Shane v Oscar. So what's the score?

By James McDonnell

22.09 - One Saturday night, a strange thing happened. I sat up all night to watch the rematch between Shane Mosley and Oscar DelaHoya, a fight I had long and hotly anticipated, managing to nod off and miss most of the Lazcano and Cotto fights, and awoke in a haze, to witness the last thrilling round of the Mosley v DeLaHoya superfight.

I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard the word 'new,' I got a bad feeling, and this was compounded when I heard the words 'welterweight champion of the world' it confirmed my worst fears, I was watching their first fight, kindly re-run to confuse half-awake fans watching from the UK.

However, this hazy vision turned out to be prophetic, as a mere hour or so later, I would witness Mosley's arms again raised in victory. Had the judges fallen asleep at ringside? Did they do like I did and confuse the re-run of their first fight for the second, what the hell was going on?

I was outraged, by decided to retire on my ire for a while, and see whether there would be a groundswell of popular opinion, I was very confident that I would awake to a world filled with outraged fans, writers and pundits.

Like Donald Sutherland in invasion of the body snatchers, I awoke to find that I was the stranger in a strange world, and that it seemed that the vast majority of writers seemed if not always to support a Mosley victory, then to at least understand it, to excuse it if you like. Sure, it was a bad decision some said, but what the hell, there have been worse.

As I spent the next two days reading through the reports in the web based boxing magazines, more and more often I came across prominent people who thought the decision was either no big deal, or in fact thought Mosley had won by a country mile. When confronted with this, it is a strong man who doesn't begin to doubt the validity of his own opinion or the veracity of what their eyes saw.

Most of the writers who supported a Mosley victory were well respected within boxing circles, some of them even had lifetime achievement awards, boxing writers guild of America awards, or boxing hall of Fame awards, who was I to argue? But, I could not forget what I had seen with me own eyes.

Over the first half of the fight had I not witnessed Oscar dominating the strategy of the fight by flummoxing Mosley with movement and his jab, and reducing him to single shots, keeping him to landing in single figures over the first 6 rounds? I thought I saw DeLaHoya sweep the first 5 rounds, though you could have argued for an even round, but apparently not.

Mosley by contrast had looked slower, his work rate was far less than it had been in the first fight, and he looked predictable and far more hittable than he had ever done before.

To me, the suspicions I had had prior to the fight, that Mosley was not quite the terror he had once been, appeared confirmed.

He looked like a fish out of water for most of the first 7 rounds, as he struggled to make any impact on the fight, and he simply hadn't thrown or landed enough shots in enough rounds to win the fight. Shane's gameplan whatever it was, appeared to go out of the window as soon as he realised that Oscar could time him and beat him the punch with ease, and that in fact it was Oscar who had the edge in hand speed this time around, not Shane. With his tactical plan gone, Shane was forced to hunt to the head and the body with big single shots.

Instinct told me Oscar had outlanded Shane by as much as 2-1 throughout the bout. When I checked the compubox stats (more about those later) I found that they bore this out. Shane landed a meagre 44 punches over the first 5 rounds, compared to 98 for DeLaHoya, indeed more than double. In fact despite the fact that many people are claiming most of those were jabs, 39 of those were in fact power shots, almost as much as the total number of shots shane landed over all of those rounds, and yet on 2 of the 3 scorecards Mosley got 2 rounds, and 1 on another, this in the part of the fight that Oscar seemed to dominate unequivocally.

Oscar also did very well on the punchstats over the next 3 rounds, and yet on the cards, going into the 9th, the start of Mosley's late rally, Oscar was only 1 round up on all 3 cards! Despite by this point having outlanded Mosley on power punches and jabs in every single round.

It's as if the judges simply disregarded the total of 147 punches landed by DLH, and favoured the 72 that Mosley landed. Compubox might not be everything, but something here simply doesn't add up, unless the shots that DeLaHoya threw weren't even hard enough to be counted as scoring shots, which blatantly isn't the case. Were all of Shane's 72, twice as hard, twice as effective, it didn't appear so.

