Judging Reform

Have judges evaluated after every fight. If it is a fight where it is nothing but a 12 round beat down, and two of the judges have it 120-108, then the third judge has it 114-114, that third judge should be fined.

I also think if there is a blatant robbery and if the overwhelming majority of press and fans agree that it was a blatant robbery, I think 5 new judges should score the fight, and their decision can over rule the orginal decision.

 

the commisions need to be stricter in who they let judge and bad jdges can be fined

 

Scorecards should be made available from every fight for easy publishing - Boxrec would be a great place to house this. For egriegous round errors, a written defense of the scoring of the round must be provided (published with the scorecard - request made by, say, the fighter, sanctioning body of athletic commision).

I don't know if I agree with this, but it's a thought: if a judge decides s/he can't defend the score (i.e. "I made a mistake"), the score can be retroactively changed. No other sport changes results after the finish (football/hockey overrule during the game), but since the scoring of a fight doesn't change it's flow in any way, it's possible this could work. It's a can o' worms, though.

 

This might work well in a case like Eugenia Williams where during Lennox-Evander I, Lennox clearly won the round and was his best round of the fight, she gave the round to Evander. Her reasoning was "The fighter's backs were to me, so I couldn't accurately see what was going on", then in the film it clearly shows she was in prime position to score the fight, with the fighter's sides being to her and at a point where she could easily see everything that went on.

 

What about the idea of announcing the scores after each round?

It might make it difficult for a dishonest judge, if the crowd was boing every bad round they made? Or, perhaps, if the commentators saw the judges card, they would be less likely to be inconsistent with their own, and therefore we would see far less criticism, as many people base their criticisms on what the commentators think.

Also, if a fighter knows the scores, they will know that they either need to do more (or produce a KO and can adjust their styles accordingly).

I am not sure if this would be a good idea but i am interested in what others think.

 

I think that would benefit the fighters a bit too much, it wouldn't be too bad if there was some way nobody directly involved in the fight could find out though.

 

You could be right, but does it really matter if a boxer knows where he stands in a fight? If a fighter is dancing and jabbing and thinking he is piling up points, would it not be an idea to give him a chance to change his tactics and maybe go for the knockout or change his tactics to try to make up the points. It might also make it more exciting for the fans watching if they knew who was really winning throughout, rather than hazarding a guess.

It is just a thought, but it might be worth trialling.

 

Who is that in your avatar?

 

For BS scorecards that appear to be way off the mark the judge responsible should be made to justify his/her score for each individual round.

 

Do not do anything, the system works well. Without subjective decisions, what would we have to debate?

 

Nothing.
Judging in profisinal boxing really comes down to who the judge thought did better that round. The theory is that if they are being honest than all 3 judges will pick the same boxer as the winner of a given round. Not including possible dishonestly there flaws in this theory. First of all each judge may have a difrent idea what it takes to win a round. Judge 1 may give the round to the boxer who lands more punches which is how amature boxing is scorred. Judge 2 may score on ring genrealship. Judge 3 might score on punch acuracery. With 3 diffrent mindsets on how to score a round scorecards can have diffrent results.

 

And............ agreed.

 

:think

Actually I was wrong, the system sucks...