GUEST COLUMN
But there can be no question that Adalaide Byrd got it wrong
The reality of scoring a fight
BIG fights and controversy go to together, be it a disputed piece of handling by the referee or contentious scoring by a judge.
It is very easy for the spectator to find fault, he or she sits there cheering, messaging their pals to see if they can see them in the audience, or turning to the person next to them to ask what they thought of that punch while the opponent scores an even better one.
Then there is the media who sit in front of their screens commentating, from a vantage point that does not always afford the best of views of what is taking place. The commentators may not always be aware of the rules if a certain incident occurs, and on occasion they inform the viewers of the consequences which can be wide of the mark. But, because one of them is usually an ex-boxer, the viewer takes their word as gospel. Like the judges, everyone is prone to mistakes.
Then we have all these punch stats, which are broken down into total punches landed, thrown, jabs landed, thrown, power punches landed, thrown. These statistics often mean jack s**t, frankly.
The judge normally has a seat raised to give them the maximum peripheral vision. Concentration is key for a judge and it has to be retained while having the camera operators on both sides of you, at times obstructing your view while you also have to lean across on either side when the referee blocks your vision, unlike the television coverage, which just switches to another camera.
Judge Adalaide Byrd has come in for a lot of criticism over her scoring of the Canelo Alvarez-gennady Golovkin fight. I have watched the fight carefully, without any commentary, and the draw was a fair result but Byrd’s score was too wide.
Let’s break it down further. All three judges scored the same in rounds one, two (both Canelo), four (Golovkin), 10, 11, and 12 (all Canelo). Like Dave Moretti, she scored the seventh for Golovkin. Which leaves rounds three, five, six, eight and nine where Byrd was the odd one out and scored for Canelo (Moretti and Don Trella gave each of these to Golovkin).
Starting with round three, “GGG” won two-and-a-half minutes of the round, and Canelo only had a short spell of ascendancy scoring with one gold left uppercut. I thought round five was close enough to be debatable, yet Golovkin had just edged it. Rounds six and eight were by far Golovkin’s best rounds, and round nine close but still belonged to Gennady. So we can give Byrd the benefit of the doubt in rounds five and nine, but three, six and eight were unquestionably won by Golovkin and make Byrd’s card look even worse. What we should remember, though, is that we didn’t share Byrd’s view so it’s impossible to say what she could and couldn’t see. But if you switch those three rounds – too many rounds to be so out of sync with the rest of the judges, to be honest – her card would have read 114-114.
I take no pleasure in criticising Byrd’s scoring of the fight, but just hope it’s a lesson for everyone. People have a bad day at the office, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this was the case here. For people like Teddy Atlas to come out and say boxing is corrupt is a real pity for a man of his standing and experience. I have been associated with the sport since 1956 when I had my first amateur fight, and have only come across corruption once and it achieved nothing at all.
I TAKE NO PLEASURE FROM CRITICISING, I JUST HOPE IT’S A LESSON FOR EVERYONE