Factoring work rate into scoring

Unless I missed a major shift in scoring criteria, it's:

1) Clean punching -- this should be obvious, that that should mean glancing, cuffing and slapping type punches should not count

2) Effective aggressiveness -- effective being the key word here, being aggressive but not accomplishing anything by it is worth zero

3) Defense -- the opposite of effective punching, this is making your opponent's punches ineffective whether by slipping, parrying, bobbing and weaving, controlling the distance, footwork or whatever means

4) Ring generalship -- this is the most subjective, but I take it to mean dictating the terms of combat (i.e. asserting your will or game plan over the other guy's) and also exhibiting skill and class in how you go about things (that can be cutting off the ring, feinting, setting traps, countering by making your opponent lead to set up openings, working angles or any of another thousand things that you know when you see them shows a fighter who has a keen sense of how to fight).


I see nothing there that dictates that a boxer should be awarded for merely throwing a lot of punches, if they aren't landing effectively or if they don't somehow translate to an effective form of aggressiveness.

 

I get what you're saying. I don't know when the shift occurred or why to be frank.

 

The most laughable is punchstat "power punches," which means, actually, non-jabs. Oscar could take your head off with his shotgun jab and the other guy could pitty-pat or shoeshine a couple of hooks or rights and those are "power punches" even though they are less powerful than Oscar's jab.

SMH

 

Thread deserves a bump in light of the recent outcry over the Jewnior-Vera fight.

 

if the act of throwing punches stops the opponent punching then missed shots still have some value to scoring.

i do agree though, especially that compubox punchstats are close to worthless, both the jab/power punch thing mentioned above, plus i dont really trust the numbers.

 

The scoring of bouts should only be judged by the clean and effective punches landed by each fighter with effective aggressiveness being the tie-breaker. Including factors such as ring generalship and defense in the scoring of bouts makes it far more complicated than it should be. Ring generalship and defense are important for boxers to learn to be effective in the ring, which makes them enough of a reward without including them in the scoring of bouts.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Liston and Hagler come to mind for me when you bring up Oscar. Louis is another to think about when disregarding jabs as power shots, and how do you omit Foreman's when he used it?

 

Great thread. I hope it sticks for a while.

 

Probably related to the rise of point scoring in amateur boxing.

Given all the complaints about modern heavyweights' low workrates, this might not be such a bad thing for the heaviest fighters.

 

My personal opinion with people associating work rate with success in ring, is for the casual fans. To effectively score a bout, it requires complete attention, and as little bias as possible. For the casual fan, those two requirements are hard to accomplish.
As a result, they are passively watching a fight, not seeing the important details, and the guy who is throwing more just naturally off glance looks like he is in control.

My perfect example would be Toney vs Jirov. I remember watching that fight, and disagreeing with the Lampley, Lederman, etc. the whole time. They saw Jirov throwing tons of punches on on Toney. But what I was watching was a masterful defenseive fighter, blocking, parrying, slipping tons of punches and countering with tremendous clean punches. I was very pleased to see the cliche of bad judging not witnessed in this fight, as the judges seemed to see the same thing as I did.

Jirov= higher work rate, often INeffective aggression
Toney= Effective gameplan in clean punching and defense