Lead Jab: What Would A Scoreboard Do For Boxing & MMA?

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Posted by Mika Frankl

You know how at Baseball, Basketball, and Football games you can see the score and when the game ends everyone knows who won. Why not take that idea to combat sports like Boxing and MMA. At Boxing and MMA events three judges score each round and hand the paper to a collector who takes it to the scoring table. The scores are already there once written, and they are what they are so what is the purpose of being secretive?

When you watch a televised boxing match there’s always an analyst scoring the fight and a graphic on TV that show how the analyst is scoring the fight so we have the format for what the scoreboard would need to look like.

At the end of a bout we find out how the judges scored the fight anyway. Let’s make it clear to everyone what is going on while it’s going on especially in the case of a close battle. I think of this because there’s nothing worse than a close battle and after the fight saying what was that judge watching. Like at UFC 154 when Tom Lawlor faced Francis Carmont and the judges scored the take downs for Carmont instead of recognizing that Lawlor had Carmont in a submission. With a scoreboard Lawlor would have known this or his corner and he could have not ended the next round in the same position where, in Lawlor’s mind, he was attempting to end the fight but to the judges Lawlor was losing it. This would go for the audience to learn, for the corners to adjust a strategy in the best way possible. In a close fight if a corner knows there fighter is behind 2 rounds to none, instead of possibly thinking that a bout is 1 round a piece the difference in that mindset of knowing could changes a lot of fights.

I know that there could be some possible negative to this strategy like in boxing when guy figured out point fighting over brawling and looking for knock outs, but the thing is people already point fight and fighters that think they are ahead on scorecards go into cruise-control already. The difference is now he would know he’s winning. As a culture we love to see stoppages and I know that with a scoreboard the great Dana White favorite quote of “don’t let it go to the judges” would not hold the same weight. Would guys try less if they knew how the judges were scoring it? If you were down and you knew it would that not make you try harder?

Do you think Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley might have ended differently if Pacquiao knew he was losing when he thought he was winning?

Nothing is perfect and I’m just looking for a way to expand the sports we all love and make them all they can be. Maybe this would help maybe this is the worst idea ever but let me know what you think.

Follow Mika Frankl on twitter @cagedmindsmma