Ricky Hatton: Judges Should Be Ranked, Held Accountable (Video)

by Scott Christ on Dec 12, 2011 9:28 PM EST in Boxing Interviews & Quotes

Ricky Hatton did a Q&A session recently, and was asked how to correct boxing's world-wide issue with poor judging and "shocking decisions" throughout the sport. Hatton suggests keeping a ranked tracking of judges and their performances:

"I don't think we're ever gonna stop the bad decisions, because boxing is an opinion decision, isn't it? How many times have you sat there with your pals watching he fight, and you go, 'He's won that'? Half of you say he's won it, half of you say he's lost it. So we're never gonna get away from that no matter how much you change it.

"But I think governing bodies are -- you know, if you have two judges that vote for the fight 118-112, and one has it 115-114 ... something is seriously going wrong. I think there should be a way, someone comes in, let's get him in front of the board and say, listen, how did you come to that? And he might have good, valid reasons for it. But stuff like that needs to do.

"If people don't do it, maybe there should be a ranking of judges. There might already be a ranking of judges, but you know, if you make a bad decision, you go down to the second division. And then when you start doing alright, then you go back up. Maybe something along those lines."

... "This is how we make our living. I win this fight, I could pay my mortgage off, my kids could go to college. Bad decisions come in -- you've really gotta look into the judging. I'm not the expert. I don't have the answers. But something really needs to be done for it, because it's peoples livelihoods and livings at stake. One bad decisions, your head could get down, you could chuck the gloves in, fall out of love with the game, and it makes a big difference, not just on boxing -- on lives."

The full one hour interview is after the jump.

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Hatton going from a double to triple chin

All of it. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie. I want it all.

by Eugene Banks on Dec 12, 2011 9:43 PM EST reply actions

I’ve often thought of this — a sort of boxing writers poll/ranking of judges. But that’s ambitious, so I’d be more curious about SC’s personal ranking/grading of prominent judges.

by schraubd on Dec 12, 2011 9:46 PM EST reply actions

It would take an immense amount of research from a seriously committed team, but it’s really quite a good idea, I think.

Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."

by Scott Christ on Dec 12, 2011 10:00 PM EST up reply actions

On the upside, Boxrec has done a very good job getting judges names and ref names from major commission states and international bouts. Its possible, but unless someone was getting paid to do it, it would be tough to justify the cost in time.

by VirtualBalboa on Dec 12, 2011 10:18 PM EST up reply actions

You have to watch the fights, of course, and then sort of get a group agreement on the performances. I’m honestly running it around in my head how you’d do it but I won’t end up doing it. It would be a huge, huge amount of work.

Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."

by Scott Christ on Dec 12, 2011 10:55 PM EST up reply actions

The entire way boxing is scored I question.

I don’t know much about Pride or MMA but I remember hearing in one of the organizations that at the end of a fight a winner would be declared, and individual rounds weren’t literally scored. I wonder if that may be a better option.

I also wonder if sitting directly ringside on the floor is the best way to score a fight. How much can you really see? I’ve sat ringside once and you miss a lot. The TV cameras are at the eye level they are at for a reason.

I love the simple idea of scoring rounds by “who would you rather be” BUT that isn’t always the case and it’s never that easy.

Why 3 judges? Why not 5? Why not 11? Why not 1? I sure as hell would rather have 1 judge who had a clue over 3 that were mediocre.

We’ve all seen numerous robberies, was the old system of just the media and fans “determining” the winner any worse than what we have now?

There has been no real progress in judging boxing matches in decades. There is an obvious reason for that but people don’t like to hear it.

by BangBangLampley on Dec 12, 2011 10:22 PM EST reply actions

In Pride, fights were scored as a whole and not round by round.

It still gave us some bad decisions.
I definitely think judges should have a monitor you miss too much ringside due to bad angles.
Then again in the UFC judges have monitors and we still see bad decisions. I think the scoring system while not perfect isn’t the issue as much as clueless judges. Judges should be held accountable for their bad decisions.

by Sweet Scientist on Dec 13, 2011 7:05 AM EST up reply actions

I like this idea...

but I don’t think it’s very practical. Too bad.

by tylerj19 on Dec 12, 2011 10:39 PM EST reply actions

I tend to think there’s no way to do any sort of ranking that’s workable. A more realistic change might be to have more judges (maybe 5 or 6) and do something like dropping the highest and lowest scores. That would eliminate the whacked out scores that sometimes boggle the mind (like the judge who scored Khan-Peterson several points wide for Khan even after the deductions).

The other thing that should happen far more often is punishment of judges, like the suspensions in the Lara-Williams robbery. If you completely blow a fight, you should suffer the consequences, especially for a decisive victory like Lara (as opposed to an exceedingly close fight like Pacquiao-Marquez, where differences of opinion can legitimately lead to different winners).

by AndrewDM on Dec 12, 2011 11:31 PM EST reply actions

I think Judges should have to explain how they came to the scores. To actually write on the score card what they thought boxer A did better than boxer B. And if there is a big range of scoring they call them to a meeting after the fight to explain in more detail. If any judge is found to be inconsistent they can be stood down. It might be good to get the correct judges for a fight, if they favor a more aggressive style get them to judge an action fight, or counter punching style etc etc.

Maybe having more judges will help eliminate the bad calls and not make them have a big impact on the result

"A hero has faced it all: he need not be undefeated, but he must be undaunted." - Andrew Bernstein

by sigidy on Dec 13, 2011 12:19 AM EST reply actions