Why has boxing not evolved with the times?

[Spicoli]

With as big of an Impact and life altering effect on a fighters life One lone Referee's call can & Does have....I think there can be a place for Instant replay.There are a zillion places for Announce teams at Ringside,How about one lone Monitor and Official who's sole job is to review calls and certain instances within a certain amount of time.Maybe a sort of Truth-Spell-check for the referee ,(thought that was commission's job Lol).How many times has a referee probably felt like saying.... "I have no F!!!ng Idea what just happened...I Missed It" but being in the instant they make some crap call of finality.How about a red-flag system as in Football made by opposing corner......talk about killing the momentum of the fight.

It might also be a deterrent for some guys to "Massage" The rules with false claims with penalty of point deductions.Some refs might become too reliant and use the replay system as a crutch.I'm alll over the place here....But The controversy without replay sure keeps things Interesting & going !?

[C-Lo]

Why has boxing opted to stay in the early 1900's and not make use of new technology like every other mainstream sport? We have all this new crazy technology, camera angles, video analysis, and we still rely on one guy (ref), under extreme pressure, to make snap decisions and etch them in stone.

We have computer generated statistics that tell us how many punches each fighter landed in a particular round. Again, we have 100 different camera angles and picture clear video quality. Yet we still rely on 3 judges at ringside to tell us who won, when they really can't see the action unless the two fighters are positioned near them at that particular time.

Me and a friend had this argument the other day. He likes things the way they are because it adds excitement and drama to the sport. But only at the cost of an athlete's livelihood. Soto will go home with a LOSS despite beating the holy hell out of his opponent, proving without a doubt he was the better man, because one guy made a split second decision that he hit his opponent over the head while he was down, while everyone in the world knows the punch barely touched him.

Anyone else getting fed up with this kind of stuff?

I think the 3 judges are necessary. One person on compubox could outland the other, but if the other fighter is doing way more damage with less punches, stats won't exactly prove the winner there. If we let technology decide winners, it would be heavily criticized. Imagine technology scoring a figure skaters set? It wouldn't exactly work. I understand the whole Soto decision could've used a replay. (Pretty sure Cortez would've let his decision stand EVEN WITH VIDEO REPLAY because I bet his pride would get the best of him).

I don't think boxing has any major flaws in its system. It's worked throughout time and if it aint broke, don't fix it. Some things are just part of the game such as robberies and Joe Cort...I mean bad refs..

[C-Lo]

Stuff like this would delay the action, be abused and take too much excitement away from boxing.

Absolutely! Imagine if someone was knocked down on a body shot and Joe Cortez (or any other bad ref in the game) decided to watch the replay because he may have thought the knockdown was caused by a low blow, the other fighter gets that time to recover.

Sorry, I'm just looking for openings to show my disgust for Cortez' performance in the Soto fight.

[amat]

It has evolved. For one we have the 10 point must scoring system which actually made knockdowns count for something. I've seen on boxrec before fighters who have been down 5 times throughout a bout in the old days but still won the majority of rounds and the decision.

That's been one key, obviously all the rule changes most notably the changing of how many rounds which I think ultimately is a good thing. There is replay in New Jersey like they mentioned on the broadcast but I haven't seen it used yet.

I hope they can show replays better then ESPN does though because it seems I am always waiting for hours to get a replay there. Literally I don't know if it's intentional but it takes forever there.

[amat]

How about a red-flag system as in Football made by opposing corner......talk about killing the momentum of the fight.

Could you imagine if they had anything like this when Lou Duva was in his prime giving referees hell? Oh man.

But there's no reason that they couldn't have the timekeeper or someone be a replay official if they had to. There are a lot of people at any show of decent size who are on the commission payroll, it shouldn't be to much to ask if deemed necessary to have one stationed by a monitor just in case they needed a replay. There's no reason a referee should have to make a call on what a cut was caused by. Half the time they don't notice the cut until well after it was caused. Things like that need replay. They should also review point deductions, not give point deductions after the fact, but review them to make sure they were appropriate.

One thing though, how would replay have helped the Soto fight? The blow that Cortez saw happened. It was light but it happened. Lorenzo said he couldn't go on because of that blow...what does replay do there? Is the replay official going to tell Lorenzo that that punch didn't affect him at all? That doesn't seem right as much as I disagree with the call. It's a tough spot, but should have never come to be as Cortez should have just waved it off and ignored the punch given what was happening for the 4 rounds prior.

[cpcompany]

I think replays can "possibly" be used like in a low blow situation.

Say a fighter claims to be hit and folds down, the ref. calls time and is immidiately shown a replay with a portable screen for him to see. Within let's say 3 replays (about 30 seconds or so) he should be able to signal a call. If in fact it is a low blow then time continues from the moment he called time and the fighter may rest.
But if the ref. finds the blow to be OK and NOT below the belt maybe the fighter can get a warning or something. Incase someone tries to use it to their advantage after 3 times that a fighter has claimed to be hit low and the ref. determines that he lied he can be deducted one point in the FINAL scoring.

(I dunno what I typed, I just went with it as the thoughts crossed my mind )


All in all some sports were not ment to have replays...

Thats not a bad idea actually. For example I would have given a point deduction for cheating when he pretended to be hit low against Calzaghe. Similar to when footballers get a yellow card for diving.
The fighter usually stays down for at least a minute when hit low, so thats plenty of time to determine whether it was really a low blow or not.

[Mikkel_K]

Baseball doesn't use replays. Right?

Neither does football.

American Football does use replays.
Football/Soccer doesn't.

Yeah. As I said football doesnt use replays.