Fight Training: Wait, Who Won That Round?

Yesterday I went through the basics of scoring a fight. That’s all well and good, but what use is knowing the scoring system if you can’t tell who won the round in the first place?

OK, so sometimes that’s not very difficult to determine:

Much more often, however, it’s not that simple. The problem for many viewers (and judges, fighters, promoters… OK, really anyone involved in the sport) is that it’s an incredibly subjective system. Yes, fancy systems like CompuBox exist so that HBO can track the punches thrown and landed throughout the course of the fight; however, these are unofficial measurements, and judges never see them. Even if they did, the numbers don’t really amount to much.

I’ll share how I view fights*. I look at a number of factors, and prioritize them as such:

1. Landing punches. This is, after all, what the sport is all about, correct? Obviously if I see Fighter A seriously out-landing Fighter B over the course of a round, it’s highly likely that I’m going to score in favor of A. However, if you have a younger brother (or are yourself a younger sibling), you’ve probably at some point in your life learned that when it comes to punches, quantity does not always beat quality. As a general rule of thumb, I always favor power punches over quick flurries when scoring, though I do make exceptions.

As a note regarding ANY punch, be careful not to let your eyes fool you. The crowd will often roar when they see what appears to be a great punch, when in all reality it was either A: blocked, B: not flush (i.e., not solid contact).

2. Controlling the ring. This is difficult to describe without a visual. Take a look at this clip from the recent James Kirkland win over Joel Julio:

Ignore the punching. Watch how Kirkland (black trunks) is dictating where the two are in the ring, keeping Julio to the outside. What a fighter will want to dictate depends on his physical tools and style, though — middle of the ring vs. against the ropes, close to your opponent vs. keeping him at a distance with effective jabbing — so it’s not a cookie-cutter observation. Spotting who’s in control just takes practice. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”

3. Defense. It’s a pretty simple concept in theory, but great defense is a sure way to success in boxing. Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who until his recent retirement was unanimously considered the pound-for-pound king of boxing, was known far and wide for his impenetrable defense. This isn’t just limited to blocking punches — something Mayweather rarely does. It also includes ducking, dodging, and leaning so that punches either miss or glance off you without inflicting any damage. Effective defense in this manner can even set up your offense by giving you opportunities to counter-punch.

4. Output. Some judges value this much more highly, but I use it strictly as a tiebreaker in a round if all else is equal. What I mean by output is how active a fighter is in the ring, more or less how many punches he throws. Some fighters throw punches just for the sake of throwing them — ineffective, non-damaging punches don’t score points in my book, and this output can often actually highlight how well the other fighter is controlling the ring and defending well.

However, I have seen some rounds where two fighters display no advantage over the other in the other three categories, but in comparison one was, to put it bluntly, a slothful ass. Point goes to the other guy.

* Note: When I talk about scoring fights here, I’m talking about professional boxing, NOT the Olympic sport. The latter is a completely different system which has tried to standardize scoring and make it more objective. Personally, I think it makes for an overly rigid sport, and I have neither the knowledge or the desire to explain how that type of scoring works.