Boxing Judging/Scoring

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Boxing Judging/Scoring

I was thinking a bit about judging in the sport of boxing as a whole after the Taylor-Persoon fight, and people claiming it was a robbery. I personally had Persoon winning the fight by a few rounds, but I also don't believe it's a robbery.

This leads me to asking a couple of questions.

1) What constitutes a "robbery" in boxing?
2) How many true robberies" are there, or are most "robberies" just a product of a scoring system that is highly subjective?
3) Should the 10 point must system as a whole be revisited?

Re: Boxing Judging/Scoring

Here's my take

1. A robbery is a fighter not getting the decision when there is no valid argument they legitimately didn't win.

2. There will be an overlap, there will be the odd one or two fights where you just have to agree to disagree with people you usually agree with, because different people have different ideas of what a fighter needsnto do to clearly win a round or do enough to make a valid case to win the round, and it only takes one round like that for people to disagree on whether it was a robbery or a fight that could have either way. Most of us can agree Chisora vs Helenius was a robbery, Rios vs Abril was a robbery, and Holyfield vs Lewis, people will disagree on where they rank amongst the worst of all times, but when you have almost unanimous robberies where very, very few people disagree, and nobody who is knowledgeable and unbiased disagrees, that constitutes a robbery.

Bias is an issue when it comes to false robberies. There are a lot of fights which are thought of as robberies by most people at the time, but as time goes on, more people revisit the fight, and see it wasn't a robbery, for example, Pacquiao vs Horn, at the time, partly because of Atlas's disgusting behaviour, but also because of a combination of bias in favour of Pacquiao, and what seeing a guy get almost stopped does to the mind, almost everyone was saying Pacquiao vs Horn was a robbery, but more and more people are watching it, and changing their minds, same with Pacquiao vs Bradley, HBO's ridiculously biased commentary swayed people's minds, and Pacquiao's last minute rallies were something of a mind game, but Bradley picked Pacquiao off and beat him in a battle of the basics, for a good 2 minutes of a lot of the rounds. Pacquiao has so much support from the fans and media, there were people saying he beat Mayweather when his own trainer said he didn't. Back in the 70s, Henry Cooper, a very popular fighter, lost a close decision to Joe Bugner, a fighter with a style the fans didn't find entertaining. Harry Carpenter, the commentator, was Cooper's mate, the commentary was biased, so it sounded like a robbery to anyone who heard it on the radio, it was a close fight, but it wasn't a robbery.

3. Just the 10 poimt method? I don't think so. I don't think there's anything wrong with the 10 points must scoring system, it isn't the problem. If it was altered to a different structure, and it went back to a point per round, I don't think that would make any difference, because 10-9 is 1-0, 10-8 is 2-0, some people waste their time thinking about the difference between 10-9 and 9-8, but they are the same thing. If the scoring changed from round by round to overall success, boxing would be very, very different.

Re: Boxing Judging/Scoring

@Champ great take and and your 2nd point was top draw i couldnt articulate better if i tried and i agree with most of it

1.if i cant see a fighter winning 7 of the 12 rds or 6 of the 10 etc etc without KDs or point deductions playing a major factor...and after factoring in the rds that i marked as close or swing in cases of decisions i find controversial and still cant arrive at the decision getter winning the fight then i will term them robberies

this imo can be with as CLOSE MARGINS as Shohie Kawashima vs Cristian Mijares i felt the 7 rds i had Mijares losing in the fight were decisive and while watching the fight i remember being shocked at 2 of the rds that the unofficial scorer gave Mijares if i remember right thats 1,10....either that or had a horrific night scoring myself
to me they just as much a robbery as seemingly wider margin robberies imo like Whitaker Chavez or Lewis Holyfield 1 in terms of rds

ALSO in cases of right winner horrible scorecards against (fights that shoulda ended up as UD) ( Hopkins getting a SD over Beibut Shuminov
I cant find a 6th or 7th rd for DLH vs Mosley 1 or DLH vs Mayweather despite them being competitive fights ending up with split decisions that added to the drama among the crowd with a clear fav, but CLOSE MARGIN win for the right guy along the lines of a 7-5 woulda been fine
I feel these type scorecards should be more scrutinized

also how about a competitive fight with close rds that either fighter coulda won but with one fucked up scorecard for one of em like Canelo Golovkin 1 118-110, Cloud Campillo 116-110, Leonard Hagler 118-110 dont the fact that they got wider cards only hurt them further with public perception when it comes to robbery claims especially if the other fighter is a crowd fav and also feeling among newer fans not scoring..oh you musta lost and foul play based more on the wideness of that one card

CLOSE MARGINS fight aforementioned obviously isnt the same as what most fans have in mind when there saying things like "close fight cant be robberies" and in most instances i tend to agree...seemingly with multiple close rounds that could go either way

3. best system of scoring ive known compared to old school systems including 5 point must system, round systems, a combo of the two like one of Bobby Czyz's fights or prior systems and about the complaints of some fans that 'a fighter can dominate the 1st rd and only win it 10-9 and the other fighter can even it up after the 2nd rd by a margin of 2 or 3 jabs'.....well boo hoo your fighter shoulda strategized better

Re: Boxing Judging/Scoring

I like both of your takes on the matter.

@Champion97 Yeah HBO commentary was about as biased as it got.