BoxRec

The WBC are to try out open scoring, the scores will be shown after the 4th and 8th rounds.

I'm not convinced this will improve fights, what happens if a fighter who thinks he's winning see's he's well behind on the scorecards after 8 rounds? will he up and walk out? could the fans get nasty with a judge who they feel is not doing their boxer a fair deal?

I agree. Several valid points were raised on the current scene about it.

1) A judge is giving a fight to A. The crowd boo the score after round 8, as B is the home fighter. The judge may then feel pressured into giving the latter rounds to B, even if he does not deserve them.
2) The "surprise" element is lost. Some fights are so good because you really don't know which way the decision is going to go. Finding out that A has a comfortable lead on all 3 cards after 8 just spoils it.
3) Dodgy decisions, hometown judging - it goes on. But not that often. What good is open judging going to do? If a judge is plain corrupt after 8 rds, it's not like the WBC are going to discount his scorecard? It would be much better imo to have some sort of "judge school" or a judges court, where judges have to sit down, maybe with tapes, and justify their decisions and scoring. Obviously that's not going to happen though.

jomothepure wrote:I agree. Several valid points were raised on the current scene about it.

1) A judge is giving a fight to A. The crowd boo the score after round 8, as B is the home fighter. The judge may then feel pressured into giving the latter rounds to B, even if he does not deserve them.
2) The "surprise" element is lost. Some fights are so good because you really don't know which way the decision is going to go. Finding out that A has a comfortable lead on all 3 cards after 8 just spoils it.
3) Dodgy decisions, hometown judging - it goes on. But not that often. What good is open judging going to do? If a judge is plain corrupt after 8 rds, it's not like the WBC are going to discount his scorecard? It would be much better imo to have some sort of "judge school" or a judges court, where judges have to sit down, maybe with tapes, and justify their decisions and scoring. Obviously that's not going to happen though.

Not absolutely certain how I feel about this but playing devil's advocate on the points above.

1) I would hope that the judges scorecards after rd4 and rd8 are not attributed to each judge by name. Whether this puts less pressure on a judge I am not sure. But he can expect to hear booing if the hometown fighter is behind on his scorecard anyway. As long as he is scoring the fight in a true fashion he should have nothing to worry about.

2) If a fight is that close that you don't know which way the decision is going to go then this should be reflected on the scorecards after 8rds. This could add to the excitement in the final stretch.

3) Your correct that if a judge is that corrupt the 4rd and 8 rd rule will make no difference. But at least the judge is exposed for what he is. In actual fact the 4rd and 8rd rule puts focus on breaking down the judges scorecards. I agree that judges should be accountable to some kind of commission for some of the scoring in extreme cases and breaking the scorecards down in this way will highlight suspected skullduggery.

One thing's for certain, the dynamic of a fight after 8rds will be affected. A guy that is well behind will know what he has to do. This will benefit a puncher more than a guy who has little power. I suppose introducing the new system on an experimental basis would not do any harm though.

could also go the other way after the 8th round, if your the boxer whos 6 rounds in front , then you could just move around and make a very boring fight of it over the last 4 rounds, knowing it doesn't matter if you lose them.

topper123 wrote:could also go the other way after the 8th round, if your the boxer whos 6 rounds in front , then you could just move around and make a very boring fight of it over the last 4 rounds, knowing it doesn't matter if you lose them.

Point taken, but that would mean, in theory, he is 7 to 1 up on all 3 judges scorecards. A fight that one sided will generally be boring over the final stretch because his corner knows how far their guy is ahead and will urge him to coast the final rounds. Plus his opponent will now have to knock him out to win. And since we are talking about a world title that is at stake both boxers should bring something to the table that suggests a more even match. Not always the case I know.

I'm in favour of open scoring myself. After all, what other contact sports are there where the participants don't know who is winning until the very end?

The one major benefit is that if a guy knows he is down going into the 9th round of a title fight by 4 rounds, he knows what he has to do, at least it gives him the opportunity of going for the knockout.

