Judging the Fight

A recent article (Judge Or Be Judged) and the discussion that it engendered has made me think about the importance of good judging in boxing. The article lists the criteria that should be used to judge a fight, which I will repeat now:

1.) Clean, effective punching.

2.) Effective aggression.

3.) Ring generalship.

4.) Defense.

Being the opinionated sort that I am, I naturally made a comment on the article after reading it and the comments that had already been made at the time. After reading more of the comments and re-reading the article, a thought struck me at once.

A great deal of confusion would be removed by streamlining the criteria. The new list would read simply:

1.) Clean, effective punching.

2.) Ring generalship.

3.) Defense.

Why remove 'effective aggression' from the list, you ask? Simply put, it's redundant and it creates a dangerous misconception in the mind of the inexperienced judge. Effective aggression is forcing your will on your opponent by an assault to which he must react, therefore changing his own game plan as he responds to your attack. Yet this is simply a form of ring generalship, greatly assisted by clean, effective punching. To specifically insert the term 'effective aggression' makes it appear that aggression itself is a virtue and to award points to an aggressive fighter solely for being aggressive.

Now, none of us like boring fights. Okay, that's not true. I sometimes rather enjoy a technical boxing match in which one fighter shows his display of the art and science of boxing. A better way to put it is that we all like to see fighters fight. Yet simple aggression is not a virtue in its own right if it does not produce dividends. Those dividends are either control of the direction of the fight (ring generalship) or damage done to the opponent (clean, effective punching); 'effective' aggression is one form of ring generalship and ineffective aggression is bad ring generalship, pure and simple. Unnecessary complications are superfluities to be eliminated.

Another important factor in the scoring of rounds is how to decide how many points to award the loser (the ten point must system requires the winner of the round to receive ten points unless penalized by the referee). Customary practice is to give the loser of the round nine points if no knockdown is scored, eight points if one knockdown is scored, and seven if two or more knockdowns are scored. What if one fighter completely dominates a round without scoring a knockdown, however? Does the loser of the round deserve nine points? What if a flash knockdown has no effect on the round and the 'loser' of the round completely dominates the action before and after? Does the fighter who scores a knockdown deserve to win the round simply for scoring a flash knockdown that gives him no benefit and in no ways hinders his opponent over the course of the round? What if a round really is even? What if one fighter appears to dominate the round, but actually achieves nothing and their opponent is clearly playing a conservative and defensive game?

All too often these difficult questions are answered by falling back on 'the rules.' Someone has to win a close round, a fighter who scores a knockdown has to win a round, a fighter who doesn't score a knockdown doesn't deserve more than a 10-9 round, a fighter who attacks consistently while their opponents does nothing wins the round, and so on. Those controversial decisions in which a judge clearly isn't watching the same fight as everyone else (so we're not talking Hagler-Antofuermo I or Leonard-Hearns II here) can generally be explained by a judge following what he or she perceives to be 'the rules' in the face of logic.

In many ways, the best thing for the sport would be a return to a system in which fighters are given credit for rounds won and lost combined with a supplementary point system based on the three basic criteria recommended above.