CONGRATULATIONS to Donnie Nietes, the new WBO junior flyweight champion. When this column was in its infancy, Donnie was the very first boxer I featured and I feel a sense of kinship with the ?Ahas? man with the way he has bucked all odds and persevered.
Not bad for a former janitor, eh?
SCORING. For the record, I had Donnie ahead by 3 points, which is closer to boxing judge Danrex Tapdasan?s score of 115-113.
However, I looked back at my notes and I marked down three rounds for being too close to call, meaning they could arguably have been scored either way.
That being said, I think Donnie still won the fight, but the scoring margins turned in by judges Lisa Ortiz and Carlos Giampa were a bit too generous for Donnie. Or were they?
CLOSE. In a 10-point must scoring system we are using, the judge will award the fighter who wins the round a 10 and the losing fighter a 9.
This is modified if there is a knockdown as one fighter loses another point thereby making it a 10-8 round, or if there is a deduction where the erring fighter is again penalized.
This can be altered also if the fighter who knocked the other down was actually losing the round, thereby evening it up at 9-9. But let?s not get too technical here and let?s proceed to where controversy is often rife.
The issue has always been how to score close rounds as this is where judge?s preference of styles or appreciation of techniques comes into play. Ergo, this is very subjective.
A case in point for Donnie?s fight with Garcia are rounds 2 and 11.
