Judging. The most infamous aspect of boxing is so often it’s most talked about subject. Controversial decisions in high profile fights have drenched an immovable stain into the sports’ identity that seems impossible to bleach out. A great fight ruined by an inept scoring system that fails on the big stage time and time again. ‘What fight were they watching’; ‘how can they get it so wrong’; ‘who payed them off” ‘cheated!’; ‘robbery!’… etc etc. Well, if you didn’t already know, there is an established system.

3 independent judges, sticking to 4 specific criteria designed to determine a victor of each individual round. They are as follows;

Ring generalship– who is dictating the pace and controlling the ring.

Effective aggression– self explanatory. Points for being aggressive so long as it’s effective.

Clean punching– who is landing the harder, cleaner punches.

Defense– who is making their opponent miss.

But the intricacies of one fighter’s ‘effectiveness’ can completely contrast their opponents’, particularly in a close fight. The subjective nature of those intricacies are reflective of the subjective nature of the judging criteria itself.

Using Canelo GGG as a recent example. Canelo probably ticked the box for clean punching and defense, whereas Golovkin probably ticked the box for ring generalship and effective aggression. Again, the preference of the individual is the ruling factor in how to score a fight in which the 4 criteria is divided evenly between the two fighters. Ultimately, the fight was scored a draw. But it wasn’t the final result that rang the alarm bells (for most at least). 118 110 stamped an unwanted marker on the biggest fight of the year and kick started a social media frenzy that focused on boxing’s proverbial elephant rather than the action. As said before, time and time again; enough is enough.

With seemingly no real alternate way of judging the number of surprise scorecards is unlikely to change. And, although high profile fights are not exempt from mind boggling decisions, the majority of them usually deliver a fair result. But ‘usually’ is not exactly what paying fans or the fighters themselves should settle for. As long as judging remains so open to personal interpretation, scorecards will always cause debate. So what if we could alter that? Rather than leave the fate of the fighters in the hands of 3 individual preferences, why not scrap 2 of the cards for just one??

3 judges collaborating on one single score card. The officials would determine the victor of each round via a unanimous, split or even scoring. The difference being the judges would get a short window of opportunity within each break to discuss who they believed won the round and put it to a vote. This could perhaps eliminate individual bias as well as determining a more decisive assessment of who was deserving of the round. Again referring to Canelo GGG; a scorecard like 118 110 is so obviously incorrect that had the judge in question been overruled, her complacency would not go unanswered and maybe her assessment of the next round would improve based on a scoring system that encourages teamwork rather than individual preference.

If you’re a believer of conspiracy in boxing’s shady, behind-the-scenes rhetoric, one scorecard would maybe make it more difficult for ‘bought off’ judges to influence the final decision, considering that you’d need more than just one. Sure, they could buy all 3, but at least it would cost them more money. If you truly believe that Byrd was influenced prior to the contest, then within a group scoring just one card, her predetermined view wouldn’t impact the final result as significantly as it did. Unless she is incredibly persuasive, capable of altering the thought process of her colleagues for her own personal gain. It’s possible.

The system being very briefly proposed is obviously flawed. It’s basic idea is that if the trained judges can collaborate with one another before deciding, then maybe, just maybe scoring would be more accurate. 3 heads are better than one, and scorecards like 118 110, or 114 114 by C.J Ross in a fight Mayweather CLEARLY won 3 years ago, could be dismissed as well as improved later. Or, maybe this is a stupid idea that wouldn’t change a dam thing. We’ll never know, but it’s good to ponder.

Feel free to tear this suggestion apart.