I often hear how a judge should be able to pick a winner of a round regardless of how close it was, and that even rounds are in some way wrong. This is imo complete horse **** and the reason we get so many dodgy decisions in the sport. If a round is very close whats wrong with scoring it even? that way if a fight is close the guy who has won rounds decisively and therefore produced the more commanding work over the course of the fight gets the decision. This to me is simple and I find it infuriating when people disagree. Discuss
I agree completely. I often score rounds even if it's too close to call. Cheap points ruin outcomes of otherwise great fights. We should have 15 rounds still, that would help weed out the bad decisions :bbb
If no one does ****, it's a 10-10 round. Simple as that, and it's fully allowed under the 10 point must system so I see no reason why judges don't use it.
I score even rounds whenever I feel the need to. I thought a couple rounds of Pacquiao-Marquez I were even.
How the **** else would you score? Just arbitrarily give it to either of them? Based on what exactly?
When clean effective punching appears dead even, ring generalship and aggression come more into play imo. That's how I separate close rounds. It is tough, though.
agree. especially as we saw with the froch kessler fight- where a judge had it close but for kessler each time- and the end result was 117-111. even though every round was even- he HAD to give it to someone- or at least was pressured to - and found a way to give it to kessler each time. anyone looking at that scorecard would think that kessler dominated the fight- where in fact it was as tight as a nuns....
I see no reason to reward ineffective aggressiveness, and if you can't land it's not much in terms of ring generalship either. Unless the other guy is truly running perhaps.
I agree. Boxing discourages their judges from scoring even rounds. I do however feel that its easier for a corrupt judge to favor a fighter if he has free reign to score as many even rounds as he can. If boxing was clean and honest, there's no doubt in my mind that the scoring of more even rounds by judges where it was merited would do the sport alot of good. As a fan, when I score a fight, usually if there's a real close round to score, I do find nuances from one fighter or the other to merit a score in their favor for that round. .....so I seldom score rounds even, and when I do, there's usually only one or two even rounds on my cards. I for one find with giving alot of opening round even score. Its a feelout round, and most of the time, there is'nt anything effective being done by either fighter in an opening round other than try to figure eachother out for tendencies on a certain feint or move. In many instances there is'nt even a clean scoring blow landed in a feelout round, so why not score it even? Many fights have tilted toward one fighter on the end result with a feelout round that probably should have been scored even being the difference. For a good honest judge, having the even round option at their disposal is a good thing. However, I cant say there are too many honest judges around these days, so we just may get more ridiculous decisions if the judges nowdays had open leeway to score rounds even.
:deal I concur. It definitely makes it easier to score. There are just so many opinions up in the air as in what is the correct way to score a fight. Like in Barrera-Juarez I and Wright-Hopkins. Barrera and Wright landed or connected more punches on their opponent, maybe not the more affective ones, but that they landed more they did and to keep it simple that's how I think a fight should be scored. Whoever lands or connects more punches. But of course some like the aggressive fighter, even tho he might be getting his ears boxed off, and others like whoever is landing the harder, cleaner shots. Like Arreala-Adamek. Prior to the fight I picked Adamek to win a Split Decision over Arreola and that's what manifested. That is not the problem with me. The problem I had wasn't the result, but the way how many people only scored 2 rounds to Arreola. That's ridiculous! Of course, Adamek did outland Arreola, but Arreola clearly wobbled Adamek and almost knocked him down with the jab alone. To say the fight wasn't close is pretty ignorant.I really hope in the future there is a more sure fire method that can give the fans and more importantly the fighters more fair decisions. One judge having a scorecard even while another 117-111 is very wrong. Why even have 3 judges?
You make some very sound points however, I believe scoring very close rounds even actually exposes a corrupt judge. For example any corrupt judge is going to score close rounds to the house fighter, but if scoring rounds even was encouraged this way the judge who has handed in a card with lots of very close/even rounds to the house fighter will be shown up for what he is. I know what you are saying as far as a judge who has been payed off can score clear rounds even but surely this will be exposed quickly as a clear round is a clear round. If all judges were encouraged to score very close rounds even then it can only be good for the sport.
