How to fix judging in boxing

[TitoFan]

Bad judging in boxing ruins a lot of fights. It pisses fans off, to say nothing of the poor fighters that get victimized. We do a lot of hand-wringing about it... but how do we really fix this problem?

Well, to start of with, judging in boxing is not rocket science. No reason why it should be as shitty as it is. So here's a few suggestions to fix the problem, most of which I'm sure have been mentioned many times here on this forum.

1. Increase the number of judges to 5. (Why? Probabilities. It's too easy to get 3 knuckleheads to screw up a decision, but a little harder with 5.)

2. Collect the cards after each round, and have someone add them up, so after the last round only those scores still have to be added. AND... put a time limit on how long it takes to announce the scores after the fight is over. (The longer the wait is, the more rotten the whole thing starts to smell.)

3. Hold judges accountable. (If a judge is involved in a shady decision, fire his sorry ass. Why do we keep recycling the same sorry judges over and over again? Real jobs don't give people that many breaks.)

4. Make judging school mandatory. (Hell... baseball umps go to school. Refs in other sports take classes. Why can't boxing judges?)

I'm sure there's more things that can be done. But we fans gotta demand that SOMETHING be done. Boxing needs things to make it more popular... not less.

[Gandalf]

All good suggestions. We saw another absurd one with the third card of the Williams fight. EVERY week we are being challenged with ludicrous scorecards and it has almost come to be accepted. It shouldn't be like this. It's disrespectful to the performance of the fighters and seriously short changes the fans.

Dodgy scoring needs to be minimised, but unfortunately those with the power to implement changes don't seem to be bothered. Last week HBO shrugged off the Funeka scandal with a simple "what can you do?" gesture. For gods sake, you can do plenty. Boxing needs to be raised a level so that it can earn a modicum of respect rather than be seen as a scam.

[The Congressman]

They need to have their eyes checked up and need to wear earmuffs coz obviously their judgement are getting manipulated by fans' noise.

[Kev]

The first two suggestions would only make matters worse.

You don't solve a problem by making it more complicated. Adding an extra two judges would merely mess up more results, as would getting an extra person to collect scorecards after each round.

The process needs more accountability. A judge whose score is seemingly way off what anybody else sees needs to give an account, and if he fails to give a decent answer he needs to barred from the major fights.

Unfortunately its not something that can ever be implemented. Firstly I imagine at domestic level certain judges live in certain areas and thus judge fights in their locality (not in England but in the US where the distances are larger) and in world title fights there is probably something of a an old boys club arrangement with different judges working with different sanctioning bodies etc. The sanctioning bodies are clearly reticent about criticising their own employees.

Ultimately though, boxing IS subjective to a degree. Some people put more emphasis on different factors as evidenced here on this site where often the forum is divided on who won a fight.

In the case of Williams Martinez, the judge may also have thought it was a very close fight with Williams only just shading the rounds he gave him, but he felt in his opinion Williams won the rounds he did. It may well be that all of the rounds were close enough to go either way, and everytime he was swayed by Williams aggression. I'm not defending him, but just showing how a fight can be close in reality but wide on the score cards.

A score doesn't always tell the whole story in many sports, tennis, football etc.

[zbolt]

tell boxers to ko, tko or stop their opponents.

[Howlin Mad Missy]

Q. How to fix judging in boxing.

A. Some would say it already is.