Distance does not always lend enchantment. Having finally caught upwith a tape of the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley, it was hard not to conclude that boxing is doomed to forever be peopled by brave fighters and idiots insuits. How two judges could see the fight in Bradley's favour is beyondme. Pacquiao got the benefit of the doubt against Juan Manuel M rquezin his last fight, but this was worse by three to four rounds. The problem is manifold.
The casual viewer imagines boxing is run still by gangsters and anydubious decision is a fix. That is simplistic. There are somemarginal characters still in the business, because it attractspeople who thrive on the anarchy of a sport with four maingoverning bodies and hundreds of easily charmed officials. Butthere are very few prearranged results these days, if any atleast in recent times.
Nevertheless, into this chaos come judges and referees who look thepart, with their ludicrous badges and bow ties, but whose grasp ofthe fundamentals is often shaky. A few are excellent. Some are OK.Too many are blindingly poor. On Saturday night in Las Vegas two of the three judges, Duane Fordand C J Ross, gave the fight to Bradley by margins of 115-113.
Thethird official, Jerry Roth, saw it the other way by the same score. This would suggest a close fight. It was not. Well, not in theopinion of nearly everyone in the building as well as nearlyeveryone who has given his or her tuppenceworth on it since.
A pollof more than 50 boxing writers found only three who agreed withFord and Ross. I had Bradley winning two of the last three rounds and sharing acouple early on in a slow start. The other eight went to Pacquiao,in my humble opinion, at least four of those without argument. Hehit harder, more often and took not much in return. Where he lethimself down was in starting slowly and not finishing the fightconclusively.
Nevertheless, he did not deserve to lose his title unlike hisfight against M rquez, in which the Mexican should have got thedecision by a couple of rounds. That, though, was a close fight.This was one-sided to anyone who knows anything about boxing. And that's the nub of the problem. Too many people from fanswith websites to the hired help with pencils and scorecards who sitin judgment at ringside do not understand either thefundamentals of the sport having never boxed, perhaps or thetricky job of scoring.
The governing bodies insist they instruct their judges on how toscore a fight, to reward clean scoring shots with the legal part ofthe glove, to take note of aggression and not to be swayed by lateflurries in a round but to take in the action of the whole threeminutes. What they do not tell them is that many rounds are tooclose to give to either fighter. They are encouraged not to sit onthe fence but to make a call one way or another even though, intheir own minds, they cannot be sure one fighter is dominant in aparticular round. How many times do you hear fans at a fight say, "How'd you see thatone? Bit close, wasn't it." At the heart of the judgment should be this: a fighter cannot win around if he does not land more obvious scoring punches than hisopponent.
When David Haye beat Nikolay Valuev, Jim Watt, an excellentcommentator and judge of a fight, reckoned Haye had not done enoughto take the title from the Russian. But this was to fall for theold trap of burdening the challenger with "making the fight",taking it away from the champion. It is a nonsense. The fightstands alone, a contest between two boxers on the night, and nonotion of the champion having an edge before the first bell shouldbe countenanced.
This leads to the "house fighter" syndrome and theperception that one boxer is favoured to win by the promoters, thebroadcasters and the industry as a whole. I slow-moed that fight a few days later and Haye landedapproximately 150 punches to 50, a boring bout, obviously, but aclear win to the challenger. He rightly got the verdict. On Saturday night in Las Vegas, the challenger Bradley was somehowseen as the winner by two judges who ignored all the aboveguidelines. Pacquiao outpunched him, outboxed him and was by alittle distance the better fighter on the night.
It should be as simple as that. But it's not. And that is thesingle major reason the sport is perpetually in such a mess. It'snot fraud, it's plain old human failing.
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