Comments Thread For: Giving TV Scoring Methods a Calculated Makeover

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Lyle Fitzsimmons - In all the years I’ve watched boxing – more than 30 in fact, since I sat with my dad in Grand Island, N.Y. and watched Ken Norton dispose of Duane Bobick in 58 seconds – I’ve been irked each and every time I’ve heard a TV judge thusly describe the action of a just-completed one-sided round:

“Fighter A really dominated for the whole three minutes in Round X, and, with the knockdown, he gets the extra point on the scorecard and wins it, 10-8.”

Anyone else understand my angst?

As those who’ve sat and watched a fight with me will testify, it’s within seconds after hearing such a statement that I’ll clarify, pointing out that in a 10-point must system, scoring a knockdown does not earn you an extra point at all. Ten, in this case, remains 10.

Rather, it docks the fighter who was knocked down an extra point, chipping the nine he would normally have received down to eight or even seven in some extreme cases.

But no matter whether it’s Harold Lederman, Steve Farhood, Steve Weisfeld or someone else crunching the numbers, it’s almost always described incorrectly, as if the winner suddenly jumped from 10 to 11 for displaying his dominance.

It drives me nuts.

So, in accordance with the philosophy of coaching the talent on hand rather than teaching old dogs new tricks, I’ve decided to rebuild the system around my stuck-in-cement colleagues.

Instead of an overly complex formula involving 10 points for winners and nine or less for losers, I propose going back in time to the era when winners of a normally competitive round received one point and the losers received none.

If the round is even, a scoring crutch I try to avoid at all costs, neither fighter receives a point.

Lastly, if a fighter scores a knockdown or more and truly wins a round in decisive fashion, he gets either two or three, actually earning the “extra” point(s) too often rewarded by the TV talking heads. [Click Here To Read More]

[Dr Rumack]

In terms of communicating scores to casuals, a 7-5 or 10-2 scoreline is actually a lot clearer and adopting it makes sense.

But beyond that I don't think Lyle has made much of a case for it. TV judges like Lederman should just stop saying 'gets an extra point'. Writing him a letter might be a bit more feasible than having the entire 10-point must system abandoned.

[techliam]

In terms of communicating scores to casuals, a 7-5 or 10-2 scoreline is actually a lot clearer and adopting it makes sense.

But beyond that I don't think Lyle has made much of a case for it. TV judges like Lederman should just stop saying 'gets an extra point'. Writing him a letter might be a bit more feasible than having the entire 10-point must system abandoned.

Yeah I agree not much of a case for it. I'm honestly not too fussed about how you present the scores, but the 10-point system has become an integral part of the sport in some form. Its strange but we've come to adopt it

Plus, you often hear people say X fighter won that fight, 7 rounds to 5 etc. Or he won 10-2. I think thats pretty much akin to what was suggested here

[LittleMacAttack]

The problem with the proposed more simplified point system is that it doesn't leave room for deductions foe fouls. If a guy has 0 points and gets penalized, does he go negative?

[Bajingo]

The problem with the proposed more simplified point system is that it doesn't leave room for deductions foe fouls. If a guy has 0 points and gets penalized, does he go negative?

aybe give the other guy an extra point instead of deducting. But I can't say I ever paid that much attention to the exact wording of what Lederman etc. always say.

[mrjax]

Meh, it is a matter of semantics. So the extra point someone is awarded is really a deduction from the other one, as long as someone ends up two points ahead it is pretty much the same thing.
Having a 10 point system assures someone can get points taken away, the alternative would be to award someone a point for getting hit below the belt, which makes just as little sense as the system they are trying to fix.

What if the winner of the round gets a two point deduction and the loser gets a one point deduction? 1 point, minus two for the winner and zero points, minus one for the winner? With the new system, there is no real way to look at the round score and see that something happened to make both fighters lose a point, unless you start in the negatives.

[Build That Wall]

This is a great article and I agree 100 percent.

[observer]

makes so much sense I wonder why the original system was adopted in the first place. But then you wonder why it's 15, 30 and 40 in tennis too...

[Floydushka]

- "He gets an extra-point" means he gets one more point advantage. No matter if it is "+1" for the winner or "-1" for the loser - result is the same - 2-points advantage in the round.

- What if a fighter makes a foul and a point deduction is needed? Will he get a "-1" scoring in your model?

- What is it you don't understand in "120 - 108"? It means that the loser misses 12 points wheather it was 12 lost rounds or, for example, 10 lost rounds, two rounds even and two points deducted for lowblows.

Though I a have an idea for your next article. Why is it always that a boxer who was down is concidered a loser in the round? I think that there should be another logic. Let's concider a round when boxer1 really dominated the whole round but was in a flash knockdown. The first question for a judje is who won the round. I answer - it was the boxer1. So, in the 10-points-must system he gets 10. OK, he won the round, but he was down. It means he gets a point deduction, which means his final score in the round is 9. The boxer2 lost the round despite that he sent the boxer1 to the canvas. So, he gets 9. That's the correct scoring - this round is a 9-9 draw. What happens nowadays? If the fighter goes down judjes automatically score the round 10-8 for the other fighter. But as I just have shown, it depends...