European boxing vs. American boxing flip sides of the same coin

By Boxing News - 04/06/2011 - Comments

Image: European boxing vs. American boxing flip sides of the same coinBy Mark Young: In my last article I touched on why Andre Dirrell doesn’t qualify for an instant title shot after coming back from a dubious head injury, I pointed out that his career was tainted with controversy, some of this controversy coming off the back of a lack lustre performance in the UK against Carl Froch.

The fight was an unpleasant affair and I’ll make no excuses for either fighter, on the plus sides Dirrell showed good hand speed and lateral movement while Froch pushed the fight and came to please the crowd. On the down side Dirrell was nervous and reluctant to engage while Froch was at times made to look slow. Constant clinching lead to a WWE throw to the canvass, constant ducking was rewarded with punches to the cranium and the fight was an ugly mess.

The result of the fight is well known to anyone who keeps up with boxing and the complaints coming from some sectors are never ending, one might seriously think that Dirrell wrote his own articles when reading certain articles. The reaction to Carl Froch winning a fight in Nottingham was split across the Atlantic divide. Europeans were furious that a fighter had shown up hoping to steal the fight by spoiling and engaging with late flurries while Americans were unhappy their fighter had been robbed after showing burst of fast precision punching.

It’s quite clear that had Carl Froch not knocked out Jermain Taylor in his first defence of the WBC title that he would have lost the fight by a four round margin on the judges score cards, with press row still had the fight with all to play for going into the 12th round along with British journalists.

It’s quite obvious that European judges and American Judges are looking for different things in a fight. Just looking at differing opinions on here it seems European fighters are regarded as Neanderthals who come to bludgeon each other into a pulp when viewed by an American audience and Americans viewed as track and field stars who are scared to have a fight.

We may argue but we all love the same sport and because of this we need to find some common ground, a certain criteria needs to be met when guys cross the pond, it’s no good turning up in Europe and expecting to be rewarded for a performance akin to fencing and the same goes for a European traveling to the states, it’s no good to go there and land half the amount of shots and think you’ve won because they were a lot harder. I think for each individual fight a framework should be established, a statement made about what the judges are looking for and what they want to see, I’m not talking about referring to compubox or the original boxing rules that most referees are reluctant to enforce but at least and indication of what’s going to sell on the night.

I’m sure some people will hark back to the rules of boxing and the requirements set out by the Marquis of Queensbury and how there are already a set of requirements a fighter must meet but lets be honest it doesn’t pan out like that and an agreed criteria would be as good for the judges as it would for the fighters .It would clear a lot of things up if the ring announcer welcomed the crowd and told told the crowd who the judges were, what they would be looking for in the fight and what wouldn’t be acceptable. We have referees who openly interpret the rules, we get to know these referees and even become suspicious when it seems they are brought in to suit a particular fighter so openly stating what’s expected doesn’t seem like a big ask.



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