WBC Talks Round 55- Fight Scoring

Panel:

Matt Podgorski

Duane Ford

Mauricio Sulaiman

Victor Silva

Last night with the much heralded and greatly welcomed return of Boxing, live to Las Vegas,  The World Boxing Council used the opportunity to launch via an evaluation panel of five judges who saw the fight from a live and crystal clear feed,  scoring  it round by round,  from their homes.

It`s the culmination of two years of work building a data base and a system of evaluation, leading to live evaluation.  Options for this system can be to back up the three judges ringside, or for training purposes.  Judging online involves the sound being switched down, especially to remove the commentary, which can have an influencing effect. As well as the numerical scoring, if the round is a 10-9, then the judge also marks it as: Close, moderate, decisive or extremely decisive.

Duane, who`s a WBC Governor, President of the North American Boxing Federation and a very experienced judge, was one of the home base scoring team. He said: “My feed was crystal clear and it was very successful. I think it`s a tremendous step. The greatest thing on this was feedback. We now need to do deep training.  Last night reflects that.”

Duane says he didn`t initially warm to the idea, but now thinks: “It`s an opportunity to become better. This can help our existing judges ringside to become better.”  But nothing is seamlessly perfect. Duane mentioned one instance when the ringside judging differed from the judges viewing the live feed version, used in a training exercises assessing one of the Ward Vs Kovalev fights.

The perception… you see what you see, is a crucially important factor be it from the three judging areas around the ring, or on a live feed.  The panel was shown photo of  a lioness with her cub. From one angle it looked as if she had the cub`s head in her mouth and was poised to decapitate it. But from the other angle it was clear that she was gently holding her baby by the scruff of the neck, in the most loving manner used by the mother of the king of the jungle/lion king.

Matt points out that the Judges who are viewing minus any collaboration, have the best view, but the camera depending on the production team, has the best perspective.  Still retaining several doubts Duane says: “I think we have to be available to change and to have a positive attitude to deal with it.  What we saw last night is functional and workable.” Duane thinks that the three ringside judges still have the best view but also commenting: “We need to train our officials on basis and hold them accountable on the remote.”

Matt suggests: “We need to keep an open mind. Let`s just see what goes.  We all have the same goal and I think it`s going to be great. We`ve introduced new concepts to see if they work practically. And now we`re into the part of the fine tuning. We`ve come a long way.”

Victor says judges must see the same thing and the aim is to have judges doing what they do best…with the same story.

Scoring a professional boxing match is an art and a science.  To achieve this accurately, fairly  and independently is the avowed aim.

Judge for yourself by going to this link, to view the discussion in its entirety.