Are bad decisions so routine - everyone just accepts them!!

Seems today you can be beaten in 12 rounds of a fight..take the decision and after a minor furore everyone just accepts it....

It's fraud and it's got so out of hand it's like a Boxing martial law.....Sure we had some bad decisions back in the day but nothing as outlandish as happens now....(Ramirez-Whittaker was scandalous back in 88..now it's the norm)

It's very sad but it's like war when the first soldier gets killed it's a shock... after the 300th you become immune to it...

Don't know what the solution is but it's got out of hand... as it has with all these stupid titles..

Talking about livelihoods and earning potential...It should be serious when it's obvious.....

but hey whatever.....

Putting up with them due to having no choice or say in the matter, rather than accepting them, is probably a more accurate reflection, Truss. When I see a 'decision' like Helenius-Chisora last night, I personally still feel as angered and frustrated as I did when I saw Woodhall-Catley, which was the first real stinker of a decision I watched live.

I think you make a good point there should be a way to change bad decisions.

If a fight has been a robbery there the result should be changed tbh some of the decisions now are a disgrace and are ruining the sport the people in charge of boxing should make sure the results are right otherwise nobody will care about the sport.

Look at results like Pacquiao against Marquez, Lewis against Holyfield or Chisora against Hellenius these are shocking robberies no excuse for them so imo they should be changed.

I don't really think that there are any more bad decisions nowadays than there ever were. The difference is with more TV channels, mass media and the internet more people are actually aware of poor decisions.

I really got into boxing when Benn and Eubank lit up the domestic scene, and they had a few dodgy decisions between them.

Just think that some of these promoters and Judges are much braver in handing out their stinking decisions these days.....Usually in the past in one sided drubbings the judges/Promoters seemed to on the whole not have the balls to be so openly corrupt..

But now after being given an inch they've taken a mile...and will just screw anybody anytime....

i am with you TRUSS and yes, it's got so bad people just seem to accpet it. Is there anything as fans we can do? Ptob not, but it's out of had and it's a a disgrace. Was it always this bad. I have only been following the sport 15 years so maybe you can tell me?

Put it this way Mancini was a big earner for the WBA and Bramble wasn't that marketable and a fight that was nearly too close to call...I had Bramble by a slim margin...was 143-142 by all three judges to Bramble.....as I recall..

These days I imagine Mancini gets it..

I think you are right and it disgusts me

sickening.
its by far the worst thing about the sport. horrible.

Don't sit on the fence..

I think we have a point in that judges are "braver" possibly, in handing out stinkers. I think it's because crooks like Sauerland can just get away with lining their pockets and there never seems to be any form of comeback on him whatsoever. Add this to the greed of the sanctioning bodies who know that the "right" man in Helnius won because afterall, a million or so dopey Fins with pay good money to watch him fight. Promoters, TV companies and the sanctioning bodies all gain massively out of it. Poor saps like Chisora put in the hard work and go through the pain to get shafted. Makes me sick!

What can be done about it though?

Impossible to say whether or not there are more corrupt or incompetent decisions handed down today than in days gone by but the principle issue, in my opinion, is that it matters so much more nowadays.

Back in, by way of example, the fifties, many a top tier fighter would ship his fair share of losses simply because he was routinely going head to head with his closest rivals. Legends such as Burley, Moore and Charles collected the odd loss on their records even when at the height of their powers, so the odd poor decision would not set them back too much.

By contrast, the obsession with keeping the loss column clean or nearly clean nowadays, ( which is the source of the problem in the first place, ) means that a fighter who is shafted can disappear off the radar for quite some time, losing ranking places and income in the process, unless he belongs among the few very high profile campaigners. De La Hoya could survive being the victim of a poor decision or two, but for somebody of Chisora's standing the ramifications can be more far reaching.

Hard to see a solution to it all, but it's another example of greed and corruption choking the life out of the sport.

That's a very good point...The 0 seems to matter too much these days....

Hasn't held Manny back so I don't know why...

Cream will always rise..and a hard defeat can make fighters better...

Certainly Greb helped Tunney's career..

I wonder what robbery we will be discussing next weekend!

Your house..I've been casing it for weeks..

Even with Pacquiao Truss, it seems incomprehensible for him to lose since Morales because he has become such a big draw, we all know he should have a loss or two to Marquez on his record but it's overlooked because of his market value.

