I have never understood why boxing doesn't score by margin of victory. As an example, look at This content is protected . (a BS draw) However, had they totaled up the scorecards in a way that made sense, Lewis would have rightfully won: This content is protected So in this case they disregard the fact that, overall, the judges gave more rounds to Lewis. (116>115 and the two 115's offset each other). SO why is it that, on an individual judges scorecard, however many rounds he scores for a fighter determines who he thinks the winner is, yet at the end of the fight, they only take the FINAL result? (thereby totally disregarding margin of victory each judge has assessed) You could argue that by doing that it would allow one judge to unfairly influence the outcome but my counter to that would be that, IF it was a bogus scorecard (because based on this system if one judge was corrupt, he would need to exaggerate the score to ensure their guy won. In the current way of scoring, a 115-113 would be enough to put the fix in.) and it would be a more blatant cheat.
You think they care about 'blatant' cheating as you say? Look at some of the crazy scorecards we've had in the last year. That system wouldn't change anything, judges are more than happy to turn in ridiculously wide scorecards at the moment even when they don't have to.
So let's just keep boxing the way it is then...woohoo. This wouldn't address all the issues in boxing (nothing will) but this is a small and easy to implement change.
Stupid idea. Some judged have ridiculously biased scores. The only really good idea I have heard in years is to score 1/2 points. ie a close round is 10-91/2 in favour of the winner. That would be good.
This was my suggestion that I wrote about a few weeks back on a couple of different websites: The current ten point must scoring system is flawed. Now, is it the number one reason for boxing's shortcomings? No, no it isn't, but it is still a very flawed system. If fighter A is clearly beating up fighter B around for one round, but fighter B comes out and just barely wins round two over fighter A, who's winning? Well, with boxing's current system it's obviously an even fight. One round a piece, 19-19, but does that score truly represent the action that is taking place in the ring? No, it doesn't. This is where I think a new scoring system for boxing is needed. Over the past a year I came up with an alternate scoring system and have done some tweaks here and there, and while not perfect, I do think it's an improvement over the current system in place. With that said, my proposal is the "Ten Point Total" System. So, what is the ten point total system? It's a very simple system, each round you allot ten points. How you distribute those points is up to you. For example, close rounds should be scored 5-5 or 6-4. If it's a pretty clear round, but not that dominate of a round, you score the round 7-3. And if one fighter clearly one the round and put a good licking on his opponent you can score it in the 8-2, 9-1, or even 10-0 range. An example of 9-1 and 10-0 rounds would be the Errol Spence fight this past week versus Javier Castro. Spence dominated each and every round, but that's the problem with the current system. The majority of those five rounds were scored just 10-9 in favor of Spence. After four rounds Spence was only up 40-36, maybe 40-35. But is that score really representative of the action in the ring? No, not at all. With this ten point total scoring system after four rounds Spence would be up something along the lines of 34-6, 35-5, 36-4...and you would know that, Spence is really putting it on Castro. It's a simple system which takes a page out of baseball's scoring. If Team A scores five runs in the first inning and Team B scores zero, obviously, Team A is up five-zero. But, if Team A doesn't score in the second inning and third innings, while Team B score one run apiece in the second and third innings, who's up? Well, Team B has cut it close, but Team A is still up 5-3, but with the current system in place for boxing all of a sudden Team B would be up a round, 29-28 and that just isn't right because that score isn't exactly reflective of the action in the ring. Again, this past week, there were a handful of rounds where Timothy Bradley and Mauricio Herrera clearly won...anybody that has clear eyes and a clear conscious could see that. And then there were some close rounds, but rounds Chaves and Benavidez didn't necessarily won. The last couple of rounds in the Bradley fight really stick out. Bradley was in cruise control, but Chaves didn't exactly take the bull by the horns and win those rounds...5-5 rounds there would be appropriate. Keeping with the baseball theme, sometimes both teams don't score a run in the inning (0-0) or they each score a lot of runs in one inning (3-3, 5-5, 8-8...of course each team scoring eight runs in an inning would be crazy, but still...). In boxing, we have this mindset that someone has to win each and every single round. But, I don't think that should be the case. If neither fighter deserves the round and you can't separate them, score it 5-5. There's nothing wrong with that. When a fighter is penalized, you still deduct a point. For example, if you were going to score that round 5-5, make it 6-4. If you were going to score it 6-4, make it 7-3 with the deduction. If you are going to score a round 10-0, I guess making it 11- -1 would be appropriate, but that's something that should be really, really, extremely rare. In terms of knockdowns, I think deducting a point for a knockdown would be appropriate, but sometimes not necessary. Flash knockdowns where a fighter's feet might get tangled up and a punch doesn't really land, but the ref rules it a knockdown, maybe in your mind you don't really factor that in. Again, is this the perfect system? No. Will this solve all the terrible robberies? No, of course not, but I do think it's an improvement. This scoring system is more of a reflection of what happens in a fight than the 10 point must scoring system. In theory, it would hold judges more accountable for accurately scoring the rounds the right way. If a round is clearly close where you can't separate the two and everybody has it 6-4, 5-5, but one or multiple judges score the round 9-1 in favor of whatever fighter (the money fighter) then you would know that there's clearly something going on. There's visual proof instead of the round just being scored 10-9. Probably the biggest reason why this wouldn't work in the crooked boxing world, but it's fun to dream.
I guess the reason they don't do that is so that one judges opinion doesn't weigh more than another's. You have the three judges in there to offset the chances of one of them being nuts like a CJ Ross and being way off. Now picture CJ Ross having more say in the decision than the other two judges because her scores are so far off.
I agree with some points you have made. The bottom line, as you mentioned, is that there needs to be a way to give more credit for a round that was won with a lot of action, as compared to MOST round 1's which typically have none. All rounds are not created equal.
Yeah I get that, and really she already did have too much influence. The flip side is that CJ Ross is out of boxing now but under a different scoring system it would have been more blatant earlier and she would have been canned a while ago. I would just like to see ONE change to make boxing a more honest sport. Not too much to ask.
I hate baseball...but that is a great post! With your suggestion I think judges would also need to justify WHY they scored a round the way they did. Simply putting numbers down on a piece of paper (even with the current system) isn't really sufficient in my opinion... but I like where you are going with it.
I have to wonder whether going to a half point system might help scoring overall. 10-9.5 (close round) 10-9 (competitive but clear round for the winner) 10-8.5 (dominant round for winner, who probably hurt the opponent in the stanza) 10-8 (Winner drops his opponent) 10-7.5 (Winner drops his opponent and dominates the round) 10-7 (Winner scores two kd's in the round) And so on. Point deduction still applies for a penalty. It puts the onus on the fighter to ensure that he wins each round clearly, because even if he earns of split of the rounds in total, he still might lose on the cards because the other fighter won his share of the rounds in a more decisive fashion. And I personally think that's an improvement over the existing system, which tends to engender the attitude that all 10-9 rounds are the same.
Does changing the point values complicate a very subjective criteria to begin with? I don't call it perfect but I don't see a clear fix Also when discussing bad scores we have to figure out is it corrupt or not Changing rules doesn't fix biases and external problems