Consensus Scoring

[handsofstone]

Graham Houston from Boxing Monthly seems to be the only person I see in boxing who regularly mentions consensus scoring of a fight where fights are determined by the scores of at least 2 of the 3 judges each round, Beterbiev/Gvozdyk, Ritson/Davies Jr and Fitzgerald/Cheeseman all dividing opinion between judges and fans, I'd be interested to see how those fights were scored on the consensus scoring system and would it be a fairer way for results to be determined?

I've thought about it a few times and I still cant make my mind up, they do conjur up some pretty interesting scores and they'd be a lot of results changed if that was how fights were always scored

[MarkMcBurney]

I don't think it would make a blind bit of difference personally. In a close fight you could easily have 6/8 very close rounds and if you happen to pick one fighter in the majority of those; you get a lopsided scorecard that is still correct.

A fairer way IMO would be to encourage even rounds if it's a close round, so you don't just HAVE to pick a winner.

[margaret thatcher]

Of course the issue with this is that poor decisions necessarily involve multiple judges turning in questionable cards. Though requiring consensus could still possibly improve things since under the current systems those cards get turned in anyway already.

I'd have to take a look at a list of fights and see what the 'consensus' result was and whether it was any better at getting the 'right' result. Maybe there is something good there, but haven't checked it out enough...

[handsofstone]

Of course the issue with this is that poor decisions necessarily involve multiple judges turning in questionable cards. Though requiring consensus could still possibly improve things since under the current systems those cards get turned in anyway already.

I'd have to take a look at a list of fights and see what the 'consensus' result was and whether it was any better at getting the 'right' result. Maybe there is something good there, but haven't checked it out enough...

I noticed you replied to Graham on Twitter the other day, he'd mentioned McCarthy vs Turchi was 114-114 in consensus scoring but nearly everyone had McCarthy the deserved winner

[margaret thatcher]

Ya, I replied to him about the Belloti fight. He mentioned that it was 96-95 for the Italian under consensus scoring and so therefore a super close fight, but the problem for me there is that multiple of the judges scored it too close for my liking (I felt the Italian won it fairly well ), so the consensus scoring in that case doesn't really work for me as some spot on accurate method of judging.

[handsofstone]

Ya, I replied to him about the Belloti fight. He mentioned that it was 96-95 for the Italian under consensus scoring and so therefore a super close fight, but the problem for me there is that multiple of the judges scored it too close for my liking (I felt the Italian won it fairly well ), so the consensus scoring in that case doesn't really work for me as some spot on accurate method of judging.

My bad I'm getting 2 of his tweets mixed up

[Cholo_cws]

Funnily enough I was looking at old Ring magazine recently that featured an article on consensus scoring. It gave two examples of consensus scoring that would have resulted in Lewis beating Holyfield in their first fight by two points and Pernell Whitaker beating J-C Chavez by three points.

[Boxing Prospect]

I think Eric Armit had mentioned it as well, it's something to consider and be looked at on a longer term basis

[Ricky]

I like it in the sense it removes the "evening up" of scores,quite often i see a judge give several rounds in a row to fighter A then feel obliged to tighten their scorecard up by giving fighter B a closer round later on, even if he still lost it.