Mentioning Greb and Tunney is an interesting point you make also, think it was the second fight between the pair when a rare decision was given which went in Tunneys favour is still hotly disputed to this day as a robbery.

Good luck getting past my pet python....he's due a feed soon!

It's alright he has a crush on me....

Ali was the same late on...big sanction fees...vested interests....

but it seems much more common place now..

Footballers can appeal red cards and get them overturned, tennis players can appeal bad calls and get them overturned so why can't fighters appeal bad decisions?

There should at least be a mechanism to force a rematch, on neutral territory if it is believed that 'hometown scoring' took place. That way, the original result stands but the 'beaten' fighter gets the shot at redemption and a more even spin of the dice.

Begs the question though - if Ottke and Reid had been ordered to fight in Vegas, how many tickets would they have sold between them?!!

DAVE667 wrote:Footballers can appeal red cards and get them overturned, tennis players can appeal bad calls and get them overturned so why can't fighters appeal bad decisions?

Good point. Look at Hopkins he lost his fight originally to Dawson but they changed there mind and gave him back his belt so why can they not do this for robberies I also think they should sack judges who are behind these kind of robberies.

Im not overly keen on the idea of retrospectively changing results with regards these robberies. For me it sends the the wrong message and doesnt really tackle the root of problem - which is incompetent or even corrupt scoring. It also opens a can of worms that I think is too hard to regulate. What is a robbery? Where do you draw the line between subjective scoring. In close fights the decisions may go to the home fighter but Sturn/Macklin or Strum Murray werent robberies for me by any stretch. Close fights capable of going either way.

It also sends a message that I think papers over the problem. Judges can be useless but its ok because we might change the result. In sports like football, red cards may be overturned but they have yet to start overturning entire results and for many incorrect decisions (offsides/penalties etc) then theres little that can be done retrospectively either.

I would prefer to see judges held accountable and overall standards raised. On Ringside recently the BBBoC representative was on discussing the standard of refereeing and judging and was saying that measures were in place to deal with inadequate performances but it was pointed out that only a tiny number of judges had ever been subjected to relegation based on poor performance. Ian John Lewis was selected to ref the Hopkins v Pascal fight only weeks after making a hash of several scores including the basic inexcuseable error of failing to score a knockdown in a round. What sort of message is that? Judges need to be answerable and face consequences for poor performance including demotion, suspention or even revocation of licence.

Agree with Cast. There should be a rematch mechanism. I think neutral venue, neutral and uncorruptable judges who don;t get their pay from the promotion companies and can't be bought.

I don't care about how many tickets sold. The robbed fighter should get the choice to rematch for relative peanuts or just move on from it. It's high time fighters like Chisora had more rights to appeal such awful decisions and possibly overturn them.

Agree almost word for word, Manos. Have maintained all along that overturning results isn't really the way to go, though it sounds nice in principle. Too much scope for a difference of opinion regarding what constitutes a robbery as you say. Prevention is better than a cure, as the old saying goes.

Comparisons to sports like Football or Tennis don't work, a poor decision in football can CONTRIBUTE to a result but in boxing a poor decision DECIDES the results and I do think that when there is an overwhelming uproar at the result it should be looked at.

Take the third fight between Pacquiao and Marquez for instance, it was as clear as night follows day that Marquez won but the record books show a Pacquiao win. Directly after the fight there was a sweep of the opinions of many well respected figure within the sport and only one out of thirty gave the fight to Pacquiao with an overwhelming majority giving it to Marquez, now that is just so wrong it shouldn't be allowed to happen. A fully legitimate win for Marquez was robbed from him because of either corrupt or incompetent judging, he is the one who has deal with the consequences of that, a rematch would prove nothing unless he wins as comfortably again.

For me - all that is needed is an open and defended scorecard.

Each judge should have to answer questions as to why they scored each round the way they scored it.

I've never minded a close fight going one way or another - Sturm-Macklin/Murray.

Helenius-Chisora wasn't close. Helenius was the poorer fighter by some margin. I would like to know which rounds and why each judge scored each way with their reasoning.

All we seem to talk about recently is poor decisions, there was a host of fight on over the weekend which have hardly got any airway rather the decision to award Helenius the win is the main talking point.

