Boxing: Does the Adamek/ Cunningham II hurt boxing on network TV?

Question

Boxing fans are use to bad decision. Just this year the big media focus on this became in focus because of Pacquiao/ Bradley. Boxing was making a move in the right direction being on network TV. Last night in Cunningham/ Adamek BJ Flores score the fight 115-113 Cunningham. Roach had it 114-114. I scored it like Flores. One judge scored it for Cunningham. One scored it for Adamek. One scored it even. Then after Micheal Buffer announced it on live network TV, he was called to the scorers' table and one card was scored from in favor of Cunningham to Adamek. It looked very fishy. The stats of the fight favor Cunningham. Does the nation seeing shaky behavior in professional boxing scoring hurt the sport?

Answer 1

The best thing boxing can do is try to get the criteria for judging a fight consistent. It seems that some judges will judge a certain fight by the kind of boxing that they prefer. Go back to the Hagler-Leonard fight and we can see this. A couple of the judges actually talk about why they scored the fight the way they did on HBO's Legendary nights Hagler-Leonard. You can watch all 12 of the episodes on Youtube. But One judge may prefer hard punching over pitty-pat punches, one judge might like the evasive fighter like Whitaker, but another judge prefers the aggression like Chavez Sr. Then when judges are questioned about their score they usually have the response of," Well I'm a judge, so you don't know the criteria for judging a fight." And they're right, we don't know the criteria for judging a fight. We (sports fans) know the rules for football completions whether it's one foot in bounds etc., and we know what must be done for a touchdown to be called. We know the player with the ball just has to get the ball across the plane of the endzone. We all know this. In baseball we know when a player is safe or out, so when we see a bad call, everyone knows it's a bad call. With boxing, there's no clear criteria, even punch stats do not matter to the official score, (see Adamek/Cunningham II, Pacquiao-Bradley, Mayweather-Castillo I), so almost every fight can be debated by preference of style or aggression. I believe that boxing is kind of like art or music in that there is going to be a personal preference of which fighter performed better, but there must be some kind of way to get to a more universal criteria of winner and loser. A good friend of mine that boxed amateur and pro told me how scores a fight: He says " Whichever fighter I would have preferred to be after the round wins the round". I kind of adopted that mentality when I score a fight.

Answer 2

Hello sir. This kind of stuff has been going on in boxing for years and yes it can certainly hurt the image particularly when decisions are controversial. Adamek is one of my favorite fighters if not my favorite so I watched as much of the fight as I could before I had to go out and what I saw was a very close and competitive fight for the 10 rounds I watched with several of the rounds being practically even as Cunningham was boxing great and seeming to land the higher volume of punches and Adamek landing the more effective punches and being the more aggressive fighter. I had Cunningham slighly ahead but as I said didn't catch the last 3 rounds of the fight and didn't catch the result until later on last night. I for one am glad that it was on network television and hope that there is a lot more of it on in the future especially with big time fighters or young upstarts needing exposure. Honestly from all I've heard, I wouldn't exactly call it a robbery as it was indeed a close fight and probably difficult to score as I've seen much worse decisions before weondering what in the heck the referees were thinking. Based on what you stated, there seems to be some fishy behavior and perhaps an investigation needs to be pursued.

Answer 3

I idea Adamek managed the combat last time. I had him forward with the aid of at leat 5 aspects. He used to be approach forward. I don't see how Cunningham can beat Adamek unless he is available in manner heavier. Adamek is a better boxer, and most often that wins a battle (unless knockdowns come to be a element).

Answer 4

No it don't hurt; both fighters are works class.



That was Cunninghams 2nd fight as a HW. And that was Adameks first against a lighter, smaller guy in 3 years. Adamek has been fighting against bigger, stronger, slower men; so at his age chasing a 20lbs lighter fighter wasent an everyday thing.



None of Cunninghams biggest shots really affected Adamek; his biggest shots didn't even make Adamek step back.



Adamek won, it was no robbery.

Answer 5

The decision doesn't hurt the sport as much as the fight itself. I've been involved in boxing as both a participant and as a fan for 25 of my 37 years, and yesterday I watched a boring fight. Boxing has fallen a long way since the heyday of the 80's. The casual fan has little interest in watching a tactful fight, they want action. The fights I watched growing up were pure intensity from opening bell to the last, none of the superstars ducked out of tough fights, it created a fan for life. With mma being more fashionable nowdays, it's no surprise that fight fans are trending that way. Boxing does get a bad rap when it comes to fixing fights, truth is, all sports get manipulated on occasion, its not exclusive to the fight game.

Answer 6

Yes.