By Paul McCreath: On Saturday January 26, in Germany two fine young heavyweights, the American Eddie Chambers, and the German based Russian Alexander Povetkin will meet in an International Boxing Federation final eliminator with the winner to meet Wladimir Klitschko for the title. Already the anti-German comments have started. You hear statements like “Chambers will have to knock him out to get a win in Germany” or “the corrupt German judges will cheat Chambers out of the decision. “It happens every time a foreign fighter meets a German based one in a big fight in any German city.” Is there really any sound basis for this kind of suggestion? Let us try to take a fair and honest look at this situation.
First of all, we should all admit something that ought to be obvious to everyone. Judging a boxing match is not easy. There is no clear scientific way to get it right. It comes down to a matter of opinion. Just look at the judges’ cards from any fights anywhere in the world. How often are the scores the same? The answer, of course, is very seldom. There is usually a difference of at least a couple of points in the cards. When in one of those rare cases that the scores are the same, a closer look will show in most cases that while the officials agreed on the totals they did not agree on all the individual rounds. That is because in most fights there are always two or three rounds at least that are so close that they could reasonably be scored either way.This is why I feel that we should score more even rounds because it is these very close rounds that cause most of the scoring problems, but that is an argument for another day. It should be clear though that in many fights a swing of a couple of rounds in the scoring of these close rounds could easily make a difference in who wins the fight. Therefore, we should also accept the premise that if a judge scores a fight within a couple of points of the most popular interpretation of the fight, then he has probably not done a bad job. His score is within the limits of reason.
Another thing we must accept is that we are all biased.Now I know that most of us try not to be and we sure don’t like to admit we are but the fact is we are at least to some extent and not just about boxing. Why do some men prefer blonds and others redheads or brunettes? It is because of a bias one way or the other. In boxing there are many reasons for bias. It might be nationality, race (I hope not), the fighter’s personality,his style,or any number of other things but we all have favorite fighters don’t we?Whether we try to avoid it or not bias can effect the way we score a fight. We should keep in mind that just because the judges don’t agree with us they are not necessarily wrong. Maybe it is our own bias that has made us see the fight in another way. There is also a certain amount of bias towards the house fighter no matter where you go in the world. If it is close the house fighter usually wins, not just in Germany.
There are other things that can effect the way we see a fight. If we are watching on TV, the announcers can influence us by what they say. If we are at the fight the crowd noise is a factor because they always back the house fighter. Different fighting styles are more popular in one area than they are in another. In other words, there are many things that can effect the judgment of the officials in boxing. None of these things have anything to do with dishonesty, corruption,or even necessarily bad judgment.
There is another factor at play here. In Germany there are a lot of international fights where the house fighter has a foreign fighter in the other corner.In fact there are probably more international fights in Germany than any other country. When one of these fights results in a disputed decision in favor of the German based fighter we immediately get an uproar.” It is those crooked German judges again!” But in USA this doesn’t happen. Because the country is so big and there is a large talent pool of fighters, the promoters usually just bring in another American from elsewhere in the country to meet the house fighter. If the decision is disputed in this case you never hear about “those crooked American judges” because both fighters are American. In the past few months a Canadian based fighter, Herman Ngoudjo, twice came to the USA to meet American based fighters in important matches. He lost disputed decisions both times to Jose Luis Castillo and Paulie Malignaggi. Did you hear anyone saying it was those crooked American judges? Of course not. It never became a Canada vs. US thing. It was just two decisions a lot of people didn’t like. Now can you imagine what would have happened if Herman had gone to Germany and lost two close fights to German based fighters. The world would have been in an outrage about those crooked German judges. As you can see, we are not playing on a level playing field here.
Recently we had a big fight in Germany where American Steve Cunningham went over to defend his International Boxing Federation title against the German Marco Huck. Before the fight we heard all the usual stuff about Cunningham needing a KO to win because of the German officials. Now let us look at what really happened. First of all, the judges were not German and were not chosen by the promoter. They never are in a title fight. The IBF appointed the judges, a Canadian, a South African and a Mexican. Those nationalities sound pretty neutral to me. The referee was also Canadian and frankly I was not impressed with his work. Now Cunningham saved the officials the trouble of declaring a winner by stopping Huck in the 12th round but we do know how they scored the fight. Most ringside observers agreed that Cunningham was ahead by about three points. I had it 107-104 myself so that is pretty close. The South African had it 106-103, dead on according to most. The Canadian was a bit wide at 108-101, but still within the limits of reason. The Mexican got it wrong according to most people at 105-104 for Huck. But how wrong was he? That is only two rounds different than what we mostly agree was the correct scoring and still close enough to the norm to be called reasonable in a fight with several close rounds. Once it became known about the scoring of the Mexican the furor arose as always. Those crooked German judges had almost done it again! Well how does one slightly inaccurate Mexican judge make all German judges corrupt? We have a problem with bias here but you will find more among the fans than you will among the judges.
In closing, I would say that if for instance an American goes to Germany and is involved in a close fight the German will likely win. That is not corruption, it is just the normal house fighter’s edge that you will find anywhere in the world. That is not to say that there have not been some terrible German decisions but all in all I think they have been unfairly given a bad name. In most cases the controversy is caused by an honest difference of opinion or in some cases by fans who simply don’t like to see their favorite fighter lose. I think it is time we stopped bashing the Germans. If they do screw up then by all means let us tell the world but let’s wait until they do screw up and not make it sound like they do it all the time.