Every round in boxing is three minutes — 180 seconds of action, movement, and strategy. In those 180 seconds, it’s a judge’s job to analyze, compare, and decide who had the edge. Sometimes that’s easy. Sometimes it’s brutally difficult.

But it’s always the job.

Still, there are situations that tempt a judge to call a round even. Here are three of the most common:

Scenario 1: The Back-and-Forth Round
In a high action round where both fighters are trading shots at a furious pace, and the damage appears more or less equal, a 10-10 score can feel like a safe call.

Some judges argue that scoring these rounds even allows the more definitive rounds to stand out clearly, helping identify the rightful winner on the final cards.

I’m not convinced. And more importantly, that rationale doesn’t align with the rules of judging. Even in a back-and-forth brawl, the judge is tasked with identifying who had the edge —however slight.

Scenario 2: The Low-Action Round
Especially in the heavier divisions, rounds can devolve into lean-fests, clinch battles, or mutual agreements to conserve energy. Both fighters take a breather, and fans are left groaning.

Judges may be tempted to "toss" the round—score it even and wait for something meaningful to happen in the next one.

Again, that’s not judging. That’s deferring. A round is a round, whether it’s exciting or dreadful, and it still requires a winner.

Scenario 3: The Double Knockdown
If both fighters hit the canvas in the same round, some may think the round cancels itself out.

It doesn’t.

Knockdowns are important, but they’re just one piece of the puzzle. Judges still have to weigh clean punching, ring control, defense, and effective aggression across the entire round.

Even in a wild exchange of knockdowns, someone usually did just a little more.

So, what should a judge do?

Simple: Pay attention. Concentrate. Focus.

It’s not glamorous, but it’s the job. If a fighter does even 1% more—lands one more clean shot, controls the ring slightly better, dictates pace just a hair longer—then they’ve done enough to win the round.

Let’s be clear: even rounds are not illegal. But they should be extremely rare, used only when there is genuinely no way to separate the fighters using the four scoring criteria: clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship, and defense.

And that is almost never the case.

A judge’s role is not to watch the fight — it’s to judge it. If you can’t find a winner after three full minutes of professional combat, you may not be paying close enough attention — or you may be afraid to take a stand.

Take the first Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Durán fight in 1980. One judge scored five rounds even. In a 15-round bout, that’s a third of the fight left undecided. Some in the sport defend this approach, saying it allows only the most decisive rounds to count toward the final result.

But that logic doesn’t hold up.

Judges aren’t there to declare only the blowout rounds. They’re there to score every round. And when they score too many 10-10s, they don’t just abdicate their responsibility — they shift it to the other judges.

Close fights are often decided by razor-thin margins. Every point matters. Declining to make a call distorts the math and puts the outcome in someone else’s hands.

Of course, there are rare moments — truly rare — when two fighters land cleanly and evenly, control space in equal measure, defend each other flawlessly, and no edge can be found.

Fine. Use 10-10 then. But if it becomes a habit, that judge probably isn’t doing the job right.

Professional judging demands decisiveness, clarity and accountability. If you want to call fights at the highest level, you have to be willing to make tough calls in tough rounds—every single time.

In my 28 years of judging, covering over 625 fights and somewhere around 4,000 rounds, I’ve scored one round even.

I wish I hadn’t.