I didn’t mean literally vacant in the technical sense, I just mean that they are both now fighting for a belt and one fighter shouldn’t have any bias because he held that belt before the first bell rang.
No, they're in a fight, and it's the fight which is scored. The belt is merely the trophy handed out to the winner.
Yes, it is similar to the "beyond reasonable doubt" argument. If a fight is so close that most people agree "It could (easonably) go either way" then the champion (the defendant) deserves the benefit of that doubt. Fighters struggle hard all careers to win the championship, so the championship should change hands on a CLEAR and DEFINITE result that's plain to see by any reasonavle observer ..... not just changing hands on a "could be this, could be that" type of decision.
The rules already account for that scenario though. Should a fight be adjudged a draw, the champion retains their title.
The problem is some fights that most fairly should be adjudged a draw naturally (I'm not talking about corruption) end up being narrow split decisions for the challenger.
It shouldn't be the case, but it is because you have 3 human judges seeing different things. By the same token, guys who overachieve (like not getting blasted out) get a lot more credit than they actually deserve.
So your excuse for there being an inherent scoring bias for the incumbent champion is that you feel without this corrective measure there would naturally be an inherent bias against them? Seriously?
In a very close fight, most would agree that their 115-114 card is really not more valid than someone else's 115-114 to the other guy, so it's kind of arbitrary which way the split decision goes. Obviously the fairest result in such a fight would be the draw, but it often doesn't fall like that. Champions shouldn't lose their titles on some arbitrary "could be this, could be that", "too close to call" type fights. That's simple enough to understand surely.
Bull****. This is all stupid. There's such a thing as inflexibly 115-114 if the rounds for the victor were all crystal-clear. There should be no more "benefit of the doubt" for the champion on the losing 114 end of that in your scenario than if he lost 12 rounds.
So you're always adamant your score cards are correct, even in the closest fights ? You've never scored a fight one way and admitted "it could easily and reasonably go the other way though " ??
I'm not sure you even understood what I wrote. I said "in a very close fight". I'm not talking about inflexibly 115-114 cards. I'm talking about fights with a lot of very very close rounds.
If a judge is doing their job properly then when they submit a 115-114 scorecard it means exactly what it says. That, according to that judge's view of the fight, fighter X won 115 points and fighter Y won 114. That's the entire point of having a judge. You say champions shouldn't lose their title on a tight verdict but you're happy for challengers to lose their title bid, which means just as much to them, simply because they're not the fighter currently in possession. Why not let the judges judge the fight as best they can, disregarding any status a fighter has and let the chips fall where they may? Isn't that what any fan wants to see?
When the bell rings there are no belts, just two fighters and the ref. Noone should get extra credit for nothing. The problem is rigged scorecards and corruption. We need to go back to odd # of rounds, 13 or 15.
