a fighter is stalling or avoiding his appointment, either standing or on the ground.

But perhaps most importantly, points will be accumulated throughout the entire fight, not per round. Jake Kwon, ROAD FC’s planning department director, told MMAjunkie the total number of points won’t be announced in the event of a decision. But fighters and their teams will be able to see the point tallies from the judges in the event a decision is disputed.

“We are trying to go our own way – the ROAD FC way,” Kwon told MMAjunkie. “These days, almost all promotions follow the Unified Rules of MMA. But that is not a standard. There is no fixed standard or set of rules for the sport internationally. We don’t want to compare ourselves with any promotion. ROAD FC is just ROAD FC. The most important reason (to change the scoring) – the fighting reason – is to make fighters more active. These days, many fighters just keep their position on the ground to take the points, but our audience doesn’t like that type of fight. They want excitement, so we want to encourage our fighters to be more exciting. That’s why we changed the system they will be judged by.”

Kwon said the promotion expects to notice a difference quickly into the new format.

“Things will be more exciting,” he said. “After two or three events, there won’t be any fighters who want to keep the fight on the ground just to wait out the points. Actually, they will be losing points and that is totally different from the way they are used to fighting. … We devised this judging system to bring MMA back to its original intent. MMA has become highly developed and many fighters are very skillful, but this has sacrificed some of the excitement for the wider audience. The intent of the new point system, including the penalties deducted for stalling and for not engaging in action, is to encourage the fighters to finish their fights.”

The new scoring criteria at ROAD FC events includes:

A) 1 point awarded for each:

Clear connecting strike (legal punch, kick, knee) Successful takedown Achieving full mount or back mount position Clear control in ground position Near submission Clear aggression

B) 5 points awarded for each:

Clear connecting strike (legal punch, kick, knee) that knocks down opponent Slam that causes damage

C) 5 points deducted for each yellow card penalty (per referee)

Use or attempted use of an illegal technique Second strike to the groin, intentional or non-intentional Deliberate attempt to halt bout

D) 2 points deducted for blue card penalty (per referee)

Deliberate failure to engage in striking Deliberate stalling in a grounded position by holding