Scoring close rounds in close fights.

I rarely see a round so close that I want to give it an even round. If a guy does enough to win it then he wins it. You don't get points for being competitive.

 

I have no problem with even rounds as long as the judge has the right winner in the end

 

No. The scoring criteria isn't as wide and as subjective as people make it out to be. If you actually understand the sport then it isn't that hard to score. Some rounds end up being toss ups but usually that isn't the case.

 

it is statistically very unlikely to ever have an even round. how often do you ever have identical clean punches landed in a rd from both fighters? and if your personal method for scoring rds has additional criteria, then it becomes even more statistically unlikely to have equal scores. even rds are mostly a judges inability to score all the scoring punches that should have been seen.

 

I don't believe in even rounds.

I do however believe in distributing genuinely close, very tough to score rounds, evenly.

By that I mean if I've given a guy a 10-9 round based on very little, I would be inclined to go the other way the next time there's one of those rounds.

Almost the same thing as scoring a round even I guess, but not actually doing so.

 

No one will admit it here but we all score then to the fighter we a hoping wins...

 

The guidelines for judges for the 10 Pount Must System, which are published by the Association of Boxing Commissions, state very clearly that "Even rounds should rarely, if ever happen."

This is the cause of the introduction of a lot of bias in judging, make up rounds, and all other kinds of mischief.

I don't know when this concept was adopted, as I believe in the old days even rounds were much more common.

Personally, if a round is even, I call it even. If no fighter did anything in a round, I call it even. I think it's wrong to "just pick a winner" of a round when the round was even.

 

If a round is so close that you don't know who won it, score it even of course! However, the judges score the round for the house fighter all the time.............

 

Feelout rounds, like the first and second are usually very close and hard to pick a winner for. Then there are rounds that have one guy outlanding the other but the guy that's outlanded doing more damage (the game of boxing vs the brutality). Rounds were both guys are exhausted and therefor completely ineffective against eachother is another example which happens quite often.
Looking in the RBR's you often see rounds where one half scores it for one guy and the other half scores it for his opponent.

So clearly there are rounds that are close enough that it's very hard to pick a winner in, and a lot of the totally bogus scores in boxing are a result of scoring most of those rounds for one guy alone.

Issue is that boxing scoring is so flawed and so easy to score in a malicous way, that scoring close rounds even actually is more fair to the actual result, because when given as 10-9 in 4 close/can go either way rounds for, they're not evenly devided between both boxers. Usually it's more like 3 to 1 or even 4 to 0 for the "a-side"/featured/home/better connected fighter and can turn the decision the other way round.
The "close, so no robbery" kind of decisions, that usually end up in favor of the guy that least deserves it.

I'd like more 10-10 rounds in boxing, pr better yet, a complete overhaul of the scoring system that obviously doesn't work.

 

This kind of thinking is why people scream ‘robbery’ so often. Because there is NOTHING in scoring criteria, judge training or anywhere in the sport of boxing that dictates a judge to “take turns” in awarding close rounds.

If a judge believes Fighter A edges a round, he is bound, instructed, expected and professionally obligated to give Fighter A that round. Same with the next close round and the one after that.

A very, very competitive fight can legitimately be scored 120 to 108 if the judge believes the same fighter won every round, even if it’s razor close in every single round.

That’s not just the way it is, it’s the way it’s SUPPOSED to be. You don’t award rounds that are close to the fighter you think lost it by the narrowest of margins, you give it to the fighter you think won it by the narrowest of margins EVERY TIME.

Furthermore, those who are advocating for even rounds would go ballistic over the indecisiveness of judges in a competitive fight if they decided 7 rounds out of 12 were just too close to call and scored them all even, allowing only five rounds to make a difference in the outcome. Judges SHOULD NOT score rounds even unless they are just so close that there’s nothing to separate the fighters using the criteria of effective aggressiveness, clean punching, defense and ring generalship.

Some of the EASIEST rounds to score are those early feeling out rounds where Fighter A lands five jabs and one clean but not hard right and Fighter B lands two jabs and one halfhearted, slapping hook. You give that kind of round to Fighter A and move along to the next round.

 

The reality is there are some fights & rounds where you really aren't sure who edged it, have no time for reflection before handing in your card and otherwise think the round should be scored even.

I tend to distribute those rounds evenly between the fighters. If it's genuinely close but I feel one fighter has edged it, that fighter will get the round.

I couldn't give a toss what the rule book does or doesn't say. That's how I do it.

And given "there is NOTHING in scoring criteria, judge training or anywhere in the sport of boxing that dictates a judge to 'take turns' in awarding close rounds", the approach I've articulated can't be the reason people scream "robbery".

No-one is supposed to be doing it the way I've described so it can't possibly be the reason for bad decisions.

The reason for bad decisions is bad judges.

As for it being perfectly reasonable to have a 120-108 scorecard where it's "razor close in every round" I think that kind of blind adherence to the rules doesn't do anyone any favours. If one guy is home and hosed well before the finish line, it's okay to be generous in scoring a few rounds to the other guy.

"Not in the rule-book" you say? Couldn't give a toss.

 

I don't like using them when possible. They should be really quite rare IMO but not ignored completely. SKy are complete slags for a 10-10 round though. I don't think Froch has scored a round to an individual fighter yet