Notorious Front Runners

dsimon writes:

Yeah the concept of front running is anathema to the idea that a fight progresses along a path of some sort, I agree. I also agree that this is bitter fruit. In other words, front runners win fights because they win rounds early. If a guy shows the ability to execute a strategy from the beginning it does not matter if he does not overcome early rounds in the fight to get credit for his strategy and execution. Your examples are true to form in this regard. Hopkins is another one who operates with a strategy for the whole fight and should get credit for seeing it through.

The only solution I see is for judges to really score ring'smanship and to maybe give preferential scoring to the later rounds of a fight. Or, score the rounds depending on how the fight is progressing. In other words if the early rounds are pretty even and one guy is flurrying at the end, maybe balance the rounds and count them less than the later rounds where the guys are obviously clearly determining who is winning the rounds. I mean qualitativly there is a BIG difference between a guy stealing a round with a flurry and a guy winning a round with a few more clean hard punches in the round.

 

Whether it's conscious or not, I think some judges do this. In the case of close rounds early in the fight, some judges I think tend to alternate which fighter they give the round too, possibly in anticipation of one of them clearly distinguishing himself in the end. And so in effect, by having the fight even going into the later rounds, a fighter is able to win the fight by "running" away with it.

I think judges too are sometimes conscious not to give all of the close rounds to the same fighter. I think this is good practice, because like you said, and I agree, a round in which one fighter arguably eeked it out shouldn't count the same as a round in which one fighter won 2:50 of the round and landed tons of clean shots.

It's one point that Max Kellerman made that I thought had merit which is that judges should take more liberties with all 10 points. Why should 10-9 be the only possible outcome for a round in which a knock-down didn't occur but in which one fighter was viewed as having won the round?

And ODH/Trinidad is the perfect example. I was a huge fan of his when he fought Trinidad. And to this day most people think he beat Trinidad. But when you watch those last three rounds, and Trinidad, in a non-corrupt world would've gotten 10-9s for those, how is it fair that ODH won the early rounds by the same 10-9 margin? That's why I've never protested that decision even though there was obviously some shananigans going on when you consider that Roth gave ODH the final round.

But still. The first half of the fight, in my mind, was close as hell, even if you did think ODH won most of the rounds. But the second half, you could make the argument Trinidad dominated. Domination versus winning rounds by the skin of your teeth? That distinction should be reflected in the scoring and in general it's not.

I think more 10-7 and 10-6 rounds are in order in the case of a knock-down to make way for more 10-8 rounds when there hasn't been a knock-down but in which one fighter has dominated the round. 10-9 rounds should then be reserved for close rounds.

 

If Roy quit Griffen did too. He could have beat the 10 count if he wanted. He chose to faceplant. Hes lucky that Hazzard overuled the ref because Roy would have won by KO if he didn't.