What is the difference between a close fight and a robbery?

Nothing,

After the fight robbery, disgusting blah blah blah.

Few weeks down the road it was a close fight.

 

I think subjective scoring depending on what people like can have a big bearing on this:-

+ A competitive fight can easily be scored a shutout 12 rounds to 0 if the same fighter is winning every round - by just enough each round. I think folks tend to even that up unconciously because they feel the fight is closer than a shutout suggests, so when there are wide cards this can be a factor at times, especially if the one squeezing out the rounds is doing it mostly on workrate/volume as opposed to clean punching
+ Folks that don't like runners / spoilers may cite robbery if a 'mobile' fighter gets the nod in the majority of rounds, because they stunk up the joint
+ Generally folks - and the judges these days - don't seem to be great and scoring good body work well, and tend to favour head-hunting which can factor into some 'robberies' a lot

Personally, I find it interesting trying to score fights with 'opposite ends of the spectum' hats on - one where I favour the aggressor looking to make the fight, and the other where I favour the defensive 'hit and don't get hit' approach. Usually for me those are where I would see the difference between a bona-fide robbery and a close fight - if there is no route to victory for one of the fighters based on the full spectrum, yet they are given the decision (e.g. Ward v Kovalev I) then I that's what I'd call a robbery.

 

There are just fights that are unfathomably judged wrong, like Mayweather winning by MD over Canelo...The **** was going on there? It's really all in the scorecards. Oskee vs Pea is another example, not one judge had it terribly close and I've scored it both ways a few times, yet Oskee got a pretty wide margin on the cards.

Calzaghe/Hopkins - close
Whitaker - Chavez - robbery
Pacquiao - Marquez 2 - close
Lewis - Holyfield 1 - robbery

 

And knocked him down

 

4 rounds.

 

The difference is moral

 

It's the eternal conundrum , personally I give the round to fighter B as he's making the fight. Saw a fight many years ago on an under card that exemplifies scoring difficulties. Fighter A is dominating the round with his jab and fighter B is virtually landing nothing then when with about 45 seconds to go in the round A lands a big right hand that wobbles B and he falls into the ropes . A begins to throw everything trying to stop him and lands several good shots but B lands a counter left hook that stuns A and now he's on the ropes when another hook knocks his mouth piece out and the bell rings. A is stunned and wobbles back to his corner and B while not steady is in much better shape now. Who won the round? People I was with including 2 boxers offered some great insight, Chris looked at me and said, who would you rather be going back to the corner? I said B,,he replied , me too. I said but B did lose 2 minutes and 50 seconds of the round ,,,,that's boxing he said.

 

I hesitate to use the phrase. Boxing scoring is highly subjective then factor in the fact that judges sit from one angle have no replay and can be obstructed by the ref the ropes and the other fighters back. for me robbery is a fight where there really isn’t a path to victory for the fighter that won. A robbery can be close as in the point totals are close but the rounds are not close. a fighter could win a clear cut seven rounds only winning by two points, but those seven rounds could be clear as day and if they lose a decision that would be a robbery

I also tend to want to include consensus when calling a fight a robbery. I think there are a lot of fanboys or biased scorers that will point to their scorecard, and say a fight is not a robbery because they thought so when there might be an overwhelming body of scores.

I also have a couple of scorecards of my own that many on this forum would really hate but it’s how I saw the fight and that’s on first viewing. Judge is only get one chance to score the fight and I have to do it in real time.

 

Good insight into the vagaries of boxing scoring

I like the Steve Westfeld method of a constant tally. As in bell rings to begin the round and blue corner lands first 10-9 blue corner until red comes back even then red scores again now reds winning. So on and so forth til the bell

However, it would be difficult still because a fighter could be losing the majority of the round and nail the guy. If the fighter that was winning and got hit, doesn’t go down, do we reward him for staying on his feet and still give him the round for winning the majority of it or do we reward the fighter that landed the best punch, and did the damage, even if it wasn’t a knockdown

 

Great post. When people cry robbery in a close fight, it seems to be only after they rewatch in slow motion. I will ask how they scroed it in real time. Only 1 poster was man enough to ever give me that answer. He said the Loma/Lopez fight was a robbery after watching in slow motion, but admitted he scored it a draw in real time.

 

Tears lol.

No in all seriousness I can't call any close fight a robbery, even if I felt the other guy won but there were doubts. It gets way overused by fans now because every other fight is a robbery because their guy didn't win. I rarely see guys say their guy robbed the other guy lol.

 

It’s funny I went to provodnikov vs Algieri and on the train home we couldn’t believe the scores. I watched it on hbo the next day and saw a totally different fight

 

I suspect that judging a fight live is pretty difficult.