Judging and Ring Generalship: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Judging and Ring Generalship: The Emperor Has No Clothes

When it comes to boxing judging there is no aspect more frustrating for the fans than "ring generalship".

According to boxingrec ring generalship is defined as

"According to the 1929 Rules of the New York State Athletic Commission, for example, “ring generalship” comprised "such points as the ability to quickly grasp and take advantage of every opportunity offered, the capacity to cope with all kinds of situations which may arise; to foresee and neutralize an opponent’s method of attack; to force an opponent to adopt a style of boxing at which he is not particularly skillful."

While this sounds nice this is entirely subjective and more often than not the judges carry their own personal biases into the fight with them.

When Dwayn Ford famously said that "I thought Bradley gave Pacquiao a boxing lesson"

And

“He hurt Bradley,” Ford continued, “but the Manny Pacquiao that I judged in the past would have finished him. He let him off the hook.”

We see that Ford that the decided what "ring generalship" meant based on his own bias of the fighters not what was actually happening in the ring.

Fast forward to Floyd Mayweather's fights against Cotto and Miadania. In both of these close fights the judging was far out of line with how the general boxing public judged the fights.

We saw both Cotto and Miadana forcing Floyd to the ropes and keep him on the ropes despite his best efforts to get off of the ropes. They were fighting their game and keeping Floyd from fighting his. Yet in both fights it seems that the judges gave a major edge in ring generalship to Mayweather.

This is where personal bias comes into play. The judges have the mind set that Mayweather is the best boxer is the world so short of him getting beaten to a bloody pulp what ever happens in the fight is exactly what he wanted to have happen. Fight in the center of the ring, pushed to the ropes and turning his opponent, pushed to the ropes and held on the ropes, caught in the corner.

IT DOES NOT MATTER!

Whatever happens the judges will assume that is exactly what Mayweather wanted to have happen, even when it is clear that it is not. No matter how clear it is that Mayweather wants to get off the ropes the judges will say 'what a beautiful clothes the emperor has' when even a child can see that he doesn't want to be on the ropes.

Now Mayweather is the most egregious example but this runs throughout boxing. The judges bring their own biases and more often then not they will assume that someone who has a reputation as a "boxer" is fighting the fight they want to fight. Even when it is clear that they are not.

IMHO ring generalship has to go as a judging criteria. It is too subject and too prone to personal biases carried into the fight by the judges.

Let the *****s flame on. Even though I scored the fight for Mayweather.

 

TL;DR FLoyd won. ESB forum haters are nuthuggers. Here's the breakdown of those whose livelihood is covering boxing:

08% Maidana won
10% Draw
82% Floyd won

 

Yeah almost all of them were 115-113. Which is the same score I had. Not 117-111.

I think he won the Cotto and Miadana fights too but the judging was way off because the judges judge ring generalship always in his favor even when it is not.

 

It's ironic that some if not most Mayweather fans tried to depend the judges' scoring for the first Pac-Bradley fight based on Timmy's activity against Pac's accuracy. And niw these same group of fans are now saying that Maidana's activity is nothing while Mayweather was the accurate fighter.

 

I think that Mayweather was the more accurate fighter. But I hate the idea of only if a punch lands is it clean and effective. Miadiana's work rate was keeping Floyds on the defensive and keeping him on the ropes. That is clean and effective.

 

"Effective aggression" is the worse phrase in the given criteria. Way too easy to *******ize (mostly by just putting on horse blinders to amend it to simply "aggression", effectiveness notwithstanding...)

Ring generalship is a fairly straightforward concept to grasp, actually.

 

Ring generalship is not straight forwards because judges carry their own biases into the fight. Mayweatehr will always win "ring generalship" in the judges mind not because of the fight but because the judges believe that whatever is happening is by his design. For me it was clear from floyds footwork that he was trying to pivot off the ropes and get the angle on Miadana but Miadana muscled him back. But only one judge saw it.

As a general rule short of a blood bath the judges will give ring generalship to the guy they see as "the boxer".

