13.12.06 – By Paul McCreath: I watched the recent Winky Wright-Ike Quartey fight on TV. It was a good fight and I had no quarrel with the decision. Winky won easily.I did have a problem with something that happened in the second round. Ike was having one of his few good rounds when near the end HBO commentator Larry Merchant suggested that he was winning the round. Shortly after, Winky knocked Quartey down.Merchant then advised that a 10-9 round for Quartey had just changed to 10-8 for Winky.
Now I’m not going to trash Merchant for that comment because it does reflect common thinking in the boxing world that a knockdown automatically means a 10-8 round. Manny Steward agreed with him and it was later revealed that both Merchant and Harold Lederman who were unofficially scoring the fight gave Wright the round by 10-8. I’m not sure how the official judges called it. I do know that at least one sanctioning body trains their judges to always score 10-8 if there is a knockdown. I feel that this is wrong and makes no sense whatsoever because it totally ignores what has happened earlier in the round.
Let us consider this more closely.Suppose you were scoring this fight and up to the point of the knockdown you felt that Winky was winning the round. Since Winky put him down you would then score it 10-8 instead of 10-9. That is fine.In other words the knockdown was worth one point.
But what if you thought it was an even round before Ike went down? Now it is a 10-10 round becoming 10-8 and then suddenly the knockdown is worth two points. How can that be?It is the same punch that put him down.
Now in this fight Merchant thought Ike was winning the round, so if 10-9 for Ike becomes 10-8 for Winky, the knockdown is worth three points, just like Merchant said. How does this make any sense?
Obviously the same knockdown should always be worth the same value, in most cases one point. The judges should be given the discretion in those rare cases where a fighter goes down from a glancing blow while off balance and he is not hurt at all, to basically ignore the tumble. If a fighter is winning the round and drops his opponent then it is 10-8. If the round was even otherwise it becomes 10-9, and if he was losing the round before connecting with the big one then it is even at 10-10.
I believe that the powers that be in boxing need to take a serious look at this issue and a lot of media people need a bit of re-educating. I would welcome the comments of ESB readers on this subject.