What does it matter who was leading at the time of a KO?

Good post.

I find that you do hear it with Foreman v Moorer all the time though. I literally read that it was a “lucky punch” on this forum today.

There’s no such thing as a lucky punch. And if you win by KO, everything that happened in the fight up until then is irrelevant.

 

It is because of this exact reason. If other sports had a similar mechanism, the same second guessing would arise. The other sports you mentioned have a fixed time frame in which the competetion is organized, whoever has the most points at the end wins, there is no way to end the contest prematurely.
But even so, there are still wins that are being questioned due to "luck" on the winning side, or just pure bad fortune on the losing side.

 

I agree, you'll never convince some people of that regarding Hearns-Barkley I though.

 

If your favored fighter is knocked-out it gives you some consolation if he was ahead on the scorecards. Promoters love it because it sets up a rematch.

 

A poster on here gave me a good laugh a few years ago (I wish I could remember who it was). A khan fan was complaining that Khan was schooling Garcia before Bambi legs kicked in and was suggesting Khan could win in a rematch. Someone replied to the effect of " so what? Garcia outboxed Khan so badly in the fourth round that they had to stop the fight."

Looking at it from that perspective, yeah I suppose it doesn't matter what happened or who was leading before a knockout. A knockout or legit stoppage leaves very few questions as to who the winner is.

 

People say that to point out if someone is easy to outbox. Wilder vs Ortiz is one of the most glaring examples. People were saying for years that if Wilder can't knock a guy out, it's very hard for him to win a fight. That turned out to be true because we saw how terrible he looks in the Fury and Parker fights.

However, I do agree that trying to take credit away from a fighter who won by KO is stupid. It has nothing to do with luck. A KO punch is a punch the fighter practiced for days, weeks, years, etc, and he threw it with the intention to hurt the other guy. The way some people type, you'd think knockouts in boxing were like catching the flu or tripping on a banana peel.

 

It doesn't matter in the slightest regarding the outcome of the fight.

It is still something that you take notice of though.

 

Plus, any halfway seasoned viewer could tell Foreman was softening up Moorer for several rounds, not winning them on a scorecard but setting up the KO. Much like Marciano v Walcott or Julio v Meldrick.

 

I’m so glad you used Foreman Moorer and Walcott Marciano.
Foreman Moorer I think is one of the best examples of a Puncher outsmarting the boxer, while Walcott Marciano I think is the best example of weathering the storm and turning the tables.

Julio v Meldrick is the best example of the sport of you can do everything right till the last few seconds and loose. Though at least with that one I do understand why someone would say he was out boxing him the whole fight till he got knocked out because he did almost exactly outbox him for 12 rounds.

 

A poker player could have the best hand on the table, but still be beaten. The rules be the rules.

 

Yep, George threw a number of big left hooks in the 10th that literally straightened Moorer up. This set Moorer up for the straight right that ended it.

It was a tactical masterpiece. He’d even told Jim Lampley how it was going to happen.

 

Taylor didn't outbox Chavez, he outworked him.

 

Well yes, that’s really more accurate with those very fast hands landing more in every exchange. One of my all time favorite ends of a fight. But I think the basic idea stands.

 

At the primal level, I “think”, perhaps, that most people would like to see a fight be decided by a KO, the most definitive form of victory.

When a KO isn’t rendered, the next best option is to defer to subjective scoring of a fight.

A KO is absolute and irrefutable, so, whether leading in the scoring or being behind, it’s a wholly legit form of victory that can’t be detracted from - again, it can’t be any more absolute than that.

But it’s still okay to identify and acknowledge come from behind KO victories - it’s part of the perception of the drama. That’s why Louis. vs Conn 1, for just one example, will always be talked about.

The analysis might also be applied in practical terms - eg - calculating that the victim of a perceived random KO won’t fall prey to same in a rematch, therefore defaulting the outcome to a points decision otherwise - given that the previously KO’d victim was clearly leading in the first fight before the boom was lowered.