Biggest issue i have with it is that to score an even round you probably both have to stand there looking at each other from across the ring, and to get a 10-8 without dropping him you basically need to have your opponent out on his feet, so nearly every round where both fighters stay on their feet finish 10-9 regardless of how competive it was. So my solution would be this. Scoring fights is marked on 4 criteria - ring generalship - defence - effective aggression - clean punching Each round the judges mark which of the fighters has been better in that category. If a fighter has won all 4, its 10-8 If a fighter has won 3 but lost 1, its 10-9 If both fighters have 2 a piece its 10-10 And then you have your extra points for knockdowns, points off for fouls etc
The scoring system is as good as it is, but the judges are not. I know that no one from the forum will agree with me, but I would introduce VAR technology (as in soccer). So you could see every low blow, headbutt, elbow, ... What VAR technology shows would be regulated by a warning, deduction of one point, or disqualification. VAR technology would show everything between rounds, everything the judges saw would be regulated in the next round (there are certainly better ways). And then (when everything, everything is visible) he would make a better selection between the refree and the judge. This content is protected
Try, score/judge the fight in its entirety, just like ONE Championship. Then there must also be for offense alone. Not just effective aggression. Just like in ONE, takedown defense is also scored, not just takedowns. So that takedown spams which are prevented are also scored, hence lay and pray is not as favored. If there is lull in the ground fight then the fighters are made to stand up much quicker by the referee than in the UFC, hence long boring moments are prevented. Even during stand up, they are warned for more action.
How about the sanctioning bodies just publish clear scoring guidelines and the judges have to adhere to them. Eg. The 4 criteria you have mentioned above, they mean different things to different people so they need to be broken down
It's not really that good though is it? For example if a fighter doesn't land a punch all round, gets dropped 3 times and the round is 10-6- what exactly did the fighter do to get 6 points. Remember watching a rerun of Calzaghe- Lacy in the pub and a casual asked me how on earth did Lacy score 107 points, but in reality all he did was lose 13 points he walked to the ring with. It makes the sport inaccesible to the casual audience. Football is the most popular sport in the world because it simple- you score, you get 1 goal. Simple, any casual can dip in and understand. Even many of the hardcore have problems getting their head round this system (look at some of the RBR's with posters who don't know someone has to get 10 points). Heck even some professionals. I recall David Haye in the Wilder/ Fury rematch where Wilder went down and Fury got a point off and Haye scored it 10-9 for Fury. Even broadcaster get it wrong: https://www.*****.net/2022/03/16/da...=The only way to get,the whole way of scoring.
Well effective aggression covers that though doesn't it. If you are just windmilling it's not effective.
Open scoring Awareness who the judges are - interviews with them before and after the bouts so people are informed about them and their credentials. You can't allow these people to so significantly affect the outcome of a fight yet remain completely anonymous.
Although an interesting take, I don't think this gets round the insolvable problem of turning a subjective view into an objective score. In some ways it further complicates the issue. One potential solution would be to amalgamate the judges' scores for each round and finish the fight with one scorecard. Sometimes a judge's final tally is skewered by an oddly-scored round which contradicts the other judges. Assume a round is scored 10/9, 10/9 and 9/10. That round would be scored on the amalgamated scorecard as a 10/9 by dint of a simple majority. And so on. A round scored 9/10, 10/10, 10/9 is slated as a 10/10. At the end of the fight the amalgamated score is added up as one card and the win or draw announced. Perhaps in the event of the draw using this method, you could fall back to the traditional scoring method of three separate scorecards to see if a winner can be found that way...
Just go back to scoring by rounds. Have an odd number of rounds. 11 for non title and 13 for championship fights. 6 rounds to 7. Easy. Knockdown don't carry as much weight.
Agreed on the scoring. Don't know about a VAR system. I think subjectivity needs to be removed when counting punches. Does a jab count as much as a left hook. We've seen fights were guys land 20 jabs 3 power shots and the opponent land 4 jabs and 10 power shots. Who wins that round? If you say a power shot is worth 2 jabs, well what about the guy that has a jab the really does damage(Golovkin)? Is it fair to say a Golovkin jab isn't more damaging than a Paulie Malinagi jab and therefore counted as the same punch? For me, that is a problem, but really don't see a good remedy for it.
A clear set in stone scoring criteria that everyone knows, Judges judging fairly according to that criteria, and a independent expert panel who can remove the right for a judge to carry out that role when they have obviously scored incorrectly.
Same as gymnastics or figure skating in that not everyone will like or value the same thing. Difference of opinion. Its consequences are colossal in boxing where a top fighter takes to the ring between 1-3 times a year. Ive often sort of thought that scoring even rounds might help the outcomes but truly that would just have an equal outcome of controversy.
The more options you give a dishonest judge, the bigger the window for him or her to implement his corrupt deeds. If there is to be a change, I'd rather see rounds scored based on the disparity of the competiveness in the round. Example Even round 10-10 Competitive round 10-9 Clear round 10-8 Dominant uncompetitive round 10-7 Then off of those scores you can deduct a point for any knockdown or knockdowns scored. For example, if the round was competive but a knockdown was scored, the round can go from being scored 10-9 to a 10-8. If that same round was going clear to a particular fighter and a knockdown was also scored, a 10-8 now becomes 10-7. ......and so on. There are alot of fights currently scored close where one fighter clearly wins most of his rounds where the other fighter just wins his rounds where those rounds were fought more competively. A wider points scoring system would eliminate that, but yes, even in this scoring system a corrupt judge can easily take advantage of it and manipulate rounds to serve a certain fighter, so no system is really safe proof.
