Have judges changed the scoring system?

[El Gamo]

I ask because this year in particular,we have had fights which have been robberies and other fights where the gap between winner and loser is far far far greater than it should have been. Have the judges changed the criteria so that it's now who throws the most punches and comes forward the most(I call it hard clean punching that misses and ineffective agression).

There have been quite a few examples of both,such as:

Oscar v Floyd(Oscar threw more,landed hardly any effective punches,lots of arm punches to the body with zero power and was throwing those flurries that miss wildly,because Mayweather was ducking them)

Spinks-Taylor: Taylor came forward all night.no jab,Spinks actually landed the harder punches of the fight and controlled the tempo of the fight,basically did what Mayweather did to Oscar but on a lower scale,and he lost.

Then we have fights like Kid Diamond's fight v Huerta if I remember correctly. Sure Diamond may have been throwing as many punches but seldom did he land as many or as many hard punches as Huerta.

There are plenty of other examples which I may come back and fill in but I hope you can see my point. The latest example has to be the Morales-Diaz fight. Although I was not as bothered simply because Morales himself did not seem to concerned about losing the fight,the fact still stands that Morales landed the harder cleaner punches,and from my viewing,landed more punches too. How Diamond won some of those rounds on the scroecards(which are available at Fightnews) is beyond me. Sometimes,he would come froward,throw a few punches and just barging into Erik whilst Morales was timing him coming in and countering him.

A perfect example is also the commentator,Jim Lampley. During the Margarito-Williams fight,I'm sure I recall him saying it's difficult to beat someone who is throwing 90 plus punches per round but what if the opponent is throwing fewer but punches which are visibly harder?

A perfect example which illustrates this is Danile Ponce De Leon v Gerry Penelosa. I have never seen a fight so diversly scored this year. Ponce was throwing 100 punches per round,mainly to the body,ALOT of which were being blocked by Gerry's elbows. Gerry on the other hand threw far far fewer shots,but they were visibly the cleaner punches,snapping Ponce's head back and moving him at times. Ponce won a UD but the question arises,who fulfilled the judges criteria best? This leads back to my original question because if the old criteria of who lands the cleaner harder punches, it was undoubtedly,in theis fight,Gerry. However,by the seemingly "new" criteria,of who is the more active, it was Ponce.

Which approach is best? Why should a fighter win a round just because he came forward,what if he was not jabbing etc and just walking forward into punches? And why should someone win just because they throw hundreds of punches,mostly ineffective when their opponent is throwing less but hader and more accurate?

I know this was a long read,but as you can see,I've been contemplating this subject area for sometime now. Read it and let me know your thoughts on the subject matter. I hope you enjoy the read.

[The Rookie Fan]

I do remember Merchant and Lamley talking about how the judges are being encouraged to put more enfasis on the agressor and the one pressing the fight. This was shortly after the DLH - Maywether fight. If I am not mistaken is was at the Cotto - Judah fight where they talked about this. The reason they mentioned was to force fighters to put more effort on pressing the fight and making fights more exiting.

In general I believe they are doing a good job.

You could argue that Maywether should have won by wider margin but the fact is that he was just not busy enough in some of those rounds.

You could argue that Spinks was clearly out boxing Taylor but the fact is acording to compubox he only landed 17% of his punches and Taylor's punches were having much more effect.

I did not see the Moralez - Diaz fight but other than a handfull of people, I have not heard of many complain of the decision. As you said, not even Moralez complained.

I can't remember any fight I would consider an all out robbery this year. (I don't claim to have watched every fight either)

The point is, as long as they don't get carried away and tottally ignore a fighter with supperior skills who is schooling the aggressor and don't give him the rounds, I will not complain and I like the approach they are taking.

[Fenster]

Ever since I can rememeber it's been said - American judges score in favour of aggression.

[El Gamo]

Ever since I can rememeber it's been said - American judges score in favour of aggression.

I guess that's true but I mean it's changed slightly in that,now even if they miss the punches they are throwing,as long as they are throwing lots of them and are coming forwards,they get too much credit.

If you get time,watch Penelosa and Ponce and you'll see my point.How should they score that type of fight? The judges and Lederman had it for Ponce as did I but when I read lots of boxing commentators reports and scorecards,they had Penelosa.

I do remember Merchant and Lamley talking about how the judges are being encouraged to put more enfasis on the agressor and the one pressing the fight. This was shortly after the DLH - Maywether fight. If I am not mistaken is was at the Cotto - Judah fight where they talked about this. The reason they mentioned was to force fighters to put more effort on pressing the fight and making fights more exiting.

In general I believe they are doing a good job.