I decided that I would reserve judgement until after I saw the fight again, perhaps that would clear up my blurred vision, maybe then I would see why Oscar's shots didn't count. I did, and essentially my opinion remained unchanged. Being as generous as I could to Mosley, the closest I could have scored it would have been 116-114, and that was giving rounds where there was any doubt to Shane and only giving Oscar those which he totally and utterly dominated.

So what happened, do I know jack about boxing, was the fight so intricate in it's delicacies and nuances?

Now I know that opinions differ on boxing matches, but this seemed at the time one of the most clear cut cases of someone outboxing his opponent I had seen in a title fight for some time. There were many rounds that had to be given to DLH, simply because Mosley did little or nothing except hover in front of DLH throwing feints.

So what happened, how could I get it so wrong, if wrong I was?

Judges are supposed to be able to be objective and apply the same criteria such as they are, to every fight and fighter. What are these criteria that they are applying that are mysterious to the extent that so many people, even people like myself who are avid students of the fight game, can't pick the winner in a fight that seemed so straightforward?

As far as I can ascertain, the only real public guidelines I can find, and which are pretty vague to boot are these rough guidelines that get mentioned often by judges in articles I read, and which are mentioned as being the aspects that professional judges are trained in.

Clean punching and effective aggression, ring Generalship, and Defence.

However, these aren't really officially prioritised in any way, although from the understanding I've gained from reading articles from people involved in judging, the volume and quality of punching should come first, and provided shots are thrown cleanly and with reasonable force, the overall volume should carry the most bias.

Effective aggression is the other major key to the scoring of most bouts, it means you get props for coming forward and for throwing shots, but only if you are landing, and only if your aggression helps to dictate the course of the fight. Wading in with your arms flailing like a threshing machine and getting pot-shotted with the jab doesn't get you points.

Ring Generalship is of course the hardest to define, it alludes to tactical astuteness and overall savvy, imposing your will on the fight, and making your opponent fight to your strengths rather than their own.

It's testament to how subjective this aspect can be, that whilst I thought that Oscar dominated the first 5 rounds, by fighting off of the back foot, others (strangely) said Mosley had forced him onto the back foot. In any case it's impossible really to prove either way, as you would need to be a mind reader. I would say though that DeLaHoya fought off the back foot right from the word go.

These criteria being the case, I cannot see any case for how Mosley wins out in the majority of rounds, His defence was leaky, he landed less clean punches, and he was rarely effective trying to close the gap until he 9th when he had some success. Without a doubt to my mind Oscar dictated the pace and the tactics of the fight for the first 8 rounds. Mosley rallied, but it was too little too late.

If this vague and undefined set of rules for scoring is all we have, then we need to do something to tighten it up in order to clarify it. Not just for the sake of the fans, but also the fighters themselves, after all, if you are going to enter a sport, wouldn't you want to know how you score points?

I've also heard some explanations to the decision over the course of the last week, which do not to my mind explain it away. Any of these sound familiar to anyone?

'Oscar looked like he got beat up to me, he was cut..'

The cut was from a headbutt, and even if it weren't. judges are not supposed to award points for cutting your opponent, nor are rounds awarded retrospectively based on the appearance of the two fighters at the end, this isn't a beauty pageant.

'Compubox isn't accurate, it isn't a fair indication of who won the fight...'

The Compubox stats have been quoted by just about everyone who disagreed with the decision, and by Oscar himself.

Now nobody is saying that the people at Compubox are judging the fight, or even suggests that they should, there are some parts of the action, which cannot be described by pure numbers. I have found though personally, that Compubox is an excellent tool for predicting fights, and that the numbers presented mostly bear correlation to the results.

I did an interesting exercise and looked at the punchstats for the first Mosley v DelaHoya fight, basing it on nothing but the number of punches landed, the crudest reading of the data. If you assign points on a round scoring basis, based on who landed more each round in that first fight, giving 10-10's where the number landed is very close, guess what the score comes out at; that's right 115-113 for Mosley. So it wasn't a bad indicator there, in a fight which was very evenly matched and was balanced on the outcome of the last round, it somehow correlated with the decision. Now I know there are many other intricacies to a boxing match, but none of these intricacies were present in the fight we are discussing here.

