Are we too hard on Boxing Judges ??

I do more work in a round...........I get decked in the last few seconds........Commentators say it's a 10-8 round......Is it ???

You have to come forward to be aggressive ??...........Smith walked forward all night against Holmes.......But to me it looked like Holmes was more aggressive.....Was it Smith making the fight ??.......

I dominate a round and get staggered slightly at the end.......Is that 10-10 ......10-9 still to me or 9-10 ??

No wonder scorecards are here..... there and everywhere is it ??..........

Sad thing is these loose outlines give useless/corrupt judges...Get out of jail cards..

Depends.

When CJ Ross manages to appalling screw up two of the biggest fights of the year in a row, she should be banned from judging major bouts for 12 months and then only allowed to return once she's sat some kind of recertification course.

In particular she, and frankly this should be used to vet all judges, should be sat down and forced to explain, round by round, how she arrived at 114-114 in the one-sided Canelo-PBF fight and 115-113 to Bradley in the Pac fight.

Similar criticism could be levelled at 2 of the judges in the Froch-Groves fight.

There needs to be greater accountability and transparency.

The problem is that scoring is completely subjective. What one person sees as ring generalship and superb defensive boxing on the back foot, another one sees as terrible negativity and there's no hard and fast criteria to define what should be see as things like "effective aggression" and all the other little things that have a real impact on how a round is scored.

I think compubox needs to figure more here with judges scorecards - essentially having criteria like "most punches landed - 1 point" "knockdown -1 point" "most punches blocked/thrown/landed ratio - 1 point" "most forward steps" - 1 point etc

Obviously not the perfect model by any means but if they make the scoring system more automated it will alleviate the pressure we put on judges like the complete shambolic judging in the first Lewis fight etc.

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I think compubox needs to figure more here with judges scorecards - essentially having criteria like "most punches landed - 1 point" "knockdown -1 point" "most punches blocked/thrown/landed ratio - 1 point" "most forward steps" - 1 point etc

Obviously not the perfect model by any means but if they make the scoring system more automated it will alleviate the pressure we put on judges like the complete shambolic judging in the first Lewis fight etc.

Khan lands 6 pitted patter punches that get classified as power ones.

Garcia lands 3 punches that buckle Khans legs each time he lands.

Who wins the round?

Thus smashing a gaping, pornstar-esque, hole through your arguement.

Agree with Dave it's subjective, I do believe if you score knockdown, you should be rewarded with an extra point and the round. At the end of the day your job is to put your opponent on the canvas, someone like Mallignaggi could hit you with a hundred bee stings for majority of the round , but if his opponent drops him with a solid shot,
surely that fighter has been the most affective.

Cheers Rodders

Creed boxes the ears of Balboa making him look like the club fighting chump he is then suddenly Balboa lands a lucky shot and Creed goes down. Does that KD automatically wipe out all the good work done by Creed?*

* I thought I'd use an actual factual documented fight to emphasise my point instead of hypothetical situations. Feel it makes for an easier understanding of the problems at hand...also this question could be used on the Judges exam paper.

Paulie Malignaggi : Floats like a butterfly, stings like a butterfly.

Not hard enough on judges and officials in boxing. The system is open to abuse and is frequently abused.

Be interesting to know what judges are taught before they officiate.

Izzi wrote:Khan lands 6 pitted patter punches that get classified as power ones.

Garcia lands 3 punches that buckle Khans legs each time he lands.

Who wins the round?

Thus smashing a gaping, pornstar-esque, hole through your arguement.

Not too sure where your arrogance comes from, but I'll bold the parts that make my post open to discussion rather than it being an argument of any description.

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I think compubox needs to figure more here with judges scorecards - essentially having criteria like "most punches landed - 1 point" "knockdown -1 point" "most punches blocked/thrown/landed ratio - 1 point" "most forward steps" - 1 point etc

Obviously not the perfect model by any means but if they make the scoring system more automated it will alleviate the pressure we put on judges like the complete shambolic judging in the first Lewis fight etc.

That would never work.

The judging in the Lewis fight was shambolic because the judges were biased.

I am saying if there is a foundation that is set by automation then judges may have a better view of what happened. For example, if the judges were shown a screen of how many of Pacquiao's punches landed and how many of Bradleys, they may have been less harsh on their scoring.

I'm not saying that it should be entirely reliant on technology.

I think they should forget aggression, defence any of this kind of crap...

and Just say whoever looks in charge give him the round......

Then when they play back the fights to these morons........They can't say well his defence was good there....showed aggression there etc.....

Using compubox simply wouldn't work, you can't reward a glancing blow the same as a shot bang on the chin. There needs to be a level of subjectivity.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Using compubox simply wouldn't work, you can't reward a glancing blow the same as a shot bang on the chin. There needs to be a level of subjectivity.

But you judge a fight on one punch....

If a fighter lands more, and consistently beats the opponent to the punch, then that fighter deserves the round. If the fighter who's in the lead suffers a flash knockdown, then the round should be 9-9 as opposed to 10-8.

Funny how a glancing counter punch is generally looked at better a general glancing blow - Should all blows be equal, or are some naturally more equal than others?