You could argue that Maywether should have won by wider margin but the fact is that he was just not busy enough in some of those rounds.

You could argue that Spinks was clearly out boxing Taylor but the fact is acording to compubox he only landed 17% of his punches and Taylor's punches were having much more effect.

I did not see the Moralez - Diaz fight but other than a handfull of people, I have not heard of many complain of the decision. As you said, not even Moralez complained.

I can't remember any fight I would consider an all out robbery this year. (I don't claim to have watched every fight either)

The point is, as long as they don't get carried away and tottally ignore a fighter with supperior skills who is schooling the aggressor and don't give him the rounds, I will not complain and I like the approach they are taking.

Yeah,I think they were slating Spinks for not making the fight too but that's ridiculous. He was fighting against the recognised champ of the division,a guy who could easily move up and do well and Spinks looked tiny. Spinks has hardly any pop so obviously it would be foolish to forsake what got him there just so that he can be the agressor. Obviously there are situations where guys just don't fight and back up but I don't this fight is an example of that.

I respect your opinion with regards to you liking the way fights are scored but I totally and utterly disagree with your call on the Spinks fight. Watch the fight without Compubox numbers(which I believe were greatly exaggerated in favour of Taylor) and you'll see Spinks lands more punches. Also,the only real hard punch I recall is when Taylor was briefly shaken walking into a Cory punch. I don't remember seeing Spinks hurt at all.

I guess it goes back ot my original point,are you going to give the round to the guy coming forward,hardly throwing but being agressive or to the guy backpedalling but landing. I'm probably making a big deal about nothing but I think it's an interesting discussion.

Also,I know Morales made no argument but that's because I'm guessing before the final bell,he had decided to retire anyway. It still does not excuse the fact that Diaz was coming forward,pushing Morales into the ropes,getting countered and he won. Having seen the judges scorecards,makes this decision seem even more ridiculous. They gave rounds to Diaz just because he was coming forward but he was clearly getting countered.

[Fenster]

Ever since I can rememeber it's been said - American judges score in favour of aggression.

I guess that's true but I mean it's changed slightly in that,now even if they miss the punches they are throwing,as long as they are throwing lots of them and are coming forwards,they get too much credit.

If you get time,watch Penelosa and Ponce and you'll see my point.How should they score that type of fight? The judges and Lederman had it for Ponce as did I but when I read lots of boxing commentators reports and scorecards,they had Penelosa.

I watched it live. You summed it up before, Penalosa was doing the eye catching work but it wasn't enough to beat Ponce's overall workrate and never enough for him to get the decision.

[Davidhayebest]

it all depend on the judges and who holding the title

Oscar de la hoya beat mayweather by every round on agreesion and probably most on accuracy
he was still robbed

the holiyfield and lennox fight was the greatest ever robbery

[leftylee]

HEY DID ANY1 SEE STEVE FORBES v DEMETRIUS HOPKINS

THAT WAS THE BIGGEST ROBBERY OF THE YEAR!!!

[ICB]

it all depend on the judges and who holding the title

Oscar de la hoya beat mayweather by every round on agreesion and probably most on accuracy
he was still robbed

the holiyfield and lennox fight was the greatest ever robbery

What a moron it has to be effective aggression firstly and secondly Oscar missed alot of his punches thats why Mayweather almost landed more than 100 punches get your facts straight.

[DaxxKahn]

it all depend on the judges and who holding the title

Oscar de la hoya beat mayweather by every round on agreesion and probably most on accuracy
he was still robbed

the holiyfield and lennox fight was the greatest ever robbery

And your stats are more accurate then Compubox how

[pacfan]

Hi, I'm a newbee ! Please be kind and gentle to me.

Guess what?

[El Gamo]

Hi, I'm a newbee ! Please be kind and gentle to me.

Guess what?

Hmmmmm.why do I feel I know you Deja Vu

HEY DID ANY1 SEE STEVE FORBES v DEMETRIUS HOPKINS

THAT WAS THE BIGGEST ROBBERY OF THE YEAR!!!

Excellent,thats the fight I was forgetting to mention. Thanks for that reminder!

[the phenom]

ive noticed the guys who are boxer are gettin more of a chance to win now, thas bout it, like 2 years ago hopkins vs winky would be scored way in favour of winky cuz he was the agressor, but becuz he loookd a lil slugish and hopkins stayed sharp they gave ti to hopkins, and i also woul like to state at 160 winky takes hopkins no problem

[pacfan]

Hi, I'm a newbee ! Please be kind and gentle to me.

Guess what?

Hmmmmm.why do I feel I know you Deja Vu

I've got this nasty feeling some cool guy here has seen right through my thick disguise. Gee, you must be a genious.