In fact, A bit of analysis (which I hope to do with the aid of the people at Compubox) I am sure would confirm that in the majority of fights where there was a clear winner, and there was no controversy the compubox statistics would bear this out. For instance Pernell Whittaker just about outlanded DLh
over the course of their fight, but DLH landed close to his amount of shots, and landed plenty of power shots in there too, the decision which could have gone either way in most people's opinions, is borne out by the closeness of the punch stats in that fight.

'Well, the judges in Vegas score that way, they like the aggressive guy who comes forward throwing shots.'

Oh, they do do they? Well isn't that something we would like to change about boxing, I mean regional variation in scoring, is that really a good idea? Isn't that just another example of one of the aspects of the sport that turns the public off. The average sports fan knows that a goal is a goal a
touchdown is a touchdown, and an ace is an ace, but aren't qualified to know who won a boxing match unless they take into account the venue? Great. Regional variation in scoring is yet another evil to be eradicated from the sport, in all it's forms

'The people at home thought that DLH won the fight, who cares. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. '

Sure, okay, so everyone was wrong, and only a few select people are able to judge the magical mysteries of a boxing match.

This is one of the things I hate about boxing, it's one of the only sports I can think of where someone with passing knowledge or indeed even a major boxing fan like myself, and a writer to boot, is unable to pick a winner even after watching the fight closely from beginning to end.

Is boxing scoring really that arcane, that mysterious that even myself, actively seeking all the time to enhance my knowledge of the sport, was that much out of kilter with what I thought transpired that night. If it is that mysterious, then something needs to be changed. Try finding an official rules of scoring which is adhered to by the judges and you'll have a hard time, you're a better man that me if you do.

I'm not saying there is always safety in numbers, but can the 70-75% of people who have been polled on numerous boxing sites really all be wrong? Did they all see phantom punches from beginning to end?

Boxing isn't figure skating, or high diving, surely the average joe should be able to tell whether a punch landed, I fail to believe it's really all that hard, In fact, the average joe is usually pretty much on the mark, after all, there was a loud outcry amongst lots of casual fans who watched Lewis v Holyfield 1.

'It was a close fight, and a lot of the rounds were close, if you watched closely, Mosley just edged a lot of them.'

First of all. I didn't see it as even being close. There were a number of arguably close rounds in my book, all of which DelaHoya easily outlanded Mosley in, but Mosley's work consisted of what appeared to be harder shots. However, I swung them towards Oscar because he was keeping Shane on the outside and limiting the number of punches he could land, and because in general he was outworking him and imposing his will on the fight. However, were I not going to give them to DeLaHoya I would have made them even.

Many of these rounds could have been ascribed 10-10 rounds, but weren't, instead it appears that wherever there was a plausible case for the them not being DeLaHoya's round, they were given to Mosley, rather than being given even.

This is an example that lends credence to the changes which to scoring, that have been suggested by Max Kellerman, Bob Arum, and Boxing News editor Claude Abraham's, and long standing world class referee Mickey Vann in recent times to institute a wider range of scoring in rounds.

In the case of this fight, under these criteria, there were definitely a few rounds which could have been 10-8's for Oscar, and one which might have been scored for Mosley, namely the 9th. In fact at present, a judge is actually allowed to award a 10-8 with no knockdowns, but because it isn't the accepted norm it simply doesn't happen. This method of scoring would allow a judge to award a 10-10 round with less fear of being out of step.

If we saw that happen, if instituted correctly, then we could get scores that are a better reflection of what actually transpired in the course of the fight.

This would definitely be a double edged sword however, as it would allow for more range in judges scoring, and therefore more disparity between cards, which could cause problems of it's own , as it makes judging even more subjective. It would though prevent fighters just nicking rounds by running and sticking out jabs with nothing on them, and enable a guy playing catch-up to do enough in the later rounds to win without having to drop or stop his opponent.

As interesting point of debate, but back to the criteria present for that evenings edifying spectacle. The fact is that no rounds were awarded 10-8, and it was the fact that Mosley was given several early rounds on various cards, and also the fact that he was given all 5 of the last rounds on two
cards that really gave him the fight. In fact, if you look at the punch stats, amazingly, Oscar landed in single figures in 5 of 12 rounds. Interesting eh?

