Hardest rounds/fights to score

Since this one has come up a couple of times, I dug up my (re-) scoring of it and comments from this summer, which seems like 100 years ago in the age of COVID:

Larry Holmes (c) vs. Tim Witherspoon

May 20, 1983, at Dunes Hotel and Casino Outdoor Arena in Las Vegas, 12 rounds for Holmes’ WBC heavyweight championship

Holmes comes in 42-0 (30) weighing 213, while Witherspoon is 15-0 (11) and 219 1/2. Both stand 6-foot-3. This is Holmes’ 15th defense (!). The Easton Assassin is 33 years old; Terrible Tim is 25.

Round 1: Holmes 10-9 (close, could be even)
Round 2: Holmes 10-9 (again, close and possibly even)
Round 3: Witherspoon 10-9 (body work takes the round)
Round 4: Holmes 10-9 (the champion goes flat-footed, closes the distance and establishes his jab)
Round 5: Holmes 10-9 (a couple of nice combinations)
Round 6: Holmes 10-9 (that jab)
Round 7: Holmes 10-9 (close, could go either way, great exchanges)
Round 8: Witherspoon 10-9 (‘Spoon starts to get busy)
Round 9: Witherspoon 10-9 (an all-time heavyweight round as Terrible Tim hurts Holmes, who storms back late)
Round 10: Holmes 10-9 (on his toes boxing)
Round 11: Holmes 10-9
Round 12: Holmes 10-9
My card: Holmes 117-111

Outcome: Holmes regains by split decision. Official cares are 118-111, 115-113, 114-115

Witherspoon’s cross-arm defense gave Holmes trouble and he had a couple of rounds where he landed big punches (the seventh and ninth, which I split between the fighters on my card) but Holmes works a full 3 minutes every round and Witherspoon goes too long without punching in so many of these rounds (before the seventh his corner is begging him to let his hands go). There’s stretches where Holmes throws like 8 jabs over 30-45 seconds and lands 2 cleanly and another one or two partially ... but Witherspoon doesn’t even throw a punch in that span. It happens too often.

Great fight, very competitive, and that’s another point I want to make: a fighter can win every round (say 120-108 in a 12-round fight) and it can be a razor-close fight ... but if he wins every round by the thinnest of margins then he wins by a wide margin on the cards. A lot of people don’t get that. As a judge you can’t say ‘well I gave Fighter A the last round and it was pretty close but I thought he deserved it, so I’m going to give this round to Fighter B even though I thought Fighter A edged it too.’ Not how it works.

Fun fight and I can see how people might score it closer, but to me it’s a stretch to give it to Witherspoon.

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