My introduction to boxing was quite a traditional one.
Somewhere in my adolescence I gained an appreciation for the sweet science. For a kid who was too young for the pub, this meant striking bargains with my parents and extra chores to book an expensive pay-per-view event once every month or so; fights featuring the likes of Roy Jones Jr, Oscar De La Hoya, Evander Holyfield, Bernard Hopkins, Lennox Lewis, Marco Antonio Barrera and of course, Kostya Tszyu.
My Sunday afternoon fight experience was often a solitary affair. I might have had a mate or two around on occasion, but there would be no jugs of lager, schnitzel lunches or hearty pub banter for a few more years. Just a fascinated, bordering-on-nerdy, adolescent with a stacked afternoon of fights and a pen and paper for scoring.
Comparing my scorecard to that of the official judges, or the unofficial ringside scorecard, added another element of interest to a sport I already loved. Fairly quickly, I learned what constituted a winning round, and quite often found my scorecard aligning with those of the fight officials.
(Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
That’s the thing about boxing. The scoring is ultimately subjective, but the criteria is simple.
The fighter who wins a round is awarded ten points, their opponent nine. If a knockdown occurs, it becomes a 10-8 round. Two knockdowns, a 10-7. A 10-6 is basically unheard of, as in most cases the fight would have been stopped, even in the absence of a three knockdown rule.
But this is just a guide. In the case of a “flash knockdown”, when a fighter is off-balance, or otherwise not clearly hurt and knocked down due to a punch – a judge can still score the round 10-9 for the winning fighter. Likewise, if a fighter inflicts heavy damage without scoring a knockdown, they can still win the round 10-8.
Even rounds (10-10) are discouraged; close rounds are often the most difficult to score.
That about sums up the nuances of the scoring in boxing. It seems straight forward, but the amount of wiggle room around the guidelines of the scoring system has still fostered a myriad of contentious decisions over the years.
And then there’s MMA.
MMA uses the same 10-point system of scoring that boxing does. But that’s where any similarities end.
I will preface the remainder of this piece by declaring my bias. I really, really wanted Alexander Volkanovski to win last weekend. I have a vested interest in putting whatever positive spin I can on his performance against Islam Makhachev.
Two of the three judges scored the fight 48-47 for Makhachev. The third scored it 49-46.
Having three officials scoring it in favour of Makhachev indicates that the term “robbery” doesn’t apply and most people – Volkanovski included – were quick to pay his opponent respect. But the decision has been met with much scrutiny online.
Numerous notable and highly knowledgeable MMA personalities have expressed their displeasure with the decision. Many others have made concise and reasonable arguments as to why Makhachev deserved to win.
There were numerous subjects to discuss after the title fight, but I’ll turn my focus to round four.
This is not one of the “rounds in question”; all three official judges scored it in Makhachev’s favour, and even the Aussie himself only cited rounds two, three and five when stating his case for the win. We can safely say this round belonged to the Russian.
(Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
But it contains a particular scenario that raises a compelling question about the scoring criteria in MMA.
The action beginning the round was tentative. After a strong round three, Makhachev seemed loath to stand in the pocket and trade with Volkanovski, and after some cautious stand-up exchanges, he caught his man with a perfectly-timed double leg and sat him on his backside. With three-and-a-half minutes to work, this could have spelled trouble for Volkanovski.
But the fight moved to the fence where Makhachev caught his man in a body triangle and simply ran down the clock.
Compared to round one – where Makhachev poured on the pressure – this grappling seemed much less goal-oriented. Despite his dominant position, Makhachev never attempted a submission. He seemed totally satisfied to simply neutralise, even as his opponent electrified the crowd by barking in his ear and repeatedly popping him in the face.
As boring as it may have been, it was an undeniably dominant position for Makhachev, and one he obtained through skilful wrestling. But in hindsight, this cumbersome, ineffectual three minutes was arguably what gave Makhachev the win.
Regardless of who you were going for on the day, this is not how anyone wants to see a pound-for-pound super-fight settled.
Among the knowledgeable pundits who initially gave the decision to Volkanovski were Henry Cejudo (Fight Feedback) and Kenny “Kenflo” Florian (AnikFlorian Podcasts) – former fighters and professional analysts both. On their respective platforms, they each acknowledged underdog bias among the reasons they might have originally scored the fight for Volkanovski.
But when you look at the raw numbers, it could be a little more than bias.
At the end of the fight, all the striking statistics favoured Volkanovksi.
Total strikes went his way by a whopping margin of 164-95. The advantage was slimmer in significant strikes, but still clear at 70-57. And when Volkanovski scored the only knockdown of the fight, he capitalised by posturing up in Makhachev’s guard, delivering some ground-and-pound bombs.
This work was offset by Makhachev’s wrestling. He went four-for-nine in takedowns, and twice he maintained dominant floor position over Volkanovski. In the first round he poured pressure on and made Volkanovski work to avoid being caught in a submission. In the fourth round he simply clung on and ran down the clock while getting whacked in the face. While he absolutely dominated control time (7:37 to 2:55), typical hallmarks of grappling dominance, such as ground-and-pound and submission attempts, were completely absent.
From a scoring standpoint, the first four rounds were close; nip-and-tuck. The fifth was the only round in which either man really showed up big… just not quite big enough to score it 10-8.
Those of us who have the luxury of viewing the fight in retrospect have every reason to believe that Volkanovski won. The judges watch the fight in five minute increments. They then have to assign a score to that five minutes, and once done, it cannot be changed.
Makhachev may have fought a smart, tactically sound fight, but he got beaten up in the process. And as much as some wanted Volkanovski to win, they have to acknowledge that there was sound reasoning behind at least two of the judges’ outcomes.
But given the ineffectual nature of Makhachev’s grappling and the productive nature of Volkanovski’s striking, one can’t help but wonder… is there a better way?
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