Could bad judging (partially) stem from their ringside view?

possibly, they should have broadcast monitors
At their tables, if it fails they capilar akways go back to the old school way.

 

Could be, that's why I always say we need 5 judges: 2 ringside, 2 watching the broadcast and the referee. Then take 5 scores, cut off the widest ones and leave 3 which will determine a winner.

 

I love Liston.

 

Never would have a red judging as he's in the pocket most of the time - especially British ones hahaha

 

Of course it does.

Judges are placed on three different sides of the ring SO THEY INTENTIONALLY get three different perspectives of the fight. They were doing that long before there were any cameras filming anything.

The goal is for all of them to have a DIFFERENT view and perspective, and then they come together at the end ... and the ultimate winner is determined based on the consensus of their very different views of the same fight.

It's fine if they don't agree on every round. They each saw the rounds from totally different points of view. The objective is just to combine those different perspectives to find the right winner.

Fans watching at home NEVER see the fight from the view of the three judges. The main cameras (and press row and the announcers) are set up on the fourth side of the ring opposite all the judges, or in corners of the ring.

Of course, fans see the fight differently than the judges because fans watching at home are all watching from a singular viewpoint (the camera/broadcast view).

You can't set up a "control room" for judges to sit separately from everyone else because every fight isn't filmed and every production doesn't have the same camera angles.

This "need" for fans watching at home to have all the judges agree with each other on every round and agree exactly with their scorecards at home is bizarre. The intent is NOT for the judges to see the fight from the same angle. There's no one angle that SEES ALL.

And even fans watching the exact same pictures at home don't agree on the scoring of every round, most of the time.

Fans who demand to know "what fight were they watching?" when they don't agree with a scorecard ... need to be reminded EACH judge was watching the fight from a completely different angle than the other judge AND ALL the fans watching at home saw.

And anyone who has actually attended a fight knows a fight can look very differently depending on where you are sitting, and it can sound a LOT different (in terms of the sounds of the punches) in person, as opposed to on television.

The system of three judges is fine. If fighters don't want the winner determined by a consensus of opinion, then knock the guy out. Problem solved.

And all fans should attend fights occasionally. Sitting at home, no matter what angles you're getting, isn't the same as being there.

But removing judges from ringside, sticking them all in a room, and making them all watch the same angles of the fight is a BAD idea.

Currently, they each have a closer and a more unique view than anyone. And they see what they see.

Moving them far away from the fighters and the action, and only having them watch a view of a broadcast in some room somewhere, that may or may not show certain things, sounds like a way to easily impact the scoring of fights for the favorites, even more so than now.

 

Fury vs McDermott vibes? Haha. But he would only be one out of 5 judges.

 

I think sometimes the view does result in different scores. I had this experience once scoring a fight from up close. I had great seats and I thought a friend of mine had lost a close decision 5-4-1 . The rest of our crew were a good distance from ringside and they scored it for my buddy anywhere from 6-4 to 7-3. When I asked the fighter later he was really honest about it and said he knew it was close and was ready for the decision to go the other way.

 

Conversely, our cards may be influenced by us seeing things through a camera.

To start with, the network is choosing the angles, choosing how the sound is mixed, choosing everything, and they often have a financial interest in the outcome of the fight.

Then there's zoom. Human eyes focus, but they don't zoom. We are notoriously bad at understanding what is happening in a moving image when the camera is doing things our eyes can't do. That's where a lot of UFO videos come from.

Then there's video encoding, done by the camera, then done again by the streaming service, and then there is the decoding done by your TV.

Most film is of a person who changes quite a bit in front of a background that doesn't change as much (or we might be willing to sacrifice some of those changes for faster download speeds and a better view of the person). So instead of sending a stream of images, just send a single image, then say what changes in the next image.

That saves some bandwidth, but you can save even more if you predicting the changes that come next.

We're already in an unusual situation, in boxing, where we have multiple figures tangled up, a figure against the background of another figure, something the video codecs aren't designed for.

Then we have elite athletes moving fast, right at the edge of each other's range, and being deceptive, if a few frames get filled in by prediction it may be very hard to tell what really happened.

The judges and refs don't have that problem, and they have their other senses to help with close calls in a way that the audience doesn't.

 

Great point, and we are also influenced by what the network replays in between rounds - i've certainly been influenced by this in the past, especially in a close round where I'm thinking it even, I can't deny I will have been pushed one way another by what is replayed before the next round starts.

 

The biggest thing is they are submitting a score every round with no forward knowledge how things will go and with no take backs. If an early round can go either way they are scoring that not knowing how that swings the fight later and might give the fight to the guy most think should have lost. Also the judge isn't aware of the other judges scorecard and if hes doing things different.

If a judge feels fighter A is getting a lot of close rounds at the start and middle then that fighter is getting beat up in the end well that judges scorecard is going to seem outlandish because fighter B had a case to win most of the rounds and did the more serious damage.

The main culprit for close boxing decisions is not bad judging its the 10-12 round distances. Not only is it an even number but every individual decision a judge makes matters more and they are more likely to score the fight for the fighter you didn't think won. Compare how many 15 rounders you have a problem with compared to 12 rounders and its night and day. I think we should go back to 15 rounds but make the rounds shorter. Fights that are 10 now should be 12 etc.