By Gerardo Granados: This Saturday night on November 26, WBO super featherweight Champion Vasyl Lomachenko (W6-L-0-D0) will fight against former WBA feather Champion dangerous puncher Axe Man Nicholas Walter (W26-L0-D1) on HBO World Championship Boxing from the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hopefully this great match up does ends up in an epic battle, instead of a dirty war due the ineptitude of the referee. Last week there was a controversial ruling by the judges, but to be fair, we should admit that the Sergey Kovalev vs Andre Ward bout was far from being easy to score.
Soon we will find out if the ring rust will affect the timing and distance on the Axe Man, or if Lomachenko´s southpaw hand speed and footwork can give him the edge. This is an even match up, in which is hard to predict a clear winner, not the less I guess Hi-Tech Lomachenko should win a hard close competitive decision. But, if Vasyl gets reckless or defensively irresponsible, then I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended in the canvas for the full count.
Now, to score it might not be as easy as it looks. Due their fighting styles, we could end letting our boxing taste influence our criteria to decide who wins the rounds.
To the readers who are interested to know how to score a fight, here is a hint. For the veteran fight fans who already know how to, well maybe you could enrich with your comments so the young fight fans can get to understand concepts such as ring generalship and effective aggression.
The 10 must system gives ten points to the winner of the round and loser gets nine.
An official knock down is scored 10-8, you cannot mistake when there was an official knockdown because referee will start a count. It is eight points for the boxer who kissed the canvas. If there were more knock downs you deduct 1 point for each time
Basically there is a knock down when a boxer, after being hit, falls to the canvas, be it partially touching the canvas with a glove or a knee or when he gets flatten.
Foul. Basic fouls are: to hit when ordered to break, low blows, kidney punches and rabbit punches, to push, use of head or elbows to hit and to “clinch”. A single foul or a series of fouls lead to a warning and also to a point deduction.
Point deduction. The referee will stop the clock, then get the offender to the middle of the ring and make a clear hand signal and also audible command announcing to the fight judges the reason to deduct a point.
Force yourself to NEVER score a round even 10-10. There must be something a boxer did to get the nod. On times there are rounds that can go to any of the boxers, but try to avoid giving all the close rounds to a single boxer.
Avoid getting influenced by the audience cheering and keep focus on the fight without paying attention to the TV commentator, to avoid getting confused or changing your mind on who won the round.
Don’t be a fan of any of the boxers to avoid been bias. Don’t forget that you are scoring three minutes of the round and not just the last thirty seconds of it.
Clean and hard punching. Many fight fans only rely on the punch stats to determine a winner, but this is only one of the four criteria to declare the winner of the round. Clean punching means not blocked or partially blocked. Hard punching means blows that clearly make the boxer shake his legs, the ones that make him stop the pressure or go into defensive mode; these punches are not just “clean” patty pat speed slap punches that score points to steal the round.
Defense. Show better overall defensive boxing skills. This doesn’t mean the one who shuts off the rounds running around clinching. NO, at any fighting distance you can slip, block, bob and weave, use footwork or angles to avoid getting hit.
Ring generalship. Basically this means to maneuver your opponent to fight the way you want. Move and force the opponent to cut off the ring or stay at the middle of the ring. Impose the distance and set the tempo of the fight.
Effective aggression. Means to be aggressive and get results, as when a boxer lands clean and as a result he makes his opponent to be reluctant to engage. When a boxer throws a lot of punches but most are missed or blocked then it isn’t effective aggression.
Let’s not forget that this is all based on personal appreciation, this is not math and your boxing taste will always influence your decision. I am going to score the Lomachenko vs Walters. But what about the reader will you?