98-92 for Chavez? A travesty. A farce. A robbery. Another black eye for the sport. These are just a few phrases shared by members of the boxing media after hearing the Chavez Vera verdict. So why did these same respected members of the media and so called boxing experts actually agree with the scoring?
Last year, I read an amazing article by James Foley (@therealFOL) on Thequeensberry-rules.com about the subjective nature of scoring in a fight. In the article the author listed round by round scores from various boxing writers and media for the Mayweather vs Cotto fight. He was able to find that members of the media gave Cotto 7 rounds, meaning he beat Mayweather. Crazy I know.
I went ahead and did the same thing that James Foley did with the Chavez vs Vera fight. What I found was that members of the media were able to give 8 out of the 10 rounds to Chavez.
I will break this down very thoroughly in case your not quite following me just yet.
In this chart you can see that the only rounds that were unanimous for Vera were rounds 2 and 9. Round 6 was a unanimous round for Chavez. The remaining 7 rounds were all split.
Of the 9 writers who’s scores I compiled:
6 gave Chavez round 1.
2 gave Chavez round 3.
4 gave Chavez round 4
2 gave Chavez round 5
4 gave Chavez round 7
Only Steve Kim tweeted that Chavez got round 8
4 gave Chavez round 10
This means that 8 rounds were scored for Chavez by respected writers and boxing heads.
With all these rounds being scored differently, why is this fight being called a robbery.
I’ll do it another way. Judge Gwen Adair received the most criticism because she had the widest score. 98-92. Here’s how her card broke down:
Round 1: Chavez; Bobby Hunter, Lem Satterfield, Kevin Iole, Tim Starks, Patrick Conner, Steve Kim, Kevin McRae all agree
Round 2: Chavez; I’ll give our pitch fork waving friends this one. nobody agreed.
Round 3: Chavez; Victor Salazar, Steve Kim, and Mark Ortega agree.
Round 4: Chavez; Bobby Hunter, Kevin Iole, Tim Starks, Patrick Conner agree.
Round 5: Chavez; Lem Satterfield, Mark Ortega, agree
Round 6: Chavez; Everyone agreed
Round 7: Chavez; Victor Salazar, Bobby Hunter, Tim Starks, Patrick Conner agree.
Round 8: Vera; Only Steve Kim DISagreed
Round 9: Vera; Everyone agreed
Round 10: Chavez; Victor Salazar, Kevin Iole, Mark Ortega, Steve Kim agree.
Who would’ve thought so many of our boxing degenerate brothers actually agree with the evil cunt bag known as Gwen Adair. There are enough of us backing her scores, so why are we crying out robbery. Sure she missed round 2, but it happens (See round 8).
I must also note that as I was compiling these figures, most everyone was tweeting or blogging, “these rounds are tough to score” or “well, he did just a little more of this, so i guess I’ll give it to him.” All the while they’re also predicting a robbery. Strange.
The main point I want to get across is that a wide scorecard doesn’t necessarily mean a wide fight. A close fight can be wide on the cards. Remember, we agreed with her scores.
(I compiled these through the writers various sites and twitter accounts.)
Victor Salazar – ThaBoxingVoice.com
Bobby Hunter – BoxingNewsOnline.net
Lem Satterfield – Ringtv.com
Kevin Iole – Yahoo Sports
Mark Ortega – The Ring
Tim Starks – QueensBerry-Rules.com
Steve Kim – MaxBoxing.com
Patrick Conner – QueensBerry-Rules.com
Kevin McRae – Bleacher Report
(James Foley queensberry-rules.com article: http://www.queensberry-rules.com/2012-articles/may/a-note-on-subjective-scoring-in-light-of-floyd-mayweather-jr-vs-miguel-cotto.html )