Not wishing to start a row about an unconnected subject but I commented recently on another TRUSSMAN thread about poor judging and refereeing (ahem!!!!!!) and stated that judges should be made to watch the fight in a room away from the crowd using the same cameras we get to view the fight at home.

This would be beneficial in a number of ways as it would distance them from the crowd noise allowing them to concentrate and not be influenced or intimidated. It also allows them the opportunity to view the fight from the best possible angles thus giving them a chance to see exactly what hapened as opposed to what they thought happened (Eugenia Williams giving the fifth round to Holyfield v Lewis as she couldn't see past the photographers would never have happened) and this should lead to a greater degree of uniformity negating many of the scorecards where judges see a difference of eight rounds in favour of another fighter.

As for fighters appealing decisions and them being overturned, I believe it's a good things as any judge found to have giving a poor performance would then be suspended. However, citing the case of Ian John Lewis, I thought he was excellent in the Hopkins fight with Pascal yet dreadful when judging a fight the previous week but then thought he let Briggs take too much punishment against Vitali.

How to rid us of these inconsistencies, that's the problem.

I think a private room is an excellent idea Dave.

I remember watching Huck's decision win over Lebedev, one of the worst decisions I have seen in recent times. Lebedev's work rate was higher and he landed the cleaner harder blows. So he had to get the decision right?

Wrong. Huck, once or twice a round, would surge forward, throwing huge punches which uniformly missed or connected with the gloves and hands of Huck.

However - every time Huck surged forward throwing these non-scoring shots, the crowd let forth animalistic roars in a frenzy of excitement at the curious notion their unskilled hero was about to stop his better opponent.

Watching the fight live, I turned to my girlfriend around round 8 and said - "Huck's going to win this". She assumed I had taken leave of my senses - but I said at the time - the judges are going to score those punches based upon the crowd's screams.

We'd be better off with online scoring. The internet is a wonderful thing, and judges can watch fights, without commentary or crowd noise from miles and miles away.

They should still submit a written report as to why they scored rounds wrong.

Jesus Oxy, you get to watch boxing with your girlfriend? Lucky man, lucky man.

AlexHuckerby wrote:Jesus Oxy, you get to watch boxing with your girlfriend? Lucky man, lucky man.

He blows her up before every fight

How many of these fights do you think are just bad judging, and how many are genuinely crooked with the judges on the take? Some of the cards are hard to justify as a judge having a bad night.

Interesting point again Oxy, I rewatched the opening rounds of the Mclellan and Benn fight last night and the american commentators noted that Benn wasn't necessarily landing but the reaction of the crowd would make it appear as though he did.

This is prize fighting, its not like other sports. Fighters have to accept bad decisions like football managers have to except a harsh red card or a dodgy penalty its part of the game. What goes around, comes back around.

joeyjojo618 wrote:

AlexHuckerby wrote:Jesus Oxy, you get to watch boxing with your girlfriend? Lucky man, lucky man.

He blows her up before every fight .

You're a cruel soul joey.

I decided to start my girlfriend on boxing early on in the relationship - and weaned her with good fights - ie Cotto/Margarito 1, fight of the century, brawl in montreal, a tyson highlight reel or 2 - and avoided the likes of Skelton/Sprott.

She now seems to have more knowledge than Azania - she was enjoying a Jack Johnson highlight reel the other day and commenting on his excellent fundamentals. She also doesn't believe that Sibson beats Greb or Ketchel.

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:This is prize fighting, its not like other sports. Fighters have to accept bad decisions like football managers have to except a harsh red card or a dodgy penalty its part of the game. What goes around, comes back around.

Not really, some fighters never get the chance to attain those heights again. A bad decision against Man City can be rectified the following week as they play 38 times per EPL season. How many fighters have 38 contests a year?

oxring wrote:

joeyjojo618 wrote:

AlexHuckerby wrote:Jesus Oxy, you get to watch boxing with your girlfriend? Lucky man, lucky man.

He blows her up before every fight .

You're a cruel soul joey.

I decided to start my girlfriend on boxing early on in the relationship - and weaned her with good fights - ie Cotto/Margarito 1, fight of the century, brawl in montreal, a tyson highlight reel or 2 - and avoided the likes of Skelton/Sprott.

