Just watched the fight. Coetzee dominated and clearly won. He also scored 3 knockdowns (one was incorrectly missed by Cortez). My scores: 1 Coetzee 10-8 (KD) 2 Coetzee 10-9 3 Coetzee 10-9 4 Coetzee 10-7 (2 KD's, the last KD was ruled as a slip) 5 Snipes 10-9 6 Coetzee 10-9 7 Coetzee 10-9 8 Coetzee 10-9 (Snipes was badly hurt) 9 Snipes 10-9 10 Coetzee 10-9 Total 98-89 Coetzee. The scores were 6-3-1 Coetzee, 4-5-1 Snipes, 4-5-1 Snipes (Cortez' scorecard). Knockdowns hadn't any affect on scores. Very poor decision that was booed by spectators. Poor job by Cortez. That's definitely one of the worst robberies I have ever seen in boxing.
I think you touched on it in your initial post. With just rounds being scored in a 1-0 fashion they were just sort of setting themselves up for this kind of embarrassment. I don't know when just picking the rounds winner went out of style but I have to imagine this had something to do with it.
I just re-watched this fight last weekend. Hadn't seen it since it happened. I posted this on another site after watching this. Here is what I wrote: Just checked out the Gerrie Coetzee-Renaldo Snipes bout fought in NY back in the early '80s. I know I felt Coetzee was robbed then, but now I put pen to paper. The thing is, this is NY rules, which was a rounds basis so it isn't like we can score a round 10-8 if there is a knockdown. It's just a winning round. So here we go. Round 1: Coetzee (scores a knockdown) Round 2: Coetzee Round 3: Coetzee Round 4: Coetzee (scores a knockdown) Round 5: Snipes Round 6: Even Round 7: Coetzee Round 8: Snipes Round 9: Even Round 10: Even Total: 5-2-3 Coetzee Rounds 6, 9 & 10 I scored even as they became sloppy and mauling. It was near impossible to pick anyone out deserving those rounds and I never like to choose on the basis of 'finding it necessary' to pick someone excelling in a non-deserving instance. So there you have it. Anyone else see this one?
It was scored on the round system, not 10-point must, which was the rule in that state (forget if it was NY or NJ) at the time. If you gave Snipes the three rounds you scored as even, it's a draw.
There was no way I could have scored 6, 9 & 10 other than how I did. They were just mauling rounds. But I see what you mean.
It won the robbery of the year awards. Recently the decision was used in a debate against Coetzee, or was it pro Snipes