Do people here honestly think that defense wins you points in boxing?

It's just hard for me to even imagine Canelo being the (even " relatively ") slick one in the ring but I think I just have the burning image of the Lara match embedded in my brain.

 

Bandeedo's main point. that some people mix up their scoring criteria on who they are rooting for. So not the thread's main point, but what Bandeedo mentions is where it probably all originates from. That's a huge issue in boxing, and it also makes it too easy for malicious scoring judges to explain their bogus scorecards.

 

I mean, yeah, but where I take issue with him is saying that just the pro-defense side of the aisle do that when, to my eyes, those who most often bring in the personal bias of stylistic preference more often than not are the ones that favor whoever "makes the fight" and hate so-called "runners". (I don't have a problem with hating on excessive huggers...I think we all do. What excessive hugger ever grew a big fan base? ...unless they had some other MAJOR redeeming qualities both inside the ring and out to make up for it...like Hatton, for instance)

 

Point taken
But for me he pointed out the culprit of all of this. People mixing up the importance of scoring criteria to favor the fighter they're rooting for, and the mentioned defense being rather low on the list and getting put near or at the top by some is just one of the more clear examples.
Blindly favoring a fighter coming forward is another clear issue we've seen a lot and is just as ridiculous though.

 

I think bandeedo's post would be more palatable to me if he made it more rounded to include that, and didn't rein up short after just crapping on defense and ring IQ. Kind of narrows it down to suggest a type he favors (and is protecting by omission), which may lead to ironically doing what he's calling other people out for, by overemphasizing a small aspect of the language of the scoring criteria that isn't all that important by itself (namely the word aggression, divorced from the very important qualifier of EFFECTIVE)

 

Good thread and good points. Canelo made GGG miss a lot but the former threw a few punches per round and that's why he could not beat GGG. In other words, Canelo spent too much time showing boxing fans his great defence and footwork which could not help him to win the fight. That was a stupid strategy!

 

It's a clear issue but it's not being identified or treated as such at least not as it relates to G vs Canelo. Many people, in the media, fans, etc scored the fight for G simply because they blindly favored the come forward fighter (G). Not to say that everybody who scored for G is blind or something, but I'm just saying that a lot of people do favor come forward fighters and score close rounds for come forward fighters simply because they are coming forward.

A lot of people just gave G close rounds simply because Canelo was backing away too much for their liking. Instead of paying closer attention to the other criteria like who had better clean effective punching, who had better defense, who had better ring generalship, and how effective G's aggression actually was.

This type of thing can be interpreted in multiple ways. One person could watch a round and see a guy "running away" due to the other guy being "effectively" aggressive while another person could watch the same round and see a guy "fighting off his backfoot", "setting traps", and in doing so actually "being the ring general" dictacting where the fight is fought and forcing the opponent to come to him.

I hope this wasn't too long for you Robney, and I appreciate you saying that "Blindly favoring a fighter coming forward is another clear issue", but I have yet to see many fans admit such a thing if it involved their favorite fighter, in this case, Triple G. So this goes right to your point and to what IB was saying about how more often than not, the people who "mix up their scoring criteria on who they are rooting for" more often than not are those that favor come forward fighters, not defensive wizards. And you don't have to look any further than G to Canelo to see this on full widespread display.

 

What about his light punches? Did his opponent override those gauging or probing lighter punches with cleaner harder blows.
If Loma is landing light arm punches while his opponent isn't landing enough harder one's, Loma wins the round.

There's different circumstances to every round. For example, sometimes neither fighter lands clean or effectively during a round, and that's when one might consider giving the round to the fighter "trying to come forward and make the fight" instead of the runner that's going backward in full retreat avoiding fistic action.

 

I only take issue with that second paragraph, or really just the final line. There's never call to just shrug and resort to "well, who was trying to make the fight? Let's just reward that, just because."

No.

If neither landed cleanly or effectively, you look at nearest approximation. You look at it recursively. You roll up your sleeves, pit a clothespin over your nose to keep from passing out, and you pick out the least stinky trash. You look at who landed cleanER. Who landed MORE (as in, closer to) effectively. In three full minutes, you're telling me nobody laid a glove on anybody? No leather touched any part of any legal scoring area? I feel like that doesn't really happen. Extreme rarity. So if there is at least partial contact happening over the course of 3 minutes, whose is better? Whose is less bad? Whose sloppy contact is less sloppy?

If it happens to be the guy running on the backfoot throwing pot shot jabs of which 5% poke lightly through the guard, backfoot potshot guy wins the round (if the other guy was AWFUL and landed literally nothing clean in reply)

If it happens to be the guy wading forward winging shots and every once in a while having one clip the opponent's temple while partially blocked, then wade-forward haymaker guy wins the round (if the other guy was AWFUL and landed literally nothing clean in reply).

If you have the guys from the above two paragraphs and it's too close to call? Well then, no, look harder, there's no such thing as too close to call. Are the runner's 5% accuracy light pot shot jabs landing more cleanly than haymakers guy's half-screened-out wallops? Are they more numerous, by a significant margin? There's always another layer deeper to dig.

 

Not just anyone off the street can properly score a boxing match. You have to be highly observant, and smart enough to, in real-time, parse out the important details of what you're seeing, and disregard the unimportant (such as Victor Ortiz's wild flurries when he pushes Mayweather against the ropes, which caused many to swell up with emotion and declare he was "having a great moment!!!" when slow motion replays of the moment show literally not one blow landing. Not one)

Scoring requires thought and effort...but in an unhesitant, second-nature, almost intuitive (but still informed and methodology-based) way, on the fly. At least for a pro judge, or a RBR person. If you have the luxury of pausing and rewinding a round or entire fight at your leisure I guess there's no sense of urgency or time limit. But it still (all the more so, then, if unconstrained by pressures of time) requires THOUGHT and EFFORT. Resorting to "who made the fight" just seems lazy to me.

 

A professional judge scored GGG Canelo 118-110.... So can anyone at all properly score a boxing match?

 

Saying all or even most pro judges are smart (or even KSAB on a basic, fundamental level) is like saying all or even most cops are brave and true-hearted and took up the badge for pure and noble reasons and nothing to do with acting out some alpha male BS fantasy and control issues, or to bully with sanctioned impunity the people of color whom they're really scared witless of deep-down in the darkest corners of their fragile insecure egos.

Some judges are smart and understand all the subtleties of the game.

Some cops are genuine walking pillars of courageous and fair-minded altruism, superheroes in human form.

Some boxers learn the craft to a T, and know how to actually box, and what the object is.

...in that last group, 'some' is like one in a thousand, and the first two are probably not much different.

 

Stopped reading at 'any amateur' .

3 round amateur bouts are scored completely differently than pro bouts. If Klitschko vs Haye was an amateur bout , Haye would have won because he landed more power punches than Wlad. Amateur judges award the fight to the guy who lands the most clean shots , in that case it was Haye.
In the pros Wlad was the winner because of his defense , distance control and ability to make Haye miss. He wasn't hitting Haye during those moments that were winning him rounds.

The nature of boxing is to be the better boxer than your opponent. Its not about going out to try club him into submission. Defense is an integral part of boxing that should and is used to secure rounds.

 

Wlad clearly out landed Haye in their fight.

 

If that was true he would have knocked Haye out , but he never once hurt or dropped him because he landed very few power punches on him.
Compubox has Haye out landing Wlad on PPs and the fight shows that it was Haye who landed the best shots of the fight. Wlad never caught Haye as good as Haye caught Wlad in the 12th round.