Who is the best fight judge?

By Gerardo Granados: Brandon Rios was unable to make the 135 pounds lightweight limit, got stripped from his belt and then got a gift from the fight judges. But this is not new in pro boxing; can the reader recall any recent bad fight judge´s decisions?

A lot of times the fight scores will be based on personal preferences, to decide who won a round and to determine who won the fight on points is based on a mere personal opinion, that could be influenced by the angle of view of the fight; if you watch the fight on television you will get several angles of the action but a fight judge is sitting on the same place all the time. Some will prefer defensive skills, other power punches or volume of punches connected, some fans base their opinion on the punch stats of the fight that were made by other person.

On times we get to see absurd scoring: 120-108, 114-114, 102-106. There is no obvious reason why would two judges have appreciated the same fight so differently. A round can be score 10-10 and a fight can be ruled a draw but you cannot see both fighters fully dominate each other simultaneously in the same round or fight.

Some fights are so close that it is up to your boxing preferences to decide who won. I´ll invite the reader to score the next fights without any audio: Evander Holyfield vs. Lenox Lewis, Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Pernell Whitaker, Thomas Hearns vs. Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler vs. Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran vs. Marvin Hagler, Oscar De la Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather, Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Chris John and Tito Trinidad vs. Oscar De la Hoya.

There are other fights that got absurd scoring: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sebastian Zbik, Erislandy Lara vs. Paul Williams, Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Manny Pacquiao III and of course Brandon Rios vs. Richard Abril. The robberies are as common today as they were in the past.

But, who is to blame? Who will be punished for these robberies: the fight judges, boxing commissions, boxing organizations, the greedy promoters or the boxing fans? Professional boxing is both a business and a cruel sport, the controlled violence is the reason why boxing is followed by “millions of fans worldwide”, pro boxing aint perfect but it is what it is. The local decisions are a tradition and it seems there will not be an ending soon to the absurd scoring. Why there are such bad fight scoring in pro boxing? Are fight judges so bad prepared? Maybe the answer is so obvious that there is no need to say it; if pro boxing is a business then the bad judge scoring might be the result of inexplicable human negligence.

At a previous article “Let´s score a boxing fight next weekend” I invited the reader to score a fight, now I´ll ask “who is the best fight judge?” Do boxing fans decide who won the fight based on the fight stats, the opinion of the fight commentators or the official fight score cards? At a street brawl you don´t need any one to tell you who won the fight. At an amateur or professional bout boxers are previously ranked in order to protect them from mismatch fights that could lead to an injury or worst, they are skilled and prepared and are also supposed to have similar level so the fight will be competitive and on times it is hard to say who won the fight on the score cards.

A perfect record can be meaningless if the fans don’t believe is real or give merit to the opposition faced; if a fighter has more than one loss can also be meaningless to boxing fans if they believe he was robbed a decision or lost to a better fighter proving to be brave. If a fighter is caught cheating there will be no need to change the result of the fight so that fans stop believing he was the legit winner.

Charisma is what makes a fighter become a boxing star. Boxing skills will make him respected, feared and even to be avoided by paper champions. His bravery and macho attitude will make him a boxing immortal to the eyes of the boxing fans. At the end the boxer fight record is just a statistic.

If the reader don´t need any one to tell him who won the fight; then who can be considered as the best fight judge available?