By Joe Koizumi
I have been enthusiastically watching fights in Japan for almost 50 years since my childhood. I have been a correspondent of The Ring Magazine for 41 years since 1964. I have been a TV commentator for 26 years, and am now serving as the commentator of WOWOW cable TV, which regularly shows two or three world title bouts all over the world every week. I have been a collector of boxing films, watching fights of Jim Corbett through Floyd Mayweather. Also, I have been working the corner for some 40 years as manager, trainer or cut-man.
Last year Japan promoted some 270 shows. We saw five shows a week. I, as a matchmaker, produced 170 international bouts last year. The ginternational boutsh were all between Japanese and foreign fighters. As you may know, Japan is one of the most active countries in terms of boxing promotions, along with the United States, Germany, and England. But it might be true that boxing becomes less and less popular among common people in Japan. I wonder why boxing of today is not loved as much as before. The root cause may be, in part, due to the current 10-point must system, and its application.
In the good old days, boxing was a much easier sport for the general public to understand. They hailed Fighting Harada and other great boxers with a lot of enthusiasm. Previously, a hard round to judge was scored 10-10. It meant that without attacking effectively you couldnft win a round. You couldnft win a point without attacking positively. Therefore, boxing was more aggressive and more entertaining. There were more spectacular knockouts than today. But, lately, there has been a strong tendency that even extremely close rounds are forced to be given to one of the boxers. That has produced more runners or jabbers than punchers.
You are professional judges. You can classify and distinguish even a small difference of the round. But the general public cannot distinguish the closest round to be given either. After a close fight, the crowd becomes frustrated to hear the official verdict. Sometimes the decision is against the crowdfs impression. Thatfs a serious problem. Most of the spectators donft take a memorandum of the scorecards, unlike you, they just watch fight. The decision confuses the audience. They leave the boxing arena, confused, frustrated and bewildered after the controversial decision. The crowd comes to the boxing arena to feel catharsis and excitement, but boxing sometimes leaves them with frustration over a controversial decision. TV watchers also sometimes get stunned and surprised at the decision. Why? The decision was against their impression of who the winner was. People say, gBoxing is difficult.h What is difficult to the general public? I see that the difficulty to the general public may be in the scoring standard. That is: clean hits, effective aggressiveness, effective defense and ring generalship. The crowd, however, doesnft understand it as correctly as you do. More difficult is how to evaluate between a few hard punches and numerous light combinations. Much more difficult to the general public is to guess who won a particular round. Most of the crowd isnft a reader of Mr. Tom Kaczmareckfs gYou be the boxing judge.h The public have not attended and listened to Mr. Jose Sulaimanfs lecture on the scoring. Let me say that, today, boxing has become a very hard sport to judge. Boxing on the TV screen is different from what it is in the arena. Also, watching boxing from a ringside seat is quite different from that watching it from a balcony seat.
I would like to make a suggestion to save the general public from their frustration when watching boxing bouts. I suggest all very close rounds to be scored 10-10 as previously. In this manner it becomes clearer who the winner is after a 12-round or 10-round competition. If you are against this idea by saying that there will be too many 10-10 rounds, we may limit the number of the 10-10 rounds, at most, to six rounds out of the 12 stipulated rounds. Or, one third of the 12 rounds, that is, up to 4 rounds.
The current rules and regulations never forbid you, the officials, to score 10-10. In principle, you can do so. But, in reality, especially in the United States, it becomes very rare that a judge scores 10-10 in more than one or two rounds in a single bout. If you do so, you will be criticized, saying, gHe isnft a professional, and he cannot score a winner in a close round. He is an inefficient judge.h You are afraid of being accused as such. Therefore, you are forced to score even a very close round to one by distinguishing a hairline difference. That has produced great many controversial decisions. More important is who the winner is after the fight rather than how correctly you distribute close rounds without scoring even. Problem is to force you, the judges, to score even a closest round to one. Boxing results in a Win, Loss or Draw. But in scoring a round, you are not allowed to score a Draw. Only a Win or Loss. It seems ridiculous, isnft it? How about re-evaluating the importance of a 10-10 round?
There was a movie titled gBack to the future.h But I suggest, gBack to the pasth in the scoring. By permitting more 10-10 rounds, we can have a more clear winner. We can eliminate controversial decisions. Ifm sure that it will help the resurgence of boxingfs popularity among the crowd. Thank you very much for your listening to my humble speech.
(10-6-05)