You see this after every fight. But I would have thought this would be difficult to track with accuracy. It’s frequently difficult to figure things out even with instant replays, and in boxing, what with all the motion and difficult angles, it’s hard to see how there could be certainty on every punch as to whether it landed or not.
How is this done? (Manually? Computers? Etc.)
They use a Compubox, basically a laptop with buttons to push each time a punch is landed.
But the CompuBox seems to be just a way of keeping count. It doesn’t help the guy figure out what happened. I would have thought that would be tough to accurately assess. (Or do they go over it in SloMo later on?)
They are only as accurate as the operators. That said, in pro boxing they don’t need to be accurate as they don’t have any bearing on the result.
In the Olympics, the three judges actually use it for scoring, two of the three judges having to register a scoring punch within a small timeframe (about 1 second IIRC) for it to count.
So, exactly how do Pro boxing judges decide on how many points to allocate to each boxer for each round? Pure gut feel?
In professional boxing, the scoring is based of four criteria:
• Punches landed
• Effective aggression
• Defense
• Ring generalship
The four criteria are supposed to count equally, but in reality , “punches landed” gets more weight.
In the “10-point must” system, the winner of the round gets 10 points, the loser gets 9 or less. Even rounds are scored 10-10. If there are point deductions for fouls, they are subtracted after the round has been scored normally.
Typically, most rounds ares cored 10-9, unless there’s a knockdown. Rounds with a knockdown are usually scored 10-8. Completely one-sided rounds with no knockdowns are sometimes scored 10-8.
Rounds with multiple knockdowns may be scored 10-7.
Punches landed could be misleading. An agressor is sure to throw more punches and miss often. A defender throws fewer but tends to land. more. the attacker’s forward momentum works to his disadvantage. This is a universal principle in martial arts. So judges qualify telling blows from mere tags.
They stopped using that system after 2008. In 2012, they still registered punches electronically, but in each round, the three of the five judges’ punch counts for a boxer that were “closest to each other” (usually, but not always, the middle three) were averaged. 2016 will use a professional-style 10-point-must system that no longer depends on punch counts.
It’s been asserted that the initial punches landed stats for the Mayweather Pacquaio fight were significantly off.
Don King’s gut feel.