'The view from the ring is far more revealing, people at home watching it on TV don't get the full view.'

Well, I've covered fights from ringside and I've covered then watching them on the box, and whilst yes, there are differences in what you notice, there is also a lot you miss from ringside. From ringside you can hear the shots much more clearly, and see the fighters reactions to shots that land due to close proximity.

However, you only have a view from a single side of the ring, people get in your way in the press section, you're below the level of the ring, and furthermore the referee and the ropes both obscure vital action at times.

Don't let anyone tell you that the press section is the best view in the house, because it ain't necessarily so. In an ideal world, the judges would watch the fight first live, and then on VT after to review their cards, and announce the changes to an official, It's never going to happen, and it would be a nightmare to implement anyhow, but it's the only way to ensure all the action is seen in it's entirety. As it stands, both methods of viewing a fight are flawed.

'The commentary team was misleading: People were bamboozled into thinking DeLaHoya won by their nut hugging. '

I didn't get the US commentary but The UK commentary team, who also picked DeLaHoya by a landslide, were they on the payroll too, all four of them? Two former world champions, in Jim Watt and Barry McGuigan, Glenn McCrory another former fighter and experienced commentator, and Ian Darke, an experienced fight reporter, did they all get influenced by HBO's team as well?

In addition the well respected editor of Boxing News, Claude Abrahams, and Bob Mee (who covered the fight at ringside) a senior correspondent for the esteemed magazine for the same magazine both saw the fight overwhelmingly for Oscar by scores of 117-112 and 116-113 respectively, is anyone telling me that these men don't know their onions?

It's odd that there seems to be a very large split between UK and USA press, but not the same split between UK and USA fans. It feels as if there is a paradigm shift in just what is being scored amongst the media in American, turning boxing into something more akin to UFC or toughman competitions, where outright aggression is rewarded over ring craft.

Perhaps some of the people were influenced. I agree that commentary can be misleading, but it depends how suggestible you are. Out of Maxboxing's 8000+ poll, 73% (at last count) thought DLH won. You would presume that people who come to a boxing site to vote in a poll as to who won a major fight, are not the most casual boxing fans, and so must know at least something about what they are watching as a group.

To insist that what people saw was in fact a product of hoodwinking from the broadcast team is a little bit insulting to say the least, I mean you can fool some of the people and all that.

'Hey, but Oscars Shots weren't as hard as Shane's shots!'

Maybe they weren't, at least Shane's hardest shots (the few he landed) did seem harder than Oscars, but just how many punches does 1 hard shot account for?

In addition, how do you quantify how hard a punch is? There are a lot of shots that look pretty spectacular, but have no effect, and other times a jab will wobble a fighter. This is one of the most subjective areas in judging, and as far as I am aware, is only meant to be taken into consideration where the two fighters land roughly equal numbers of punches, something that certainly didn't happen in this fight.

The problem is there are no obvious guidelines for this, certainly not available in the public domain, and therefore, like many aspects of judging, it remains far too open to interpretation and abuse.

'Oscar is just a sore loser, he should remember the gift decision he got against Ike Quartey and Pernell Whittaker, before he complains about this, he didn't want an investigation then.'

What goes around comes around comes around is the reasoning here - but like my mum always said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Are we to suggest that from now on anyone who has been on the beneficial end of a dodgy decision, deserves to get shafted further down the line, are judges performing a balancing act, trying to remember how many dodgy decisions were given for or against someone? As far as I am aware, this isn't one of the guidelines used when referees are trained, at least I hope not.

I can perfectly understand why Oscar is so perplexed, after all, in his first fight with Mosley, which was a far more competitive and exciting matchup, he lost the fight after allowing himself to be drawn into a brawl with his stronger, harder punching foe. After taking an early lead, he allowed it to be taken from him in the very last round, when he simply got outworked and outpunched by Mosley, who came on strong as DeLaHoya's stamina faded and Mosley's bodywork took it's toll.

So what will be the outcome of this? I for one, despite the perceived damage some think it will do the sport, hope Oscar and Arum, if he chooses, does get some investigation into the frankly confusing world of judging fights.

I think if any good can come out of what I still see as a flagrant robbery, one I find very hard to explain away, perhaps it is the clarification of how and why judges are appointed, and what criteria they use to score a fight, because it is something that has to be cleared up.