She now seems to have more knowledge than Azania - she was enjoying a Jack Johnson highlight reel the other day and commenting on his excellent fundamentals. She also doesn't believe that Sibson beats Greb or Ketchel.

Lets think about the state of the game here. Had Felix Strum been given the decision against ODLH then where would boxing be now? Marquez is a great fighter but we all want to see Manny v PBF so Marquez had to loose the decision. If you can win by ko fair enough but if not then money talks baby.

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:Lets think about the state of the game here. Had Felix Strum been given the decision against ODLH then where would boxing be now? Marquez is a great fighter but we all want to see Manny v PBF so Marquez had to loose the decision. If you can win by ko fair enough but if not then money talks baby.

I mean no disrespect to you, ONETWO, but I find it almost beyond belief that a true boxing fan - which I believe you to be - would embrace that philosophy.

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:Lets think about the state of the game here. Had Felix Strum been given the decision against ODLH then where would boxing be now? Marquez is a great fighter but we all want to see Manny v PBF so Marquez had to loose the decision. If you can win by ko fair enough but if not then money talks baby.

Doub it would be in a much better position but at least there'd be less people whinging about Sturm being robbed. Don't care if he beats/loses to Hopkins in the following fight as long as the result is fair.

Ive contemplated things like having a control judge watching on television feed as well as ringside udges to try and get an ven balance and I think there are definately interesting ways to see if judging can be improved.

But the widr issues in these outright robberies seems to be more a case of fights being predetermined or premeditated as opposed to merely scored poorly.

Nobody can really argue that the judges in the Hellenius fight there for instance were swayed by crowd noises or needed to watch the fight on tv. Clearly their mind had been made up prior to the fight that Hellenius was going to win come hell or high water if it went to the cards.

Likewise the menality in the Pacquiao/Marquez fight that rounds started off scored to Pacquiao unless Marquez could win the clearly, or that allowing Marquez to win was bad for the sport and would kill a cashcow is a kind of issue that goes beyond merely incompetancy. Its a calculated approach and I doubt viewing on tv, viewing it in retrospect and so on is going to change that. I think punishments are needed and a clear message sent out that this kind of scoring or mentality is not tolerated and will result in consequences.

I tend to believe more in incompetant scoring whe you have wide differences in scorecards that are out of leftfield, or two judges have a similar scorecard but one is miles off. But how three judges watching the Hellenius fight could sit there and not one manage to give it to Chisora by more than 2 rounds suggests something is way off and has the feel of a set up. Had one judge scored it 118-110 to Chisora I might be more inclined to believe the other two were just inept but I think it was scored like it was to give the illusion of a close fight capable of going either way when really it was a fairly one sided win for Chisora.

This game is driven by star quality. Boxing needs fighters to put bums on seats and pack out venues or there is no fight. Sometimes marque fighters like ODLH, PACMAN and PBF have bad nights against fighters they are expected to beat. Douglas would never ever have beaten Tyson had it gone to the scorecards, not with the potential 30 million super fight with Holyfield waiting around the corner.

I dont like it but it (bad decisions) seems to do less harm to boxing then you think.

Wasn't Douglas ahead on the cards handed over? Sure he was.

I dont think so fists. It would not have mattered anyway Douglas was hardly a name while Tyson was a GLOBAL SUPERSTAR the fight would have gone in his favour and we would all be happy as Tyson v Holyfield when it should have happened was about to take place. Like I have said you win by ko fair enough as Douglas did but that upset did more damage to boxing then good.

azania wrote:

oxring wrote:

joeyjojo618 wrote:

AlexHuckerby wrote:Jesus Oxy, you get to watch boxing with your girlfriend? Lucky man, lucky man.

He blows her up before every fight .

You're a cruel soul joey.

I decided to start my girlfriend on boxing early on in the relationship - and weaned her with good fights - ie Cotto/Margarito 1, fight of the century, brawl in montreal, a tyson highlight reel or 2 - and avoided the likes of Skelton/Sprott.

She now seems to have more knowledge than Azania - she was enjoying a Jack Johnson highlight reel the other day and commenting on his excellent fundamentals. She also doesn't believe that Sibson beats Greb or Ketchel.

I was hoping you'd caught that

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:This game is driven by star quality. Boxing needs fighters to put bums on seats and pack out venues or there is no fight. Sometimes marque fighters like ODLH, PACMAN and PBF have bad nights against fighters they are expected to beat. Douglas would never ever have beaten Tyson had it gone to the scorecards, not with the potential 30 million super fight with Holyfield waiting around the corner.