Yup, it's me brod Gamo. I've seen a lot of new names around here and I've kinda gotten bit envious so I've decided to try out a new name myself, at least for couple of days, but I guess I'm reeking with too much of pac's smell to just shake it off like that... But these 'new' guys here, they already logged in thousands of posts so they must be the same ol' clowns who used to strut their ignorance in boxing here, right? I've been missing some of the guys here whom I used to exchange views with and I'm pretty sure some of them are still here with different names, and I've got no idea who they are. So I hope those guys who changed their names will at least write 'formerly' so and so on their profiles so that we'll know who they were. Better yet, they should go back to their old names.

Guess what?

I'M BACK!!! Were was I? I'll try to make it as short as possible: When I was about to reply to Bestp4p's (where is he?) question, something about the typhoon, my 6-year old computer started to develop a harddisk problem and within hours it 'failed'. But living in the rural Philippines, I had hard time looking for a replacement, which eventually I did. But you see, it's not easy here like you guys there where you can just say 'hey dad, get me a new computer' or just get your credit cards out and you got yourself a new computer. Here, we have to literally earn it, the hard way. But fortunately for me, while I was sweating it out to get myself a new computer, my sister in Manila told me that I can have her old computer stored somewhere in her garage. She said it was still working fine when she junked it, so I was expecting a newer one than my 6 year old computer. But to my shock, it was a real old one - a Compaq - one of those when they used to stack the monitor on top of the CPU case lying (not standing) flat on the desk - a 233mhz processor with a 32mb RAM! It must be at least a decade old. One 'nice' thing about this cool ol' lady who call herself 'Presario' is that once you've gotten yourself warmed-up, it crashes! The tiny RAM just get itself knocked out with overload... So if I suddenly disappear in the middle of a discussion, it just means that my computer stopped cold, or I'm using that as an excuse to slip away quietly from a losing argument.

[gyrokai]

The James Toney Sam Peter I fight was the turning point for me.... in terms of trusting most judges.
(I suppose I'm a James Toney fan maybe.... I like the fat guy. )

I believe it's deeply ingrained in the professional sport of boxing... these judging issues brought up by El Gamo.

If your old and use skills and will... and the young guy uses rugged fighting and messy yet energetic pressure... he will always have more energy than the older guy... so the judges favor "energy" over "boxing."
... the judges these days always want to reward the violent guy.... thinking they are helping boxing by not rewarding the supposedly boring guy. But when it comes down to it... combinations, clean hard punches, consistent work, and damaging punches.... compared to "just pressure fighting" with less clean punches and catching punches...... ... they are actuallly rewarding the boring guy. haha
dumb judges. They even score pitter pats... thinking that they are rewarding the guy who works and is "more exciting." Lemme get this straight, cold hard punches are exciting, not pitter pats.

And a beautiful three clean punch combination is worth more than one "crowd pleasing" power punch. Unless the crowd pleasing punch hurts somebody.

I just don't pay attention to records as much these days. Because losses can be wins, bad judging is prevalent.
And if I do pay attention to records, I want them to break them. Out with the old and in with the new
I wanted Valuev to beat Marciano's record.

[The Rookie Fan]

The James Toney Sam Peter I fight was the turning point for me.... in terms of trusting most judges.
(I suppose I'm a James Toney fan maybe.... I like the fat guy. )

I believe it's deeply ingrained in the professional sport of boxing... these judging issues brought up by El Gamo.

If your old and use skills and will... and the young guy uses rugged fighting and messy yet energetic pressure... he will always have more energy than the older guy... so the judges favor "energy" over "boxing."
... the judges these days always want to reward the violent guy.... thinking they are helping boxing by not rewarding the supposedly boring guy. But when it comes down to it... combinations, clean hard punches, consistent work, and damaging punches.... compared to "just pressure fighting" with less clean punches and catching punches...... ... they are actuallly rewarding the boring guy. haha
dumb judges. They even score pitter pats... thinking that they are rewarding the guy who works and is "more exciting." Lemme get this straight, cold hard punches are exciting, not pitter pats.

And a beautiful three clean punch combination is worth more than one "crowd pleasing" power punch. Unless the crowd pleasing punch hurts somebody.

I just don't pay attention to records as much these days. Because losses can be wins, bad judging is prevalent.
And if I do pay attention to records, I want them to break them. Out with the old and in with the new
I wanted Valuev to beat Marciano's record.

I would love to see a heavyweight break Marciano's reccord. I shure as sh*t did not wan't Valuev to do it. He fwoking sucks.

I know, this statment has nothing to do with this thread whatsoever