12 rounders/15 rounders that have a different outcome

Which 12 round fights would have had a different outcome had they been 15 rounds?
- Ingemar Johansson vs. Brian London
"I would have stopped the fight if the bell had not saved Johansson. He could not have continued." -Referee Andrew Smythe

And which 15 round fights would have had a different outcome had they been 12 rounds?
- Mike Weaver vs. John Tate

 

15 to 12
Leonard Hearns immediately comes to mind, Hearns decisions Leonard


12 to 15
No controversy in Taylor-Chavez 1
Dauthuille dethrones LaMotta
Conn is heavyweight champion beating Joe Louis

 

For 12 rounders

Librado Andrade vs Lucian Bute 1
Timothy Bradley vs Ruslan Provodnikov
Marvin Hagler vs Sugar Ray Leonard
Sugar Ray Leonard vs Thomas Hearns 2
Frank Bruno vs Oliver McCall

For 15 rounders

Rocky Marciano vs Jersey Joe Walcott 1
Jorge Paez vs Calvin Grove 1
Mike Weaver vs John Tate
John Conteh vs Matthew Saad Muhammad 1
Thomas Hearns vs Sugar Ray Leonard 1
Joe Louis vs Billy Conn 1
Barry McGuigan vs Steve Cruz
Matthew Saad Muhammad vs Yaqui Lopez 2

 

I have this sort of discussion all the time with friends about all variety of sports — if so-and-so doesn’t fumble, Team A wins.

But you can’t mess with the space-time continuum. Changing one thing has a ripple effect.

If Tate-Weaver is a 12-rounder, maybe Hercules rallies in the 12th instead. Or maybe they fight at a much higher pace (as happens in 12-rounders vs. 15-rounders) and he wears John out earlier … or gets battered into submission himself.

It’s not as simple as ‘well it’s exactly the same fight, you just snip off the last three rounds and it ends there’ because they’re both fighting with the expectation of having those three rounds. They’re pacing according to that — so even how they fight the first three rounds would likely be different, and that could result into a punch landing that didn’t land in a 15-rounder because someone didn’t take that chance.

Likewise, we see a 12-rounder and one guy is stronger or fresher at the end of 12 … but we’ve also seen 15-rounders where the guy who seems done after 12 ends up rallying in the championship rounds to win. So you can’t assume rounds 13-15 are a continuation of where the fight was at the end of 12 because fights have ebbs and flows, a single punch can turn it, and because guys have gotten second wins many times.

 

Right: it’s a far different thing to say ‘if that 15-round fight that we just saw had gone to the scorecards after 12, the outcome would have been different’ than it is to say ‘if it was SCHEDULED for 12 it would have played out exactly the same way except the decision would have gone to the guy who was ahead after 12.’

 

I usually figure that fighters will react differently knowing it is 12 or 15 rounds, so it’s hard to say.

Some fights where I don’t use this line of thinking would be:

Mike Weaver-John Tate: it’s not like Hercules really turned up the first pace in the 15th round. He just caught him.

JC Chavez-Meldrick Taylor 1: I don’t think there would be a controversy if scheduled for 15. I don’t think the whole fight would play out much different. It wasn’t like Taylor was fighting a disciplined defensive fight (like Whitaker did) and using a lot of movement, he was winning by outworking JCC with his crazy workrate. JCC was landing good shots throughout, I believe it was a straight right hand/left hook combo in round 2 that opened a cut in Taylor’s mouth. Eventually all the hard shots that JCC landed added up. I only gave JCC 1 round of the first 8, but Taylor was already looking like someone went to work on his face with a hammer. JCC would stop him without controversy in a 15 rounder.

One that I’m not sure about is Frank Bruno-Oliver McCall. You watch Bruno in the 12th round and think there’s no way he would last if it were a 15 rounder. They fought at a snail’s pace and Frank was exhausted in round 12.

But maybe it was more mental, like Frank was panicking? I sort of think that it was scheduled for 15, Frank would be fine from 12-14, continuing to go at that slow pace, and then the nerves could come in and round 15 would play out just like the 12th round ended up being.

 

Perhaps Thrilla in Manila? I can’t find a round by round scorecard but it wasn’t until past the 12th where Joe was getting punished.

 

You can’t say, because they prepared/fought tactically for either the 12 or 15. So if Hagler-Duran is cut to 12, Duran wins on the cards doesn’t he? But it would have to be on the fly, on the night, just stopping the fight at 12 or say Marvin would’ve fought/paced differently had it been scheduled 12

 

Conteh probably outpoints Saad if its a 12 rounder but Saad might have turned uo the heat sooner. .

Lopez probably outpounts Saad as well if its a 12 rounder.

Lockridge outpoints Gomez in a 12 rounder.

Tate outpoints Weaver in a 12 rounder.

Randall probably stops Chavez if its a 15 rounder

 

just about every dlh fight. Guy gassed.

 

I think if Rosario-Davis jr had been 15, Howard takes it.

 

DelaHoya vs Trinidad.
Tito would have probably stopped him or the ending would have been more emphatic with 15.