Saturday, April 05, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Royce Feour

Focus key to being good judge

The key to scoring a fight is easy -- just concentrate.

Duane Ford of the Nevada Athletic Commission, one of the best judges in the world, is a staunch believer in the necessity of total concentration in judging a fight.

"Judging a fight is simple if you can concentrate for three minutes," he said.

The emphasis on concentration seemingly states the obvious, but that's what separates a good professional judge from the average fan.

Boxing fans, even knowledgable ones, usually don't really concentrate, whether they are at the arena or watching with friends at home. They are distracted. They talk to each other. They look away to reach for a beer or something to munch on.

The total concentration is probably just not there, which is one reason why fans so often disagree with the judges' scores.

"The longer I have been in the business, scoring a fight has become less complicated," Ford said.

He said once a judge has developed a standard of what scoring punches or effective punches are, the rest is concentration.

But that concentration isn't easy. Not in the least.

"After the (Marco Antonio) Barrera-(Erik) Morales fight, I was exhausted," Ford said. "If you really concentrate for 12 rounds, you're exhausted."

Morales won that first fight at Mandalay Bay by a split decision, although Ford had Barrera winning by one point, 114-113. Another judge had Morales by three points, and the third had Morales by one point. A large majority of the ringside press had Barrera winning or at least getting a draw.

"I have a barometer in my mind that tells me if I'm really concentrating that night, and that barometer is if I don't notice the ring-card girls, then I know I'm concentrating," Ford said.

That is some self-test. It's hard not to notice the ring-card girls, no matter how hard you concentrate.

Ford said he talks to himself during the round, saying things such as, "Fighter 'A' is ahead." Then maybe the tide turns, and later in the round he says to himself, "Fighter 'B' goes ahead."

The term "ring generalmanship" is often used as one of the criteria in how a judge scores a round, but Ford dismissed that.

"I don't even know what that is," he said. "The key is who was forcing the action or who was the aggressor if the round is close or even."

Unfortunately, not all judges are as sharp or as qualified as Ford, who has been judging for 14 years. He has held seminars on judging for all three major sanctioning bodies and for several state boxing commissions.

He said some judges favor boxers, while others favor hard punchers; both are biases that a judge should never have. That is one reason why former fighters don't necessarily make good judges. They tend to lean toward the boxer if they were a boxer or the puncher if they were a puncher.

"It is a weakness because you are showing a style preference," Ford said. "Call that the judgment area. A boxing judge should have a barometer in his head telling which hard punch equals all of those little jabs."

He said the toughest bout to score is between a hard puncher and a boxer without a hard punch. Then it really comes down to judgment.

Another major factor in judging is consistency. What you give to one fighter, you have to give to the other fighter, and what criteria you apply to one fight, you have to apply to the next fight.

Royce Feour's boxing column is published Saturday. He can be reached by phone at 383-0354, fax at 383-4676 or e-mail at rfeour@reviewjournal.com.