The "10-point must" scoring system, as every fan knows, instructs judges to award a 10-point round to the combatant who better satisfies these four criteria: Clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defense. These criteria should also be applied in the order above -- if we really need more than two of them.
HBO's unofficial scorekeeper, Harold Lederman, routinely reminds viewers that emphasis must be given to clean punching. He probably does this to keep folks from thinking each criterion is equal to the others. That is, all 10 points can, and probably should, always be awarded to the fighter who lands the higher number of clean punches.
Mr. Lederman's reminder is redundant. How else can a prizefighter legally render his opponent unconscious but with clean punches? Ringside judges know this, and if asked, would probably cite clean punching in eight of every 10 rounds they award a fighter. But what about the other 20 percent of rounds, in which a lack of clean punching forces judges to divine a general sense of who fought better?
Effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defense are needed to score such rounds. But these other criteria are at best subjective and at worst both subjective and contextual.
Of these other three, though, aggressiveness -- effective or otherwise -- is easiest to discern. It's not hard to see which man brings the fight to his opponent. One needn't be Angelo Dundee to note forward movement. Nor does one need knowledge of the combatants' stylistic histories to say who is trying harder to hit whom.
Ah, but there's effective aggressiveness, and then there's just plain aggressiveness. A prizefighter is effectively aggressive; a playground bully is just plain aggressive. Right? Not so fast.
Many fight aficionados like to draw a profound distinction between effective aggressiveness and ineffective aggressiveness. But in scorekeeping, the difference is not so profound. Who could be "effectively" aggressive without landing clean punches? Whenever experts say a fighter is showing effective aggressiveness, really, they're saying the fighter is landing clean punches. And we're already awarding points for that.
Which brings us to ring generalship, the most mysterious of scoring criteria. It favors the fighter who is employing a more successful strategy. But if the success of a fighter's strategy is not apparent in the punches he lands or the aggressiveness he shows, where else can it be found? Comfort, perhaps. Ring generalship, at some level, asks judges to determine which combatant is more comfortable with the fight's progress.
But to see how slippery ring generalship is, try awarding points for it without knowing the outcome of a fight. When Muhammad Ali goes to the ropes in Zaire and lets George Foreman pummel his body, who's showing better ring generalship? And would your answer be the same if Ali had lost?
Here's an odder example. Recently, Showtime replayed the WBO heavyweight title fight between Sergei Liakhovich and Shannon Briggs. In Round 3 of that barnburner, Liakhovich landed five punches. Briggs landed one. Neither guy deserved 10 points for clean punching. Neither guy was remotely aggressive. And with a total of 20 punches thrown in three minutes, neither guy had to employ much defense.
We now know Liakhovich had a broken rib and tendinitis. Briggs suffered two asthma attacks during the fight. By making Briggs take deep breaths, then, was Liakhovich the better ring general? Or did Briggs deserve the nod for causing an injured fighter to keep away from him? Finally, there's defense -- the last bastion of amateur scorekeeping scoundrels. A number of boxing experts like to award points for defense. These experts, they tell us, see things like shoulder feints, torso turns and evasive footwork. Things that professional judges -- intoxicated with punches -- usually miss.
An old favorite of these experts was James Toney. In Toney's heavyweight title fight against Hasim Rahman, Toney won these experts' points by turning himself sideways and absorbing Rahman's blows on the kidneys -- punches that were not clean. In his first fight with Samuel Peter, Toney won points on press row by bending at the waist, facing the blue mat and taking shots to the back of the head -- also unclean.
Technically, Rahman and Peter's punches did not deserve points. But can anyone argue their effect on Toney? Unless a fighter is making his opponent miss entirely, scorekeepers should be sober in awarding points for defense.
Bernard Hopkins also impressed experts with his defense in two fantastically dull middleweight title fights against Jermain Taylor. Round after round, as absolutely nothing happened, a fair share of ringsiders gave points to Hopkins for feints, twitches, footwork and wiles.
According to this logic, though, shouldn't we go back and give Round 3 to Briggs? By waving his hands, heaving his shoulders and bulging his eyes, Briggs reduced Liakhovich's activity far more than Hopkins slowed Taylor.
That's the problem with ring generalship and defense as scoring criteria. They require judges to place rounds in the context of fighters' histories (Toney and Hopkins are great defensive fighters while Briggs is not) and also predict the likely effect of one strategy or another.
Which returns us to aggressiveness -- the only criterion that deserves to complement clean punching. Notice the absence of "effective" in that sentence? Any aggressiveness that causes an opponent to become offensively inactive deserves points.
No one proved this better in 2007 than Paul Williams did when he decisioned Antonio Margarito for the WBO welterweight title in July. By marching forward and punching, whether landing or not, Williams made Margarito block punches instead of throwing them. Williams' attack was a form of ring generalship and defense. Which is why Williams' ineffective aggressiveness beat Margarito's inactivity.
The first rule of boxing is to strike an opponent, the one thing for which points must be awarded. But after that, solely aggressiveness -- the ongoing attempt to strike an opponent -- should count. So why not remove "effective" from aggressiveness, and remove ring generalship and defense from scoring altogether?