JabMachineMK2 wrote:I think compubox needs to figure more here with judges scorecards - essentially having criteria like "most punches landed - 1 point" "knockdown -1 point" "most punches blocked/thrown/landed ratio - 1 point" "most forward steps" - 1 point etc

Obviously not the perfect model by any means but if they make the scoring system more automated it will alleviate the pressure we put on judges like the complete shambolic judging in the first Lewis fight etc.

As far as im aware compubox isn't automated, it relys on humans to input data (much like opta with football), therefore it's equally as subjective as conventional scoring. I.e what constitutes a power punch etc, it's all in the eye of the beholder...or compubox button presser. I dont think this is the answer.

Education, stringent competitive performance based selection criteria, and accountability and transparency would improve an already ok system. I like the idea put forward ealier, judge accountability via post fight round by round descriptive analysis of their own scoring.

Ok - getting a bit geeky here but in theory something like Compubox could be enhanced to to tell the difference between a power punch and a pitter-patter combo. Imagine tiny accelerometers or pressure pads implanted into the glove. There could then be a tiny wireless transmitter in the wrist-band to relay the punch data to a server and translate into meaningful punch stats. Unlike Jurassic Park - it could happen.

How would you know where the punches landed though MD?

So there would be a time stamped series of impacts of varying force which could then be matched with the video. That's one way to do it. It should be possible to tell if the impact is on a boxer's head or the corner post for example. I'm sure someone smarter than me is already working on it.

Ive read that suggestion before md_fan. It was put to bed with the olympic fencing fiasco. Great idea in theory but if the powers that be can't manage drug testing, or other forms of corruption, then I doubt they'd be able to monitor the legitimacy of such technology.

Also, with such a method, tyson fury's uppercut to the face would be a scoring blow. As too, would Manny's manic monkey with a miniature cymble glove pumping whenever he gets caught with a good shot.

Just read your second post. Synching the video to time stamped impacts would certainly mediate the paman and fury problem I mentioned. However, it won't stop technical wizardry flirting with corruption.

For me, the only way forward is to make it compulsory for judges to provide a post fight, round-by-round, narrative of how/why they scored the round in the way they did. If judges had to provide justification for their scoring, within a specified time frame, then they might think twice about how they score. If their description does not ring true then they are held accountable. A transparent independant body would need to be formed, one free from conflicting interests, who would pass judgement and award penalities.

.....but who judges the judges who judge the judges who judge the judges, ad infinitum?

I wouldn't suggest that such technology be responsible for deciding the outcome of the bout. It would just (at least initially) be a additional tool for after-the-fact analysis of the fight (like Compubox is now). There has been quite a bit of research (and patents filed) with regard to accelerometers in gloves already. It would be very interesting to see this type of statistic captured for fights and then to understand more clearly who is indeed a power puncher (or feather-fisted) and to what extent?

Unfortunately it may not be as simple as x is the power puncher because the sensor said so. A sensor generates figure depending on force, it does not take into consideration the movement of the opponent. What I mean is, if a boxer moves away from a punch the force measured is less, conversely, if a boxer walks into a punch the force measured is greater. Therefore it's not as simple as x is the more powerful, however yes in general terms it could probably be used like that.

My understanding was that you suggested it should be used as means of scoring. If you were suggesting it be used as a means to augment compubox then fine. Personally, I think its gimmicky, costly and unnecessary - stats are what they are - stats.

The current scoring system is more than adequate, its the judges that let the system down hence why I'm advocating transparancy and accountability.

You make an excellent point about the force of impact varying depending on the relative movements of the fighter inward to the punch, or away from the punch as it lands. I guess at a minimum it would help to assess how much punishment a fighter absorbed over the course of the bout.

I also liked your idea of the judges' scoring justification. Increased accountability may help ensure more even-handed decisions.

What about the boxers fighting and, should it go the distance, an independant panel of judges replay the action without the benfit of crowd noise etc and they announce the decision the following week?

Dave, Im not sure if that was a serious suggestion but I'll reply as though it was. Your suggestion of judging after the fight, free from crowd influence, makes sense at first. Then you realise that judges would be equally swayed, if not more so, by the media's interpretation of the fight. Not only that but the fight would be an anti-climax if the bell rang and the fighters left the ring. No result?

3fingers wrote:Dave, Im not sure if that was a serious suggestion but I'll reply as though it was. Your suggestion of judging after the fight, free from crowd influence, makes sense at first. Then you realise that judges would be equally swayed, if not more so, by the media's interpretation of the fight. Not only that but the fight would be an anti-climax if the bell rang and the fighters left the ring. No result?

You clearly haven't been here long enough to know me fella.
 
However, I have often suggested judges be removed form the arena and kept in seperate rooms with just a live TV feed devoid of audio to negate any outside influence and that might make them give an honest assessment of a round as opposed to one influence by crowd noise or a poor viewing angle (Eugenia Williams' fifth round shocker in Lewis/Holyfield was due, she said, to having her view blocked by a photographer).
 
In and amongst the nonsense there's the occasional nugget of gold...you just gotta look hard enough

Yeah that might work.

Strongback wrote:Paulie Malignaggi : Floats like a butterfly, stings like a butterfly.