What the judges like....

Pre-fight press conferences and interviews are often seen as a chance for fighters to play mind games. Telling the opponent that there'll be no feeling out process and that he'll be in his chest from the outset, it's going to be an action packed fight etc etc. Now the reasons for doing this are partly obvious - to sell the fight.

However, this can often be a ploy - i.e. to have the opponent expect to face an aggressive fighter, yet when the bell rings he's the exact opposite and fights off the back foot and/or purely looks for counters.

My question is - can this tactic be a factor in judges scoring against you? We've all seen plenty of fighters producing good work off the back foot and at range but not being given the credit by the judges because they're not the aggressor. Whilst I don't recall any over the top pre-fight statements from Trout, I think that he got a pretty raw end of the deal against Canelo and I had him the winner in that fight.

If a fighter intends to box a purely tactical fight then should it not be his plan to have this in the minds of the judges before the first bell? Don't promise knockouts if you've no intention of pressing for one. Even if a judge prefers an aggressor, if they know what your gameplan is going into the fight then surely that might make it easier for them to appreciate the work you're doing off the backfoot rather than mistaking it for you being forced onto the backfoot by the other guy.

Anybody got good examples of fights were this pre-fight approach may have helped them?

Interesting points, CMB. A lot of people don't want to face up to the possibility that judges get swayed by what they see and hear and by pre-conceived ideas about each fighter, so it'd be easier to pretend that the kind of stuff you're talking about isn't possible....But as you've said, the kind of unfair or odd pieces of scoring we've seen so many times suggests otherwise.

As for examples, tricky. You could argue that Groves' talk about blitzing Froch early and taking him out inside four rounds at Wembley had an adverse effect for him when it came to how certain people saw the fight up until the knockout (particularly Mr Watt!). He used Froch's head as a speed bag and stalked him relentlessly for much of the first fight, promised to go even further than that in the second - and as a result, when he instead looked to box a bit more sensibly and controlled in the rematch, even though he was for a slight majority (I think) of people on top before that big right hand, certain quarters suddenly took this as him not performing, or being dominated by Froch.

Maybe if he'd have talked less about an early knockout it wouldn't have been the case. Didn't matter in the long run obviously but worth considering.

Thanks, Chris. The Forch Groves II example is a good one.

Ultimately I think it all comes down to interpretation but I just think that sometimes boxers don't help themselves with pre-fight statements. You don't have to give tactics away pre-fight, but don't lead people into expecting the opposite of what you're actually going to do !