One sided fights that somehow resulted to a split decision / majority decision

Floyd vs Canelo
Pac vs Bradley I

 

My theory on this is someone important puts a bet on a split or a majority decision.

 

I think more often it’s a result of what we see on TV with the god’s-eye view (often underscored by replay of highlights) not matching what a judge at ringside looking from one spot looking up at the ring sees — they cannot score what they don’t see, and our line of sight isn’t unobscured by ropes or the ref or a fighter having his back to them.

If you have been to live fights in person, you should notice that a good job looks a lot more impressive than it does on TV. That alone can swing scorecards and leave the video/streaming/TV viewer with a different impression.

There’s also the impact (which few of us will admit to) that commentary can have on our perception.

Yes, there are bad cards by judges who are incompetent and perhaps even corrupt. It’s also hard in a live arena not to be swayed by how the crowd reacts.

Also, many people — even hardcore boxing fans — fail to grasp that a close fight can be scored 120-108 if one guy edges every round in that judge’s view, or a fight with a lot of close rounds can be seen one way by one judge and completely differently by another depending on how those close rounds are scored.

Likewise, a fight where one guy wins his rounds by clear and wide margins can leave a false impression that he dominated, while the other guy won an equal or near-equal number of rounds by the narrowest of margins.

Just look at one of live threads on the general/world forum where people are scoring as it happens and you will often see a lot of scores in disagreement … are the posters corrupt?

 

How the **** did one judge score it a draw for Canelo vs Mayweayer. It was probably that known cheat Adelayde Bird.

 

Bradley beat him imo.

 

Lewis vs Holyfield I

 

Well, that is a take, I guess. No one will take that away from you.

 

We must have been watching two different fights lol

 

GGG Canelo 1

 

Carl Froch vs Glen Johnson

 

The first fight between Emile Griffith and Gaspar Ortega was a split win for Griffith. Actual scores were 7-3 and 8-1-1 for Griffith while the ref scored it 8-1-1 for Ortega. I had it 6-2-2 for Griffith. According to boxrec, the AP had it 6-3-1 and the UP had it 8-2 both for Griffith. Also, 16 out of 17 sportswriters had it for Griffith. So what was the ref watching?

 

Controversial take but I see Holmes vs Norton that way. It’s closer to a shut out for Holmes (I only had him losing two rounds, and one of those was close) than it being potentially a Norton win.

But like I say that’s probably an unpopular opinion.