It can do the sport no good when such a huge number of people see what they think is one fighter winning by a large margin, and don't understand why it is they are wrong. It has to be explained just how the sport is scoring its own fights

The appointment and decisions of judges needs to be transparent and accountable, otherwise the kind of negative feeling that the big fight we have just witnessed has generated, is likely to stay with us forever, cropping up again and again like a stagnant fart. Nobody says it will be easy to find a method of scoring bouts that is apparent to most people who watch the sport, but surely it's worth the effort?

Suggesting open scoring, where the scores are presented on a scoreboard which can be seen by the crowd is usually met with scorn by the purists; but how many other major sports can you name where nobody knows what the score is until the end? I'm sure many greeted the introduction of boxing gloves to the sport with hoots of derision in its day.

The argument is that a fighter who knew he had an unassailable lead would simply close the bout out by running, but remember, a referee can deduct points from a fighter who is being unduly negative, even disqualify them and have always had this ruling within their jurisdiction. In addition it would at least give their opponent the knowledge that they were behind, and I think it would actually make for some exciting conclusions to fights, with one fighter hell bent on knocking his opponent down or stopping him in a last ditch effort to turn the tide.

Fighters have been miles ahead during a fight before in any case, and tried to run the last few rounds and got stopped doing so. So how will knowing the score change that?

I don't see how the pro's are outweighed by the con's in this instance. I think it would be better all around if people knew the score if not after every round, then at least after every 4 in a world title fight. In order to preserve the mystery of the scorecards for the big announcement at the end, which I think is something which most of us would miss and have a real sense of nostalgia for. At least this way a fighter would go into the last 3rd of the fight at worst, knowing that he needed to win the last 4, or needed a knockout, basically that the fighter was in control of their own destiny.

Surely there's nothing worse than the situation the other night, where Oscar clearly believed he had done enough to win comfortably, and so fought to maintain his lead in the last few rounds and lost the fight. I bet he'd loved to have known he needed some big rounds in the last third.

In addition, I think it's time we looked into a scoring method which allows judges to review their intitial decisions. The judges could watch the fight in closed room, with specially rigged unidirectional microphones which pick up on the sound of punches, but not the crowd, which is not I think beyond modern science to achieve. After

In addition, how about allowing the judges to review the fight from more than just the angle they normally get at ringside. I can say from experience, that often I have had to ask someone sitting a few seats to my right which punch put a fighter down, as I was unsighted by the referee, or the ropes, or the fact that they were in the far corner of the ring. What about

What about modifying the scoring system so that we use more of the points in the 10 point must system as I mentioned earlier, wouldn't this allow for more differentiation of close rounds? I'm not sure how easy any of this would be to implement, or whether it would cause as many problems and controversies as it solves, but shouldn't we at least put a structure in place, a national or even ideally an international commission which oversees boxing, but is not involved in the business side of the sport, which can at least consider them?

All of these changes should at least be considered, not because Oscar is the one losing out on this occasion, but because this is a good opportunity to make changes, which have been needed for a very long time.

People are opposed to an investigation or any changes for a number of reasons; many see it as poor sportsmanship and a crybaby attitude from DLH, bad form in other words. Others because they fear it will unearth something unpalatable which will further besmirch the soiled and sullied reputation of boxing further. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. The set-up of boxing is so labyrinthine and the corridors of power so circuitous that it takes major changes to find the heart of the problems.

An investigation into scoring procedures seems perfectly reasonable. Why shouldn't the appointment, training, scoring methods and anything else about judging not be in the public domain, I for one would be only too happy to be fully enlightened to as to how one of the most mysterious aspects of the fight game is managed. It's an intricate business that seems more like ancient alchemy than the mechanics of a sport at times.

If this investigation and it does un earth something unsavoury, then although it might cause damage in the short term, but in the long term it's precisely these sort of radical changes that need to be made in order to leave the sport above suspicion. Whatever the cause for the disparate opinions on who won in Mosley v DLH, we're only going to agree, if ever, if we are all clear as to what the rules of engagement are.

Still, that's just my opinion, and like assholes, we've all got one.