Have you ever eatched a fight where a fighter may have won more close rounds but the loser won his rounds much more decisvely, leading you to "feel" as if the result was somewhat not a reflection of what really happened? IMO an example would be DLH vs Trinidad. Tito won some rounds down the stretch but he didnt really do much to win them, de la hoya won his rounds by actually dominating. Same with Hopkins vs Taylor. Hopkins strong finish really made you feel both times that hopkins actually was the better man since he had figured taylor out both times by the end but taylor won some early rounds just by being more active.
Yes, I have seen plenty of fights play out that way and have been surprised at the end by my own scoring because it didn’t tally with my overall impression. I also think it is why fights are often considered robberies by people who haven’t scored them.
I really don’t think it’s a flaw in the 10-point must system. Under this system, the first round counts just as much as the last round and every round in between. The scoring system is deliberately set up this way and to have each round judged on its own merit as a stand-alone unit, with the scores of all rounds tallied to get a total. I think it accomplishes exactly and precisely what it was set up to do.
And i dont think thats fair. Imagine you have a 12 round fight. Fighter A wins round 1 and 2 which are absolute feel out rounds with barely any punches landed. Rounds 3-10 are even with each fighter winning 4 each. Fighter B digs deep and wins rounds 11-12 clearly and decisively with fighter A hanging on to buy time in the last 30 seconds of round 12 but fighter B doesnt score a knockdown. Certainly feels like fighter B won the fight but in reality its a draw.
My only trouble is some judges not taking into consideration damage done over volume of punching, it’s as if they have short memories.
I feel cutting fights to 12 rounds really affected what you discuss. In a 15 rounder you could spend a few rounds feeling out an opponent but still have enough rounds to reel them in and make up for the first few rounds lost. Loads of fights would be totally different over 15 and I have said this before but I feel there are several fighters who when they switched to 12 rounds were less effective, almost as if their battle plans could not adapt, for example Hagler vs Leonard. Loads of Monzon fights would have gone against him if 12 rounds, to me he is the consummate 15 round fighter who relied on excellent pacing. Many of his fights were close due to 10 points must but you felt he had won comfortably as far as breaking down his opponents and imposing his will.
I agree. Fighters should know the rules and what They should accomplish in order to win the fight. Every system will create controversies on the margins. Just like You have arguments who should've won close round in current 10 point must system, You'd have arguments about whether fighter won the round by 1-2-3-4 points if We had other system giving judges more room to give fighter a round by bigger margin. I know what topic starter has in mind though. Badou Jack's fight against Adonis Stevenson was a bit like that from what I recall. I remember Jim Gray mentioning it to Badou in post fight interview.
It’s an eye of the beholder thing. You might value a guy who lands six or seven hard punches in a round while I might favor the guy who was hit by those punches but outlanded the heavier-handed guy 2-1. There’s no formula anyone can create that says ‘One Foreman right hand = 6.5 Evander Holyfield hooks and crosses’ that works. I’m not loathe to give a guy a 10-8 advantage in a round of he does severe damage — wobbles the opponent and dominates him bell to bell — but I wouldn’t hand out a two-point round just because a guy ‘clearly won the round’ without doing major damage. Among fans discussing fights, it’s mostly just a way to say ‘my guy should have won’ when he didn’t.
It doesn't make much sense to have a 10 point system and only use 10-9, with the odd 10-8 and the even more rare 10-7. I mean, if it is a close round but I feel one guy edged it and I score it 10-9 and, in the next round, the other guy clearly wins the round, scoring 10-8 makes sense because he won by a greater margin than the guy who got a 10-9. Use all ten points. I kind of liked the old system in the UK, where they used half point increments. A round could be scored 10-9, or 10-9.5.
Sounds great until you don’t like a decision because a guy won three or four rounds of a fight but some judge made those wide margins and the other guy won seven but they were all 10-9ish. People are going to complain regardless.
Aside from the 10 point must system being flawed or not - it’s the system that fighters know they are subject to and can potentially strategise for to their advantage. Fights aren’t scored holistically, rather, they are scored round by round. Points systems lend to a greater approximation to a whole fight perspective but the spine has still remained more closely tethered to the round by round scoring concept I think, when considering the “wiggle” room (or lack thereof) allowed via the points system. I don’t know for sure but how often do we see a 10-8 score for a round without any KDs? I understand the best you can hope for is a 10-7 round - but that requires 2 KDs, correct? What about an absolutely dominating round with 1 KD included - can that still only be a 10-8 at best (which I “think” is the case) or is that possibly left to the discretion of the judges to possibly opt for a 10-7 round?
