Fights that go the distance can lead to controversial results, and last Sunday was no exception. It was a back-and-forth rumble between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Many felt the Mexican earned a victory over the Filipino, drowning a minority who saw things differently. If only the sweet science took a cue from video games.
Boxing relies on three judges to resolve bouts that don’t end in the ring. For every round, each scores their winning boxer an automatic 10, and give the loser a 9 or less based on how poorly they fared (known as the 10-point must system).
If the fight reaches the final bell, the scores are totaled to determine a winner. Let’s say in a five-round fight, Boxers A and B score 10-9, 10-8, 9-10, 7-10, and 10-8. The final score would be 46-45 in Boxer A’s favor. The boxer with two or more judges on his side wins. In rare cases where the final scores are tied, the fight is declared a draw.
Judges score each round based on who was more dominant, aggressive, and in control — not necessarily on how many effective punches were landed. This means determining a round winner is based on subjective human opinion. The judges, who watch the fight right at ringside, may have a different impression of the boxers’ performances than the audience.
And like anyone else, judges make mistakes. In Pacquiao’s first fight with Marquez, one of the judges admitted that he could have scored one round 10-6 for Pacquiao instead of 10-7. That would have changed the result from a draw to a win for the congressman.
What if we did away with human judges and made scoring in boxing more objective? In video games, there’s usually a definitive winner because a clear score is kept. Players score points for successfully completing or preventing specific actions.
The same could apply to boxing, with a few technological enhancements. Sensors would be fitted on the boxers’ bodies and their gloves, to measure the accuracy and power of punches that land. To provide an incentive for fighters to engage, they would lose points for every second they don’t land punches.
Boxing after all is a combat sport, where combatants are theoretically rewarded for dealing punishment while minimizing damage received. This sensor-based system would provide a more quantitative basis for gauging a boxer’s performance. At the end of the last round, the boxer with more points would be declared the winner — a result free from the potential inconsistencies of human judging.
The sensors won’t prevent exciting conclusions. Boxers will still be able to win by knocking out their opponent, or by having the fight stopped (by the referee, the ringside doctor or their opponent’s corner) in their favor.
It also won’t keep boxers from executing an intelligent game plan. In their classic bout back in 1974, heavyweight great Muhammad Ali laid on the ropes and let George Foreman pummel him with heavy-handed combinations.
With the sensor system, Foreman would have won points (and rounds) based on the damage he was dealing to Ali. Yet it was part of the plan: Ali was letting Foreman tire himself by throwing so many punches. Late in the fight, when Foreman had no more energy, Ali struck back and knocked his opponent out, ending the Rumble in the Jungle. He would’ve been behind on points, but ultimate victory was still his.
You may argue that using sensors would favor fighters who like throwing punches and never slow down — like Pacquiao. But that’s like saying the NBA should have never implemented the 3-point line, because it would benefit long-range shooters.
The winning conditions are very clear in many competitions. We know that Usain Bolt won the 100-meter dash in Beijing back in 2008, because he was the first to cross the finish line. We know the Azkals won against Laos last week, because they scored more goals. By eliminating subjective human opinions and scoring boxing like it was a video game, we would have fewer discrepancies between the audience reaction and the final score.
“Even though feels like JMM won, I had draw. You MUST score each Rd and write it down Then add up at end. ‘Feel’ & actual score differ often.” - Bob Papa of HBO’s “Boxing After Dark”, Twitter.