Is it fair to score fights for runners?

It's unfair not to, as long as they're scoring at least a few touch-jabs and the other guy is too much of a dumbass to figure out how to cut the ring off and land anything.

 

The major criterion is clean, effective punches. You either get them, or you don't, enough to win the rounds, and enough to win the points across the rounds to win. However you do that, within the referee's discretion, is completely fair game. Don't take these issues to the fighter. Take them to the rules. It's like getting upset with billionaires who are legally avoiding as much taxation as possible. It doesn't mean they didn't make their fortunes or grow their fortunes that you don't like how they legally did it. But if they didn't do it legally, that's a different conversation.

 

Yeah, fighters are actually allowed to be mobile and evasive.

Such methodologies cannot be scored against them - nor should they be scored for them imo.

Defensive manoeuvres are simply “means” to a fundamental end - that end being to hit and not get hit or, at the least, hit the other guy more than he hits you.

Excessive holding etc. should regulated and adjudicated upon if necessary by the ref during the actual course of a fight -in ideal theory.

 

If they're landing punches I don't see why not.

 

I paid my money and expected to watch a fun fight but that marathon runner made the world title bout become a garbage fight. He deserved to lose the fight and I'm not gonna watch him in the ring with anybody anymore.

 

I will always score for the guy that lands the more or better punches. I don't care if they run. Even if I don't enjoy watching.

There's a lot of performances where a guy makes the other miss a lot and people think he's doing good and give him points for defense. i disagree with that. If your opponent throws 1000 punches and lands 2, and you throw 2 and land 1, all other things being equal (e.g., the power of said punches), you've lost the fight.

The fact that your opponent missed all those punches means nothing if he landed more than you.

 

I have no problem with fighters using movement to set traps and counters or to expose a weakness in their opponents poor footwork, it's often a sound strategy. But movement alone doesn't win fights, just as someone coming forward not throwing and missing punches doesn't win fights either. I'd say I see more of the latter than the former too many get rewarded for just throwing and missing while moving forward and being rewarded for ineffective aggression.

In the end it's punches landed that counts whether you are moving backwards or forwards. One shouldn't be rewarded for either unless you land punches to go with it.

 

Quite often they don't actually get scored in their favour anyways.

Ortiz lost to Lopez, Dirrell lost to Froch, Arbil lost to Rios.

If you're quick enough to hit and not get hit, and your advantage is enough you don't have to take any risks then fair play to you, but if the decision goes against you what generally seems to happen is people don't really care that much because of how negative the performance was.

There's initial uproar now about the result, but with how negative Ortiz fought I bet it gets forgotten about soon enough.

I don't necessarily think it's fair, but also I watch boxing to get entertained so I don't mind if the more entertaining fighter gets the W.

 

That is the way to score a fight.

Round by Round who is landing the majority of clean and effective punches.

If one guy is going backwards but out landing the opponent who is coming forward in that round then he wins the round. End of story.

 

Naoufel Ben Rabeh vs. Juan Urango back in June 2006 is a classic example. I haven't watched the fight since, but at the time I thought Rabeh did enough going backwards landing punches consistently to win the fight.

I'd have to watch it again to see if I have the same opinion.

 

Not at all, that's not the correct decision.

Nevertheles, punching more means punching more, though. One or two arm-punched jabs more is not punching more, is punching the same (because it is not enough to make a difference) and in case of punching the same the one taking the initiative/agression should win.

You are right, scoring a fight is very subjective.

 

Interesting that during the FOTC, Don Dunphy stated that Ali’s periodic breaking of the action (via clinching) was going to “hurt” him in the scoring.

The problem with that was - how would a judge exactly calculate and quantity demerit points for a semi allowed practice such as clinching.

As I see it, the responsibility for regulating and possibly penalising for excessive clinching is ALL on the ref.

If the ref. didn’t instruct any points deductions in that regard it isn’t up to the judges to make their own decisions, arbitrarily, as to whether any points deductions (or the effective like) should be applied.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate excessive clinching and Ali took it to the nth degree in the Frazier rematch without a single point being taken away.

It wasn’t conventional evasion, Ali was physically preventing Frazier from launching punches in close - which isn’t pure boxing per se.

 

If they land more than opponent its ok, but I hate this style. Doing 3 circles in the ring without throwing a punch, **** that.

 

Nah I disagree with this. When I watched Galahad Vs Warrington I had no qualms scoring in favour of Warrington when Galahad tried full on spoiling every single exchange.

**** that.

 

Neither fighter landed clean, effective punches, though... and that is just one criteria of scoring a fight, anyway.

If you run away like a ***** while the other guy is angrily stalking you and landing indentical punch output, you risk making the stalker appear as if he is the ring general.