I would be more in favour though of every 3 rounds myself, at the end of the 9th round would be a better time to reveal the scores, as with 3 rounds to go, the fight is more likely to be in the balance, than after 8, surely it's better to go with an odd number of rounds?

Out of interest how will this system be implemented? Will they collect all 3 judges scorecards and announce the scores between rds4 and 5 and then again between rds8 and 9? Will this mean a longer break between those rounds? I would certainly hope not.

I've always been against it -- in a kneejerk reactionary kind of way.

But changing the dynamic of the last third of a big fight seems more and more attractive to me, these days-- if a guy knows he's gotta get a knockout then -- whoopee! -- comes out all guns blazing.

And conversely, if one guy's so far behind and knows he has little chance of landing a fight-turning hammerblow (fight-turning hammerblow? WTF?) and the poor sods like a million points behind then maybe that will inspire more corners to do the decent thing and say: "Sorry mate, let's go home. You can't hurt him, and there's no sense in getting pasted for another nine minutes, eh?"

Or at least sherrock the guy in the corner to say "You're eight points behind, there's three (or whatever) rounds left, you gotta land something BIG this round or we go home!"

Maybe that'd be a positive thing; however I fear that it rather relies too much on basic common sense & a decent amount of human emotional intelligence to ever be taken up in pro boxing.

What you're looking at is essentially 3 fights for the price of one.

Great news considering how monotonous and one-tracked some championship fights can become.

Chaptering fights by giving them a clear and defined start, middle and end is going to make the world of difference to the fighters as well as the fans.

Also, if a fighter's taking a beating and he finds out he can't win the fight by round 8 other than by KO, his corner could save him 4 rounds of unwarranted punishment. Obviously more high level fights would perhaps see evenly matched fighters continuing with more venom in search of the KO, depending on the disparity.

This sport needs a dramatic overhaul and it needs it fast. We aren't going to see a willingness for the best to fight the best, take the short end to make things happen, small but important changes like the one talked about here absolutely need to be tried. The whole system needs to be shook up, so much naysaying over such a minor change is unfortunate given how much more change is needed in the sport. Change that we should be demanding before the sport sinks entirely.

Absolutely, Charlieb.

I've come to think it's a step in the right direction; after all, where has sticking to some of our more outré traditions got us? In thrall to about a billion corrupt organisations.

Maybe something like this might cause a bit of a shake-up results/excitement /fairness wise, and then as more and more people come back to watching boxing, public demand will see even more features implemented/extraneous bullshit removed -- maybe one day, the stranglehold of promoters/sanctioning bodies themselves.

But maybe I'm just feeling naive...

The reason it never caught on is they only tried it in a few bouts, and never really gave it time to catch on. They also, if I remember rightly, implemented it very badly, giving the scores every single round I think, or every other round.

I think this is an idea worth trying, it will take people some getting used to, but there are definetly possible benefits. We could well see lots more fighters going for broke to knock their opponents in the last 2 rounds,

Of course the counterpoint to this is that we could see fighters who know they are well ahead simply skating round the ring like torvill and dean trying to avoid being KO'd like the plague. However, how many contests are likely to be COMPLETELY in the bag after 8 rounds. Not many, even if you are 6-2 up, you could still end getting the draw.

I wouldn't poo-poo this out of hand, I think it's more a case of people getting used to the change, I personally don't see why certainly the fighters shouldn't know what the score is after 8 rounds, and if the fighters can know, why not the people watching?

Sounds interesting to me - I would at least like to see it given a decent run.

Maybe i'm just looking on the bad side of things, but there are plenty of loony cornermen who would go mad at a judge if after 8 rounds his boxer was a long way behind and he didn't agree,
If everybody in boxing acted nicely i'd say that the idea of open scoring would be a good idea, but i just can't see how a judge can be expected to stay impartial, if he's being hounded after 8 rounds if the crowd and cornermen don't agree with his score.

