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.