Okay, let me clarify a couple of things. What prompted my commentary on this issue in the first place is the following:
"You know when no one argues? When there is a finish. A finish is a clear and undeniable advantage that no one can argue. If there is absolutely any doubt on "what if the fight went longer" and there is just one doubt, it should be a draw.
No denying finishes, close decisions are always subjective and controversial."
Okay, on a certain reading of this passage, there isn't anything to talk about, because the point being made is circular: we don't argue about things that "no one can argue." Now, it's probably impossible to formally define what "isn't" justifiably arguable, but I think we all agree there is a class of fights ended by stoppage about which there wasn't any debate, and it's easy to think of examples. There is no controversy about the McGregor-Siver stoppage, for example. So if what you (D241) had in mind were finishes of that sort, then of course there's very little to say.
Neither can it be disputed that, on the whole, fights decided by judges' scorecards are more liable to be the subject of dispute than fights that end in stoppage. But in another sense, your assertion "You know when no one argues? When there is a finish" is just false, because there are plenty of fights that have ended by finish that have generated controversy. What causes the controversy doesn't matter, because it only has to be pointed out that the controversy exists to refute the assertion that finishes are never contentious. Again, you can say "Well, I mean finishes that we can't argue about", but that just begs the question and preempts any meaningful discussion.
You can say I'm nitpicking, but when you say "If there is any doubt on 'what if the fight went longer' and there is just one doubt, it should be a draw", I have to ask what it is you mean by "If there is any doubt". On the one hand, you could be referring to whether there is, in fact, doubt in the mind of anyone. On the other, you could mean something independent of what's in anyone's mind, in other words, justification. Your point seems to be that, if there are good reasons to protest, then people will. But this puts you in tough spot. If a tiny minority protests a stoppage, you seem obligated to grant them justification simply because they spoke up. And if you do that, you have to grant by default that a stoppage was "arguable".
That isn't a very attractive position---but the other option is to argue that their protest isn't justified, and therefore shouldn't count. If you do that, you should be able to provide compelling reasons. In practice, we know how this turns out. The other side always has its counter-reasons. Now, don't get me wrong here---I'm not trying to play soothsayer who rises above it all. I'm just trying to point out that a fight being "finished" is not tantamount to there being no controversy or reason for controversy.
At the bottom of all this is our (surely universal) desire to feel that the result of any fight was fair. And of course, a fight that ends by KO/TKO/submission is most likely to produce that satisfaction. The bone of contention seems to be just how many finishes generate controversy. My position is: more than you think. I think you're idealizing finishes by trying to sweep almost all of them into the category of "satisfactory", and then transferring what is satisfactory into the higher category of "inarguable."
I won't debate your commentary about my examples, because I'm not interested in debating what constitutes a just reason for debating a decision (for practical reasons: I enjoy that kind of discussion, but it's too time-consuming). In context, I'm mostly interested in whether there was debate, whatever the reasons. Because if there was even a little debate, it should contradict your argument.
As for my examples, I'll just say that they weren't extremely hard to come up with, although I did think for a bit. I looked up a couple of them to confirm my memory. How difficult it is for me to recall such fights shouldn't be an issue, though, since I'm far from an MMA historian, like yourself, or Wasa-B, Orcus, or (from the old days) Whistleblower and many others. I would find it almost as difficult to make a list of contentious decisions, because I just don't make room in my head for that kind of stuff. So what I can remember off the top of my head isn't relevant.
I'll leave off with perhaps a more compelling kind of example (even though, as I've stated, coming up with finishes that even a few people debated is good enough to call into question what you're saying in regards to the universally satisfactory nature of finishes): Browne-Gonzaga, which many argued was tainted by illegal elbows. At the time I thought at least a couple of the elbows were fouls (I haven't seen it since the original airing), and that messed with my satisfaction as a fight fan. And this kind of fight seems to be, whatever your feelings about it, not uncommon.
We've got the other thread to keep track of contentious stoppages, so it'll be interesting to see the results in the coming year. What's defined as contentious, though, is "less than 70% agreement" about whether a stoppage was justified. There are some problems with this rationale, one being the assumption that the truth lies in the majority. That said, it's probably the only practical approach.
