The "12th Round Syndrome"

[marbleheadmaui]

Let me try another way of looking at it. 12th round syndrome is one of boxing's great gifts to the fans.

In most every other sport? Once one gets far behind, it really is over. Down 28-0 in the second half to a good football (the one where you use your whole body) team? Game is over.

Down 3-0 to a good football (the one where one doesn't use the whole body) team? The game is over.

Behind by five yards with ten yards to go in the 100? No shot.

But in boxing? The whole past can be erased with a single punch, a single flurry, a little luck, a single mistake. It really is not over until it is over.

Anybody buying that?

Nice try, and good comparisons. However, football (the contact kind) HAS had it's share of miraculous comebacks. And yeah, if the margin is too great, the last few minutes of the game are boring. But that doesn't mean that all of a sudden the losing team starts making plays they weren't making before. Well... let me take that back. The defense might go into a "prevent" mode, in which case the offense can make tons of yardage. But no matter.

Point is.... why wait until the final three minutes to do something you could've (and should've) been doing the whole fight long? Are judges (and fans) supposed to be THAT gullible?

I didn't think anybody'd buy it

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

I kinda love it and hate it. They're not all the same.

You often see particularly tactical battles ending with both guys basically purging all their energy in the 12th, which I don't mind (infact I quite like) but there are some fights where it goes way beyond tactical and the fighter(s) are just plain cautious and so then it just appears that suddenly a degree (very rarely most) of that caution is lost for the final 3 minutes. Which definitely sucks because indeed as TitoFan said ''If you had it in you for the last round, you should have brought it out BEFORE then''

Of course then there are the real-deal big 12-rounders where fighters literally FIND the energy after an exhausting and gruelling battle.

[TitoFan]

I kinda love it and hate it. They're not all the same.

You often see particularly tactical battles ending with both guys basically purging all their energy in the 12th, which I don't mind (infact I quite like) but there are some fights where it goes way beyond tactical and the fighter(s) are just plain cautious and so then it just appears that suddenly a degree (very rarely most) of that caution is lost for the final 3 minutes. Which definitely sucks because indeed as TitoFan said ''If you had it in you for the last round, you should have brought it out BEFORE then''

Of course then there are the real-deal big 12-rounders where fighters literally FIND the energy after an exhausting and gruelling battle.

Holmes-Norton comes to mind.