I dont like it but it (bad decisions) seems to do less harm to boxing then you think.

But those fighters should not be elected but, rather, they should earn their ' star ' status in the ring. Otherwise we end up with a situation like that surrounding many of the entertainment industries ; talent meanong little, and playing second fiddle to a pretty face and an attractive body.

Besides, is Hellenious, at this stage of his career, a fighter of any more charisma or ' star quality ' than is Chisora?

Checked boxrec, Douglas was ahead 88-82 on one card, behind 86-87 on another, and level 86-86 on the third.

Helenius Chisora was close, it's just that Helenius's girly hair kept flicking around when Chisora hit his arms, making it appear as though a punch had landed when it hadn't. If Dereck hadn't started all the show-boating histrionics he could well have won the fight.

OneTwo, Fists, I believe the scores for Douglas-Tyson were level going in to that tenth round. One judge - quite rightly - had Douglas a good four or five points up by then if my memory serves me correctly, whereas one somehow had it even, and the other laughably having Tyson in front by a point or two (again, that's if my memory is serving me correctly).

We'll never know for sure whether or not Douglas would have been shafted had it gone the full twelve (Tyson would have needed those last two rounds and a knockout just to make the scores competitive in my mind) as he made it an irrelevance in round ten, but the fact that two judges could be so incompetent as to have Tyson level / ahead does make you wonder if the knives were out that night in Tokyo.

HumanWindmill wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:This game is driven by star quality. Boxing needs fighters to put bums on seats and pack out venues or there is no fight. Sometimes marque fighters like ODLH, PACMAN and PBF have bad nights against fighters they are expected to beat. Douglas would never ever have beaten Tyson had it gone to the scorecards, not with the potential 30 million super fight with Holyfield waiting around the corner.

I dont like it but it (bad decisions) seems to do less harm to boxing then you think.

But those fighters should not be elected but, rather, they should earn their ' star ' status in the ring. Otherwise we end up with a situation like that surrounding many of the entertainment industries ; talent meanong little, and playing second fiddle to a pretty face and an attractive body.

Besides, is Hellenious, at this stage of his career, a fighter of any more charisma or ' star quality ' than is Chisora?

In that part of the world windy Helenius is a potential champion who is Derek Chisora to go over there and ruin that money making star ship. The stadium was PACKED out might I add and it was not packed out with Chisora fans.

HumanWindmill wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:This game is driven by star quality. Boxing needs fighters to put bums on seats and pack out venues or there is no fight. Sometimes marque fighters like ODLH, PACMAN and PBF have bad nights against fighters they are expected to beat. Douglas would never ever have beaten Tyson had it gone to the scorecards, not with the potential 30 million super fight with Holyfield waiting around the corner.

I dont like it but it (bad decisions) seems to do less harm to boxing then you think.

But those fighters should not be elected but, rather, they should earn their ' star ' status in the ring. Otherwise we end up with a situation like that surrounding many of the entertainment industries ; talent meanong little, and playing second fiddle to a pretty face and an attractive body.

Besides, is Hellenious, at this stage of his career, a fighter of any more charisma or ' star quality ' than is Chisora?

Helenius has more charm, certainly than Chisora - but that's akin to saying that the backside of a toad has more charm than a particularly offensive stench. Its not hard to be more charming than someone who has bitten someone in a fight - and later threatened to roger his opponent in the ring.

However - I agree entirely with your point Windy.

I dislike formula 1, NFL and baseball - for me all 3 veer too close to sports_entertainment - where the results are predicated beforehand. With the 3 sports I mentioned, the players are provided with significant assistance to make the plays - whereas a pure sport like boxing - you are on your own for 3 minutes - and no-one should be helping you.

Boxing should be one of the clearest and purest sports out there. Most fights aren't that hard to score. There's a definite and clear way of winning. Both fighters have to avoid choking. What you seem to want to do, ONETWO is take that pure sport and drag it to the ends of sports_entertainment where who wins is irrelevant because its pre-ordained and all that matters is the spectacle beforehand and the bluster of the post-fight interview.

If you really think that's a good thing, trot along to the wrestling board - you're missing your true sporting passion in life.