How to score a Fight

[Taeth]

I think it ranking of importance it should be
1. Clean effective punching
2. Ring generalship
3. effective aggressiveness
4. Defense.

IMO effective aggressiveness and defense should be up there. Ring generalship entails who is imposing their style more effectively whether they are using movement or coming forward, in other words controlling the action. Clean punching should get rid of the defense category because if you get hit by less clean punches then obviously that accounts for you landing more clean punches and your opponent landing less.

But my big thing with clean punching is that it NEEDS to be effective. Using slapping punches isn't punching effectively, its a lot easier to land like this, and if thats what you need to do to land punches it deserves less merit than clean crisp punches that are landing with power and precision. I don't care you can knock your opponent out or not scratch them, IMO if you are landing cleanly, as hard as you can then thats good enough. I also give higher credence to guys like Pacquiao who knowingly put themselves off balance to punch harder, I think if you are trying to hit as hard as you can, knowing it will take you out of position then I will consider your landed punches worth more.

[HattonTheHammer]

after attempting to score over the years a good 300 odd contests ive come to a conclusion...

Never attempt to overthink what your doing.

Dont score the fight the second the round gets going

Watch and enjoy the 1st 2minutes and then during the final minute evaluate who is winning the round and what the losing man needs to possibly swing it in his favour!!!

[p4pking]

It's not all cut and dry like that though, obviously. There's to much grey area to simply rank the elements in order imo. For instance if one guy is landing the cleaner, more effective punches, yet the other guy is always pressing forward and forcing his man to fight off the back foot in this manner, while being visibly stronger or fresher, who is the ring general? Is it the first guy, because clean effective punching is more important than effective agressiveness? Because it's certainly not a given one fighter will be doing both. And to what extent does having a tight defence negate the agressor's edge.. If a guy barely get's hit in a round, yet spends the whole time backing away from his opponent and only lands the slightly more telling shots, is he therefore going to check 3 of the 4 boxes? Should a fighter landing the cleaner better shots AND showing a better defence be the ring general based on having 2 of the 3? Or could you give it to the agressor alone if he was really pressing and his opponent was reluctant to engage? It certainly happens all the time. It just depends what you like to see in the first place really.