Everything about Canelo-GGG is AMAZING until the scorecards were read.
Most media and fans had GGG winning a close fight, there were a few who had it a draw or 115-113 for Canelo. All of those scorecards were acceptable what wasn’t acceptable was the 118-110 scorecard turned in by one Adalaide Byrd who has a history of terrible scorecards.
It really took the wind out of everyone when that scorecard was announced. Until boxing cleans up it is judges people are always going to think the fix was in.
I would be considered a purist, someone who appreciates the sweet science of boxing. If you fall in the latter category, you probably have no idea how boxing is supposed to be scored, but for the record here is how.
- Clean punching: “Clean” punches are punches that land on the face/side of the head and the front/side of the torso.
- Effective aggressiveness: A boxer demonstrates this trait when he consistently and successfully moves forward in a controlled manner.
- Ring generalship: The judges favor the fighter who controls the pace and style of the bout.
- Defense: Boxers that skillfully incorporate defensive maneuvers receive credit in this area.
There are also judges who simply won’t score rounds for fighters who back up, regardless of how effective they are. There are judges who are affected by the crowd, instead of seeing a landed punch, they believe a punch has done more damage than it had because of the crowd.
The question begs how do we make it better?
The main thing we have to ask ourselves is this. Should one big punch weigh more heavily than 10 solid effective punches?
I don’t think so, which is why I believe the original rules should be enforced and taught more clearly. I think judges have went away from those rules and have come up with their own system. It is screwing up boxing, because there is no uniformity.
Every judge needs to be reminded that the most important thing you are looking for, is who landed the cleaner punches in the round. Not the harder punches, the cleaner punches. In a perfect world, the boxer landing the cleaner punches, would also be the boxer landing the harder punches, but it doesn’t work like that. If you get hit with 30 punches, you shouldn’t get rewarded because your 5 landed punches were harder.
Secondly, if the round was close who was busier, who controlled the tempo and dictated the pace.
In many of the rounds GGG was aggressor, landed the harder and cleaner punches, so how in the world on Byrd scorecard did he just win two rounds.
It was very sad to see and once again a very sad thing for boxing to be talking about this as oppose to the brilliant fight we just saw.