Explaining ‘Poor’ Decision’s

By Shane Newsome - 09/08/2013 - Comments

By Shane Newsome: With ‘poor’ decision’s seemingly on the increase in boxing at the moment and fans becoming more and more disillusioned with every one that rears it’s ugly head, I will attempt to clear it up for those still losing sleep over a decision where the more popular fighter doesn’t receive the judges vote.

Last night’s WBO Lightweight Championship fight between Scotland’s Champion Ricky Burns’ 36(11)-2-1 and Mexican Challenger Raymundo Beltran 28(17)-6(2)-1 has a lot of people talking at the moment, most claiming it was the biggest robbery… until the next one, these sorts of results are a common occurrence in modern day boxing and only seem to be growing in regularity.

Similar high profile results of resent fights include Manny Pacquiao’s unpopular split decision loss to Timothy Bradley, Adrien Broner’s controversial split decision win over Paulie Malignaggi and perhaps Saul Alvarez’s recent win over Austin Trout ranks up there with boxing’s most controversial decisions of recent times for some.

Then we have the slightly less controversial decision’s where the favourite fighter was given the decision but probably didn’t win the fight on the night, fights like Sergio Martinez’s win over Martin Murray where on another night and had it not been in Argentina perhaps Murray would have walked away WBC Middleweight champion of the world and Amir Khan’s loss to Lamont Peterson where Khan wasn’t only fighting and illegally high dosed Peterson but seemingly bent judges and the harshest referee on the planet, in a fight people have now forgot.

Most like to claim that it is the fault of corrupt officials being paid off by wealthy promoters who rule the sport and will do anything to help the business interests of their boxers, in truth this is a bit far fetched we no longer have to endure a mob ruled sport and we should be proud of this and though every sport has its bad guys with even the likes of cycling being dragged through the media due to the revelations of drug abuse in the sport by some of the worlds highest profile riders or athletics and baseball which have had a similar problem or even horse riding and football which have had their problems with race/match fixing, in comparison right now boxing, which has formerly be looked on as the most corrupt sport going, is relatively clean.

Really what it comes down to it difference of opinion a fight can be scored in a number of ways and this is why we often get such wide scoring, I sat here yesterday watching the Burns vs Beltran fight and first and foremost I have to congratulate the pair on a terrific fight and I have to say on reflection at the end of the fight I thought Beltran deserved the win he fought a very composed fight and in the rounds that he did win he won them extremely comfortably but after 12 rounds of action i tallied up my own personal scorecard and it read Burns 114-113 Beltran. and this is exactly how a judge would judge a fight.

I had Burns winning rounds 1-3, Beltran 4-5, Burns 6-7, Beltran 8-10(with a KD) and Burns 11-12 though there were a lot of close rounds I personally edged the majority to Burns due to his defence and his effective jab on the night and even though Beltran was more convincing in the rounds he won I simply can’t give him more than a 10-9 round nor would I go back over my scorecard to give him a few round just because I though he deserved the fight on an overall performance.

Bearing that in mind combined with the fact certain judges can be swayed by the crowd who were on the night very loud whenever Burns was throwing punches, you can’t honestly say that the fight was a big robbery, Burns was the champion and so he get to decide where he fights, its Beltran’s job as the Challenger to come over and take the fight out of the judges hands or win it convincingly which he didn’t quite do. had it been the other way round and the fight was in Mexico I have no doubt Beltran would have been given the decision and it would have been no more of a robbery then either. its just the way judges see the fight.

Of the fights mentioned above I only scored two the same way the judges did and they were Alvarez vs Trout (for Alvarez) and Pacquiao vs Bradley (for Bradley – just) the others I had reversed, and they may or may not have been the popular decision’s but I don’t score with any bias and I just count what I see as opposed to what the commentators are saying on the night which is often very biased.

So please cut the sport some slack and just sit back and enjoy it or go and watch an even more corrupt sport if you can’t bear it, if there is truly any injustice done then it will be sorted by the proper authorities and getting angry over this sort of decision is just laughable. Thank you for reading and feel free to drop me a comment.



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