"I don’t wanna close my eyes. I don’t wanna fall to sleep ‘coz I miss your game …and I don’t wanna miss a thing" – AEROSMITH
Good news to all excited fans of the Emmanuel "Manny The Pacman" Pacquiao-Erik "El Terible" Morales "Grand Finale": You can now act as judges while watching the fight live (on TV, SM City Cinema, or in the ringside!).
To begin with, I would like to ask the indulgence of the readers that, since I am a licensed professional boxing referee and judge, I would like to share to the boxing fans some techniques on how to score a professional boxing championship fight. If we know how to score a boxing fight, we can compare our scorecards with that of the three official judges in the ringside and we will know if they are into monkey business as feared by some cynics or they are really straight shooters as widely believed.
My topic today actually augurs well with the recent decision of the World Boxing Council (WBC) to approve the open scoring or the radical new plans to reveal the official judges’ scorecards at regular intervals in title fights. Under the rules, the announcer would tell the audience who was ahead after the fourth and eighth rounds. The new system will be used for the first time during two WBC title fights in Tokyo on 13 November.
WBC president Jose Sulaiman said: "I believe that we have taken a major step in the history of boxing." Sulaiman thinks the system will help maintain the integrity of the sport. "One of the most important things is to do something for justice in scoring," he added. "We have been doing so many clinics, basic guidelines, booklets and videos, but we still have a problem. "I believe that this is gigantic in sports and will make the judges more conscientious of their responsibility. It will ensure the judges concentrate 100 percent concentration and it will give them a sense of pride, because they have confidence in themselves and their scoring".
The Japanese commission has confirmed that it will apply the new rule in two WBC world title fights on 13 November in Tokyo, Japan. These will be the WBC bantamweight clash between Hozumi Hasegawa and Genaro Garcia and the strawweight clash between Eagle Kyowa and Lorenzo Trejo. The new rule was approved by a majority votes of the WBC governors on condition that any national commission may decide not to use it. The idea of open scoring is not a new one. It was experimented with during Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight fight against Earnie Shavers at Madison Square Garden, New York in 1977. This deserves watching whether other boxing governing bodies will follow the WBC’s lead as they did when the WBC cut the length of title fights from 15 to 12 rounds.
WHAT A JUDGE LOOKS FOR IN A FIGHT?
There are three basic factors being used to score a round and ultimately the fight: 1. Clean punching/effective aggressiveness; 2. Ring generalship; 3. Defense.
CLEAN PUNCHING/EFFECTIVE HITS
Most fights are won by the fighter who uses clean punching with effective aggressiveness to score points. Boxing is a combative sport. The object of the professional boxer is to score a greater number of effective punches than his opponent while avoiding as many punches as possible. This is the key to winning. In other words, the boxer who gets off first, who controls the action while scoring good clean punches is on his way to winning. Since boxing is considered so combative, and although defense is important, offense or clean punching and effective aggressiveness are what win a fight. A knockout is a professional boxer’s ultimate achievement. A knockdown carries much weight. This can only be accomplished by a fighter who utilizes clean punching in combination with his aggressiveness. Simply moving forward is not enough. In many fights one observes a match-up that might be termed the "Matador and the Bull." The "Bull" is the connotation for the fighter who keeps moving forward.
The "Matador", of course, is the fighter who may be moving backwards or side to side, as the "Bull" charges forward. If, however, the fighter moving forward is not punching effectively and is not scoring with good clean punches, he is not gaining an advantage. In the meantime, the fighter moving backward, or side to side, might be scoring with good clean counter punches and good stiff jabs and piling up points, even though he is not moving forward. Effective aggressiveness does not necessarily mean a boxer must be moving forward.
A good counter puncher, scoring effective punches while moving backwards or using lateral movement, still scores points against a fighter who may be moving forward but is not punching effectively. If this analysis of effective aggressiveness is misunderstood, it could lead to flawed scoring. In conclusion, the aggressor who takes the lead gets off first, scores clean punches both in quantity and with quality, regardless of the direction he is moving, should win the round. /MPmailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
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