Revising Methods Of Scoring

depends on weather or not he was effective~ I mean really, Valuev isnt much, and if Haye pot shotted his way to a win then thats what he did.... I wont coment on this fight at all, Valuev is garbage so i am a bit biased, especially when he some how got a W over Holyfield by just standing there and taking shots.

 

I think that the punch stats are not the only thing that should declare the winner. I cant remember for sure but wasnt in the Clottey-Cotto fight the winner landed less punches? Dont quote me on that, though. I'm pretty sure there are fights that are that way.

 

It's not that complicated. Judging is subjective, it all comes down to who you felt won the round. With clean and effective punches given paramount consideration.

 

Because scoring a fight isn't a mechanical punch-counting exercise. If that's the case, let's get rid of judges and just have the punch-stats determine who wins! There are other components - who is making the fight (i.e. aggression), who is controlling the fight (ring generalship), etc. These are SUBJECTIVE judgments, which is why three people can watch the same fight and come up with noticeably different scores.

And this is PARTICULARLY the case in a fight like this, where there isn't much to separate the combatants. ONE round in this fight was clearly won by one guy. The rest were toss-ups to one degree or another, dependent on what you look for. I, and others, don't think you "win" fights or take titles by backing up and running all night long. You, and others, are of course free to disagree - but I am not alone in believing this, and if Valuev wasn't so unpopular, you'd hear more people speaking out about this!

 

As it stands, the official Unified Rules scoring criteria to be used by professional judges:

Clean effective punching
Effective aggression
Ring generalship
Defense

The oversimplified phrase "hit and don't get hit" sort of reflects the four above criteria in aggregate, but it doesn't envelop them completely. It isn't itself an official scoring criteria. It's a quaint little axiom and probably a good rule of thumb for anyone who steps in the ring, but it isn't exactly the "object of the game" per se. Amateur boxing awards points for outlanding your opponent as the sole criteria, but professional boxing is structured differently to reflect its greater nuances.

Further adding to the quandary is that even in the Unified Rules themselves, there is no clear mandate on the hierarchy of the four criteria, ie does each get 25% consideration (meaning that visually-inclined judges could, or should, draw a "box" for each rounds divided into eight parts: fighter A's mark in criteria 1, 2, 3 and 4 and fighter B's)...which is probably a bit complex to manage in the 60 seconds of downtime afforded between needing to pay attention - or is how one weights each criteria the subjective responsibility of the individual judge...which has its own obvious inherent liabilities?

There had been an ambitious and spirited effort by some to introduce a different set of criteria scoring based on "Controls" and "Attempts" per round a couple of years back (and many boxrec bouts list these statistics instead of or in conjunction with traditional punch stats), but it seems to have gone the way of Esperanto. At the very least, it has not caught on like wildfire and changed the game in an official capacity.

 

Trivially, the point of boxing since its earliest days has been to beat on your opponent. Obviously, sound defence, ring generalship, movement and a willingness to come forward are important abilities for the boxer; but they're always instrumental to the boxer's overall aim of hitting your opponent. For that reason, I think the amount of legal damage done to one's opponent is the only criterion by which a round can be scored for one.

 

A few things should be considered when scoring a fight not just punch stats and power shots. What if one guy boxes the majority of the round throwing jabs and keeping out of range and gets caught with a clean flurry in the last seconds. Who would you give it to then, seeing as they have landed the same amount?

The Valuev and haye fight is a **** example to take as most of his jabs didn't even come close to landing while Haye couldn't miss. Valuev's pressure was **** and so was his ring generalship.