Would an improved scoring system reduce "dodgy decisions"?

[Kev]

fair enough. I worded the original question wrong anyway. Dodgy kinda means "suspect", or "bad", which is not what I really intended.

I still say that dominating a round should be worth more than edging out or "knicking a round", and a lot of the dissatisfaction about decisions stems from the fact that there is no distinction between the two.

But hey, if people think that a distinction should not be made between a dominating round and a "knicked round", or that boxing people are incapable of telling the difference anyway, well there's not much I can say about that.

I don't think a distinction should be made. A fight is divided into rounds and the boxer who wins the most rounds wins the fight, unless knockdowns and point deductions come into effect.

To use an extreme example n tennis you could win a match 7-5, 0-6, 7-5, 0-6, 7-5 and win even though you have won far less actual games than your opponent and yet nobody would want to change that system.

If fighters could be awarded a greater or lesser number of points for the rounds they win it would pave the way to all kinds of bizarre and terrible scoring.

I can't argue against your first two paragraphs, cause it's just an opinion, as is mine, except that you might well ask why do they score it 10-8 for every flash knockdown. But paragraph three implies there is no reasonable way to differentiate between a dominant round and an "edged" round, or that judges, and that includes you and me, are inherently incapable of dealing with the situation, which I don't accept.

Yes but the current system doesn't necessitate that we differentiate between a big round and a close round, other than knockdowns.

Actually even that isn't totally true. In exceptional cases 10-8 rounds are awarded at the judges discretion when a fighter gets totally dominated but doesn't hit the canvas, doesn't happen often, except on Teddy Atlas' cards but the provision is there.

Ultimately each championship fight has 12 rounds and the goal of the fighter (KO's notwithstanding) is to win more of those rounds than his opponent.

If judges can disagree with which fighter won a round (and they always do) then they will disagree whether a round was dominant or not thus the disparity in scoredcards would be even greater and the potential for dodgy decisions would likely be doubled.

Plus what if you're a boxer type with a non punch? Wouldn't this system discriminate against the likes of Calderon, Spinks, Mayweather etc, classy boxers who like to outwork and outbox their opponent over the course of many rounds could have their accumalated advantages wiped out because of a big punch landing by their more powerful opponent.

An example I can think of would be the first Calderon Cazares fight, a masterful performance from Calderon imo where he clearly outpointed his much bigger rival. However Cazares had a couple of big rounds, he was the puncher after all and maybe he would have got double points for those efforts which imo would be unfair.

Also if you are going to score extra for a dominant round where do knockdowns come into play? I mean if an opponent pounds away like Cotto did against Clottey in that round where he had him up against the ropes does he score more for that round than he did the first round where Clottey was probably edging it until being floored by a jab?

Using your argument I guess the first round would be even despite the knockdown as Clottey had the better of it whilst the round where Clottey back up against the ropes would be 10-8 in favour of Cotto.

Already I'm confused and the sitution would likely only get worse.