Maybe it's time to rethink it all...

So jabs and power shots equal one connect? Is there a formula? Three jabs equals one hook, five jabs per uppercut?

What stops the super fast guys from just throwing a million jabs while on their bicycle? Running in circles with no real threat of damaging anyone.

I could list a few more things but to answer your question it’s because if they did boxing would lose it’s much needed casual fan. It’s the casual fan that buys into overhyped garbage ppv fights and keeps the sport alive. Without them the money goes down all around.

It’s a super complex problem that no one wants to fix from the inside because they all benefit in some way from it at sometime.

Your post reminds me of Gore Vidal who said “I either want less corruption or more of an opportunity to benefit from it.”

 

Great quote by Vidal.

And yeah, I think you nailed it unfortunately. I dream of boxing implementing an objective scoring system, but I don't really see a good formula for doing so.

Even just counting what landed vs didn't land is quite difficult. CompuBox seems to be presented as this 100% objective, impartial, nonpartisan, factual metric, but it's just like three guys clicking buttons if they think they saw a punch land -- obviously that's not infallible and probably just as susceptible to bias and corruption as the 10 pt system.

That said, maybe anything would be better than the current system of corrupt and incompetent judges. At least the system you proposed might have more consistency in rulings, even if it does sound ludicrous.

Actually just thought of something while writing this: I propose machine learning should be implemented to score fights. Oddly enough, I actually think that might work and probably wouldn't even be that hard to implement considering the historical record of boxing fights available as a training set.

 

I don't think the punch stats they show look much better than the judge's cards. The subjectivity of punch vs push, the borders of the scoring area, partial blocks, it would leave plenty of wiggle room for corruption while also taking away aspects like effective aggression and ring generalship which contribute who looks like they won the fight.

My own pet idea that would never happen is to have a venue for professionals to fight low stakes amateur rules fights to create stay busy opportunities without dangerous mismatches.

 

Personally, I don't think scoring a fight is too difficult. I think there needs to be a better way of keeping the judging honest and hold the judges accountable. Have 9 judges score the fight. All 9 judges are in their own private room while watching the fight. No crowd noise or commentary, just the fight. After the fight an official and 1 rep from each fighter collect the score cards and take the box ring side. 3 cards are drawn from the box by both reps and the official. The cards are then read by the announcer. All 9 cards are checked. Any cards that are completely off will be reviewed by a panel of officials and all the judges that scored the fight. questions will be asked as to why certain rounds were scored differently than the other judges. A judge gets called to panel 3 times in 2 years will be suspended for 1 year. Called to panel within 2 years of suspension and the judge is banned for life.

 

They tried this with
Open scoring.
They don’t want it.
They like the control.

 

I've said it before and i'll say it again. Title fights should have 15 judges. 3 on each side of the ring and a final 3 watching cctv.

I also firmly believe that encouraging the scoring of close rounds as a 10-10 tie would ultimately decrease the number of controversial decisions as well as draws. It is so incredibly rare to see a round scored as a tie, which is just plain stupid since close rounds happen all the time. And because of that, close rounds can just as easily be scored for one boxer by one judge and for the other boxer by the other judge, which is nonsensical. If it's too close to call, then call it what it is, a tie, 10-10. Call the definitive rounds for the definitively effective aggressor and call the tied rounds as ties. Don't simply give a tied round to one of the boxers. That's what leads to shitty and controversial decisions.

 

I'm sorry to say, I don't like that idea.

Judges would be afraid to deviate from "what's expected" in terms of the outcome, and I don't necessarily think this system would remove corruption all that well. I have no reason to think the "panel of officials and all the judges that scored the fight" would be free from influence and bias in their review of aberrant/unusual scorecards. There have been "robberies" where one judge did in fact get it "right" and this system would punish them for that.

Let's say the officials all want Joe Boxer to win (he's a massive cash cow), and the betting odds favor Joe Boxer.

This system would massively bias the judges towards Joe Boxer. Even if his opponent does well, any judge would be afraid to say so for fear of being the "aberrant scorer," who will face political backlash from the council.

If judges are corrupt, I think a likely source of the corruption is those who employ the judges. This proposed system would only increase the power and influence over the judges.

 

I think it's a far better system than what we have now. I get what you're saying, but the way you put it everyone that deals in judging is on the take. I think there are more fair judges than not.

 

The problem is the corruption, not the scoring system.

 

To train a model using the set of historical boxing fights, you'd need consensus agreement on each punch. This forum cannot even agree the winner of GGG VS Canelo I.

 

I was thinking solely winner/loser outcome.

 

They tried it in the amateurs and it didn't work, it didn't make the sport any less corrupt, it also changed how fighters fought as it didn't favour combination punchers. One guy would land a 3 punch combo land all 3 shots and only get one point then his opponent would land one punch and they would basically be even on points.

I think one of the limits of the sport is the limited view point of the judges, they only see the fight at one angle unlike the viewing audience which is why the judges often end up scoring differently to the viewers at home. I'd like it if they had the ability not only to see the fight live but have the ability to review the round during the 1 min interval between rounds and perhaps have say a 10 min period after the fight to review close rounds and adjust their score card.

I'd also like the judges to be observed by impartial observers to ensure they do their job properly so we don't have incidents like when one judge incorrectly scored the 10-6 round in Pac/JMM 1 as 10-7. Will also prevent judges being interfered with as we saw in Khan/Petersen.

Also and instant replay would be good, like we see in other sports like tennis, cricket, rugby and now even football/soccer. If there's a dubious knockdown or an injury a boxers corner can request a replay during the interval and judges then adjust their scorecards so we don't have mistakes and knockdowns not being scored or being scored incorrectly.

 

As others have stated if you work on just punches landed you'll get a convergent evolution of style into the best way to win - thousands of superfast, pitty pat jabs and rear hands.

Its complicated. How many jabs are equal to a powershot?

If a round is to close to score by punches landed then the other factors need to be taken into account before a 10/10 round is given. One rule of conducting surveys is you don't give people a "middle" option because they'll choose it unless they strongly swing one way or the other.

What needs to be removed is bias and or corruption. The judges need to be held to a very high scrutiny level and need to be completely independent (or their governing body does) and also be accountable. Its the lack of public accountability that allows fights to be judged so poorly, whether there was money involved or not.

 

Any endeavor involving a person will be corrupted, formula or not. Other sports have the same issues, horrible game changing calls or non-calls, odd rule interpretations selectively called, etc.

Boxing has a highly subjective, flawed scoring system that is by far the best relative to any other alternative. Fine tune it continually rather than throwing it out and starting over with a fresh set of flaws to be corrupted.