One question, When a judge scores a bout, does he just write the score down for the round he just watched, then hands that over, so he doesn't keep a running total himself on a scorecard. if you know what i mean.

topper123 wrote:Maybe i'm just looking on the bad side of things, but there are plenty of loony cornermen who would go mad at a judge if after 8 rounds his boxer was a long way behind and he didn't agree,
If everybody in boxing acted nicely i'd say that the idea of open scoring would be a good idea, but i just can't see how a judge can be expected to stay impartial, if he's being hounded after 8 rounds if the crowd and cornermen don't agree with his score.

One question, When a judge scores a bout, does he just write the score down for the round he just watched, then hands that over, so he doesn't keep a running total himself on a scorecard. if you know what i mean.

I think how the whole thing is implemented is important. I wouldn't like to see a longer break between rds4 and 5 and rds8 and 9 to announce the scores.

I also think it would be a good idea to announce the scores anonymously after 4 and 8 rounds, to prevent any barracking of a particular judge. The scorecards can be attributed at the end of the fight. As regards the behaviour of the cornermen, I believe they will have to get used to the situation with bans, fines etc used as a deterrent at the outset.

I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a decent trial period for the system, as long its implementation is smooth and doesn't fvck up the continuity of a fight.

The inaugural implementation of the open scoring will take effect on November 13th at the WBC title twin bill in Tokyo, Japan. WBC Bantam champ Hozumi Hasegawa defends against Genaro Garcia while WBC Straw champ Eagle Kyowa defends against Lorenzo Trejo.

I used to be pro this idea, now totally against it. I think for three reasons.

1) It will ruin the suspense.

2) Its still what is done remains done, cannot change a card if one judge sees he disagrees with another.

3) If the judges are seeing it different to the crowd, there could be crowd trouble.

More than anything you should be worried about the potential effect it could have on the judges scores after hearing they are not agreeing with the masses.

I don't like these changes either. This would also have an impact on sportsbooks that offer live betting, they may have to stop it altogether for WBC fights.

This is a good move by the WBC, imho.

Just have the judges put in booths elsewhere and have them enter the rounds into an instant computer rather than a physical scorecard.

Must admit i'm not in favour, i think they should stick to the surprise formula of the current format IMO

To me its another potentailly damaging move by the boxing authorities.

Through the ages fighters and fans have hung on after the conclusion of a tight contest, waiting to hear the judges decision announced.

This 'inline scoring' nonsence will kill off nearly 100 years of tradition.

The British champs are rated in the rankings too with BBBOC by their rankings too now in the WBC.

Don't like the idea of the change at all.

- There would be an increase in DQ's from not only p1ssed off trainers and cornermen going crazy at the judges, but also from the fighters themselves who just wouldn't be interested in fighting on if they think they are getting raped on the cards.

- It can lead to one judges card being influenced by another if their card is different than the other two after four or eight rounds. Each card should be independent and this independence would be gone if they change.

- I always said that in fights where there is controversial scoring, the fight should be reviewed and scored by a panel of judges, before having poor judges suspended or demoted to smaller fights.

- I have gone on about this before and most of all what I hate is how judges are pressured into scoring a clear winner of every round. If both fighters do fuk all, then it should be a 10-10 round. I don't think anybody should be given a round unless there is a CLEAR winner - just like the rules state. If a round should only be awarded to a clear winner and 10-10 rounds become more frequent, then there would have to be far less discrepancies between cards.

- If the governing bodies insist on picking a winner for each round, then I think judges should be scoring rounds won big at 10-8 (which is within the rules). In tight fights such as Hopkins-Taylor, I think Taylor should have been given 10-9 for the early rounds which were awarded to him by the slightest of margins (but still put him six rounds to nil up), while some of the later rounds where he was dominated by Hopkins should have been awarded 10-8 to Hopkins.

Does anyone know if DeLa Hoya vs. Mayweather will be open scoring?

If so do you think it will have an bearing on the result of the fight?