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JUDGES ARE JUDGED By Epifanio M. Almeda PhilBoxing.com Tue, 23 Feb 2010  As a boxing judge, I feel the need to let the boxing public view a boxing match from a performing judge’s seat in one of the four sides of the square ring. This is in light of the recent criticisms directed to one of the judges in the Paulie Malignaggi-Juan Diaz first fight in Texas which Diaz won. Paulie cried robbery. Many supported Paulie and criticized the judge who saw Diaz winning by a wide margin. It was a close fight. Hence, the disparity in the total scores of the winner and the loser shouldn’t be wide. Should it? “Three different fights” In a close fight with variant wide disparities in the scoring, the sarcasm of boxing reporters that the 3 judges were watching 3 different fights is, in a sense, truth. A judge’s chair is the real ringside seat. The 3 judges occupy 3 seats placed one each at the 3 sides of the 4-sided ring. While these 3 judges watch only one fight, each of them sees only one side of the fight, his. At a certain point during a fight, one judge might be seeing the 2 fighters facing each other. The 2nd judge might be seeing only a fighter’s back as he covers the opponent in part or in whole. The 3rd judge would be seeing the fighters from an angle different from the others’. When a clean punch is landed at that point, the judge or judges who can see both fighters would know whom to credit the punch. The judge who sees only the back of one fighter would not see the punch unless it becomes obvious from the effect on the fighter hit. At some other instances, a judge’s view is obstructed by the referee. These scenarios occur frequently during a fight. The 3 judges do not see a common sight. Each judge scores a round as he sees it. Certainly, in a closely contested fight, disparity in the judges’ scores is not absent. “Review” of the fight video is not a review After seeing a controversially scored fight on video, critics at times feel their suspicion of a botched judging confirmed. The concerned judge’s reputation is unfairly tarnished. I was once asked if I would agree to have a “review” of the 3-round amateur boxing match involving movie actors in which I was one of the 3 judges. When the split decision result was announced in favor of the fighter from the blue corner, the crowd booed. They “judged” the fighter from the red corner deserving of the verdict. The losing boxer also showed displeasure that he lost the won fight. The stake was high. The winner gets to vie for the championship which offers a huge cash prize to the champion. The organizers of the event said that the 3 of us judges would sit side by side this time and “review” the fight on video. Our scores in this “review” will replace the scores we submitted at the actual fight night. I agreed provided, and my condition probably derailed the contemplated “review”, each of us 3 judges would watch the video completely taken from our respective sides of the ring during the actual fight. This way, our scores would be comparative to the previous scores we have submitted. But to view the fight from angles different from the actual fight is not a review to a judge. If I see who landed a clean power punch which I did not during the actual fight, I am actually seeing another fight and my score this time would differ from the score during the actual fight. The decision whether to hold the “review” still hangs. One of the recent professional fights I judged was “reviewed” by some select personnel of the supervising board in response to a protest filed by the manager of the fighter who lost via a split decision. I learned that majority of those who judged the fight on video scored the fight a draw. They were seeing only one fight. I’m glad the split decision result was not changed. The fight on video is another fight in addition to the 3 fights each of the 3 judges watched at fight time. A wide disparity of scores happen in close fights I have written on this possibility in a previous article but it bears repeating since a fellow boxing judge is being widely criticized. A closely fought round could result in a 10-9 score for the winner of the round as the judge sees it. If all 10 rounds are close and one fighter consistently has the slight advantage from the same judge’s point of view, this fighter will win the 10-round bout with a final total of 100-90. A very wide disparity open to the boxing public’s criticism. An unjustified criticism considering that the judge fairly scored the fight as he saw it. Judges are unfairly judged It’s easy to criticize boxing judges. But it’s not that easy to have a sound basis for the criticism. One needs to see the fight the judge saw to be in the position to rightly criticize. Critics should temper criticisms in light of the situations boxing judges are in when judging fights. And judges should likewise understand criticisms from the boxing public however baseless these may seem. Judges are judged. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Epifanio M. Almeda.  |
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