Scoring close rounds in close fights.

I actually agree with the thread starter, I have no issues with 10/10 rounds when required.

 

Close fights goes always to the in house fighter.

 

1) You don’t have to give a toss as you’re not a judge. Which is good, as you would be making up your own rules rather than abiding by the rules as written.

I mean, I can watch a soccer match and say “I’m not recognizing that goal because I thought the refs missed an offside call on it,” but it doesn’t affect the outcome. I can’t do that if I’m the official scorekeeper of the match.

2) It is a reason (not THE reason, but a reason in some cases) that some people cry robbery.

Because they, as fans, look at it like you do. As if it’s a crime to score every close round for the same fighter, so “it was a close fight” and “that judge didn’t have it close” doesn’t take account of the possibility that a judge gave all the close rounds the same way. It CAN be a close fight (as in each round is highly competitive) and still be 120 to 108, or 118 to 110, if the judge rules all the close rounds to go to the red corner boxer or whatever.

And people do scream bloody murder over decisions because they believe their guy won the close rounds or they believe like you the close rounds should be swapped back and forth. So they see it differently than a judge is tasked to score it.

Good recent example: there was disagreement over Joseph Parker’s decision over Hughie Fury. I watched a good bit of the fight and every round looked pretty much the same; Hughie on the back foot throwing pitty pat “punches” that were most often just touches if they connected at all vs. Parker being the aggressor, missing a lot but without question having more ooomph on his punches that did land.

Now if I’m a judge, given that nearly every round was a carbon copy of every other round, I’m giving ALL of those rounds to Parker. Because I believe in EFFECTIVE punching and from what I saw, Fury wasn’t punching effectively. He was playing tag (“I touched you with my glove”) rather than landing clean, effective blows. A fly wouldn’t be harmed by most of his “punches.” So, yes, there was some scoring difficulty but in the end Parker would be a winner by a wide margin on my card.

What I’m NOT going to do in that fight is say, “In Round 1, I’m going to award Hughie for having light touches in slightly greater volume, but in Round 2, which was almost an exact replay, I’m going to change my criteria and give it to Parker because ... well, both of them were ‘close’ rounds.”

That’s a HORRIBLE way to judge a fight. To do it that way, a judge is saying “I have no idea what to reward, I’m just going to switch my criteria around and give different things weight round to round. So what if I really believe Parker is the only one throwing real punches AND he’s the aggressor, Hughie’s negative tactics have made the round close so I’ll just slide half the close rounds into his column for reasons.”

Nah, that’s no way to do it. I would call that bad judging.

 

Parker vs Fury was a great advertisement for more use of 10-10. Many rounds where Parker came forward making the fight, but missing wildly. At the same time Hughie was evading those punches but not sending anything back of note. So we come down to a debate of aggressor vs evader with neither landing notable blows.

 

A professional judge should have been able to pick a winner in those rounds.

An amateur/fan, of course, can say ‘Wow, close rounds. I only saw a couple where there was a clear winner’ but that’s no way to judge a fight.

If no one lands a meaningful punch, or a punch at all, it’s probably an even round. If both get knocked down and there’s nothing else to separate the fighters, it’s probably an even round.

Otherwise, a competent judge should be able to pick a winner more than 90 percent of the time, probably closer to 99.

The first round where only five punches are thrown counts just as much on the scorecard as the sixth where each man throws and lands more than 40 punches, etc.

 

i never use them

 

The key to good scoring is good judgement.

Anyone who turns in a 120-108 scorecard in a fight where "it's razor close in every single round" doesn't have that, imo.

I'd describe someone who does that as blinkered and incompetent.

 

you can't score on stats! Jesus i bet your American because only Americans look at boxing this way you also got to take account how hard the punch is (because if fighter A lands 20 jabs but fighter B lands 10 haymakers fighter B wins in my book)
secondly who is the ring General if fighter A is throwing those punches on the retreat/ survival mode its lacks the overall effect on the judges

thirdly where are they landing if the shots are landing on the gloves or partially hitting the gloves or the fighter is riding the shots, sometimes (actually most of the time) compubox would count these punches while trained judges will see the difference when the computer doesn't

 

Good thread.

I feel that there is definitely room for 10-10 rounds.

Sometimes rounds are close enough that there IS no clear winner and that subjective criteria can have enough influence to determine the outcome. In these cases I usually take turns at splitting the really close rounds between the fighters alternately.

People that INSIST that rounds be scored for a winner and loser, often find that the outcome is not what they thought it might be.

For example, in the GGG/Canelo fight I had 4 rounds that were close enough to be argued either way. Commenters insisting on a winner and loser of each round ended up in me scoring it 8-4 to GGG when I had it 7-5ish before.

 

I'm very conscious of that bias. There are some fights where if I awarded all the close rounds to "my guy" the score would be a blowout and in no way reflective of a realistic outcome.

 

wtf are you on about? nobody said anything about scoring on stats. i bet youre not american, since you obviously have a stick up your ass about them.

 

There are always some rounds in some fights that are so close that it's almost impossible to pick a winner, so in that case a 10 - 10 round is OK, have not choice, unless you are a corrupt judges like Byrd who always scores almost every round for the house fight no matter what!

 

Agree about a professional scorer. They would pick up on intricacies that a novice such as myself wouldn't. I just think that Fury Parker there were rounds even tighter than usual.

 

we definitely need more even rounds.