Look at other professional sports; they have regular schedules; the playoffs are seeded by predefined rules, judges don’t determine the score, shit like this last fight just doesn’t happen. Boxing is completely jacked. The fans keep paying for fights that are nothing but setups for rematches, the various mobs get their cuts, and the yo bros and douchey suburban wannabes will puff their undeniably phallic cigars and pretend it’s a sport. The boxing itself is, but the way it’s run is simply not legitimate.
Well I don’t think anyone would argue with that. Boxing is an anarchic sport. There’s no person or body really in control of everything. It’s one saving point is the ability of a good boxer to take decisions out of the hands of the judges. Although these days I wouldn’t be surprised to see a referee holding up the hand of a boxer lying unconcious on the mat. Something close to this was a Julio Caesar Chavez fight where he quit, and the referee called the match a win for him. There have been some questionable disqualifications also, and an increasing number of no contests (one on the undercard of Pacquiao-Bradley) where fighters quit early in the fight to take advantage of the rules and prevent a potential loss. And that’s only the nonsense that happens* in *the ring.
I recall one incident in the long past (when I still followed boxing) when a judge appeared to be personally surprised at which fighter his scorecard favored. Since they judge round by round, and most rounds won give you only 1 point more than the opponent, it’s possible for a fighter to do better overall, and still lose. Lose 6 rounds by a whisker, draw 1, and win 5 rounds by a mile, you lose.
Unless you require a KO or withdrawal, the sport has to use a very subjective assessment of the performance. Punches come in all shapes and sizes, some are effective, some are not. Ring Generalship, aggressiveness, passiveness, are all factors in how well a person boxes, should they be completely ignored for a strict tally of punches landed? Even if you are just tallying punches, how do you identify which punches count and which don’t, if you don’t use a judge?
Boxing really screwed the pooch when they (as though there’s a singular they to speak of) allowed the ridiculous proliferation of weight classes and belts, to dilute the concept of champion. They needed a UFC type organization to take charge, get them back down to 8 weight classes and 1 champion per class. Boxing is all about personalities and you can’t have that without an undisupted champ that everyone knows.