 

What the OP fails to understand is that unlike say, Adrien Broner, getting trapped on the ropes is usually not all that uncomfortable a position for Mayweather. When the likes of Hatton, Ortiz, DLH, Guerrero, Alvarez, etc. tried bullying him onto the ropes he was in his element, 'his office', so to speak, perfectly calm and workmanlike in his defense and never seeming to be in a spot where he didn't retain some measure of control over the action. Conversely, with Cotto you did have moments where Floyd did seem uncomfortable and not fully in control - and to much a greater extent we saw it with Maidana, attributable to both Maidana's excellent game plan & training camp with Garcia as well as to Mayweather just slowing down as the facts of life catch up to him (37 is old, even for a phenomenally conditioned and insanely hard-working athlete - guys like Bernard Hopkins, for instance, in elite shape at 50 and with punch resistance and reflexes intact after decades in the ring, are freaks of nature, coming along once in a lifetime...)

Even with those moments, however, Mayweather never looked to outright panic as Broner did against Maidana...a bit rattled in the 1st maybe, but never going full ****** deer-in-the-headlights and eating shots the way Broner did. Those moments were fleeting, even though it seemed like Maidana was pounding on Mayweather for long stretches - if you actually watch a replay (especially in slow-motion) and count the connects, not a whole lot is happening offensively for Maidana but a lot of sound and fury...which is what usually happens when Mayweather does his possum/turtle/worm-on-the-hook menagerie routine on the ropes...except in this case Maidana did get through with some of his crazy unorthodox blows from weird angles, whereas most guys who trap Floyd on the ropes like that end up landing zilch. There were good punches in the mix for Maidana, but dwarfed by the number of misses/blocks/rabbit punches. Mayweather taking a gamble by rolling and wriggling on the ropes, letting Maidana expend all that energy and taking some legal & illegal hits in the process and getting thumped across the back (which does inflict damage even if not strictly countable for scoring purposes) is a skillful art, one that poseur Broner has never quite mastered...and is a manifestation of being the ring general, unless Mayweather is getting rocked or failing to produce any meaningful counter-punches at the lower-volume higher-accuracy clip that is his bread & butter. In rounds where he was controlled by Maidana's physicality enough to be a wet napkin, he lost. IMO there were only four, perhaps arguably five such rounds.

 

No more bias need be involved recognizing generalship than in recognizing clean effective punching or defense.

That stupid "effective aggression" phrase is the one that frequently gets usurped by viewer bias.

Yes, at times Mayweather wanted to escape and Maidana cut off his escape path - which means in those precise moments the ring general was Maidana. You score a full three minutes of each round, however, and when did you see Maidana controlling Floyd in that manner for three minutes straight? Or even 1:31, marking a majority of the round? When Mayweather is accepting that he can't make a move off the ropes and slipping Maidana's punches, holding and countering, he is the one in fact controlling the action, hence the ring general.

 

That is the most convoluted logic I have heard yet.

'Yes Mayweather wants to escape, he is trying to escape but since he recognizes that he cant escape he is still the "ring general".'

Thanks for proving my point. Nothing will keep Mayweather from winning "ring generalship" in your mind and in the minds of many judges.

No you dumbass ring generalship would be actually escaping and turning Miadana. Which is what is he is trying to do and clearly wants to do but is being neutralized by Miadana.

Who was neutralizing who?

Miadana was tryhing to push Mayweather to the ropes and keep him there. Mayweather was trying to pivot off the ropes and get angles on Miadana. Who succeeded in doing what they wanted to do and who was neutralized?

 

No, it wasn't.

 

Seriously? Go to the ****ing thread on the ring side judging. The overwhelming majority of the scores are 115-113.

 

I think Windigo means that the scores were too wide, not that they voted for the wrong guy.

They were 118, 117 and 117.

A lot of fans/media had it 115, 116. There were actually a few that had 114 and couple outlier scores for Cotto.

 

what's that matter to the fight going on in front of you? if you're a perfectly neutral robot you score based on who is accomplishing more in front of you, not how Fighter X performed in Situation #3 in title fight 15 months ago.

(for the record: Floyd 115-113)

 

You can swing and land on arms and backs of heads all day long, if the person you're trying to hit and hurt is preventing you from doing that, whether he's in the middle of the ring or on the ropes, and he's hitting you with clean counters while doing it, it don't mean ****. The fact Maidana was able to drive Mayweather to the ropes is a moot point.