I’m sorry guys. I’ve tried to think of a good way to approach this, but I am finding the best route is the straight forward, direct approach.

Let me state first that I have met better people in boxing than I have ever ran across anywhere else in life. That goes across the board. Boxers, trainers, and yes, judges and refs. You are all salt of the earth. Your dedication and sacrifice is above reproach. What I am about to write is not a personal attack.

The success of this sport, amateur boxing, hinges in large part, on the judges and the referees. All of it? Of course not. Think of this. No matter how well a boxer trains, no matter how well that boxer is coached, a majority of the time the outcome of the match will rest in your hands. You are neither receiving or giving the blow, nor are you sweating and bleeding, but you are deciding whether that boxer wins or loses. Pretty awesome responsibility, huh?

Considering that responsibility, I think it is of the utmost importance that those decisions be fair and more importantly, consistent.

Consistency is where I feel the main problem lies. I will point out some examples:

POINT SCORING:

My understanding of the rules, is that amateur boxing is scored on the basis of clean punches landed. That being punches landed with the knuckle area of the glove with the full force of the arm and shoulder. The punch must be legal and land in the scoring area, the waist to the head and in the anterior region, having the medial line being formed by an imaginary line running the length of the body with the ears being the fulcrum. In other words, the ears form the Mason/Dixon line between a legal and an illegal blow. Also a punch landed with such force as to cause the referee to inflict an eight count on the receiving party will count no differently than any other scoring blow. Such as a jab. Is this standard really being adhered to? Not in my experience.

Point in case. If you are returning from the USA Nationals, where computer scoring is used, and you enter the state Golden Gloves, are you going to have your boxer box the same? Hell no! You're going to instruct them to "throw like hell", because it seems to be an unwritten rule that at the gloves judging is based on aggression. I know the Golden Gloves is a franchise, and a separate entity, but I believe the rules of USA Boxing should still apply. At least in the coaches meetings they never mentioned a change in the scoring criterion. We had one boxer who received what we felt was a horrible decision, we instructed him to box, use the jab, move in and out. Upon reviewing the film, our boxer had been on the receiving end of two legal scoring blows all night. When we asked for an explanation we were told our boxer had missed a lot. I still have not found the rule that states that misses are counted as a deduction of points in USA Boxing. Another thing, if your boxer receives an eight count what do you feel the chances are he or she is going to win the round? Me neither.

The point is this. We may not like USA Boxing’s scoring criteria, but if it is the rule then let’s adhere to it consistently. If we are going to use our own personal standards then we might as well be judging a dog show.

REFEREEING:

Guys fouls are fouls. Some of you may be stricter than others and that is cool, but call it the same for all the boxers. It seems that some boxers are allowed to get away certain rule infractions over and over again, and inexplicably it never is called. When they go to the next level it is, but not at the state level. You may deny this, but I guarantee you I have a boatload of coaches that will back me on this claim.

Another area of consternation, women boxing. This is relatively new, but I want let you in on something. These women are warriors just like the men. Do not halt bouts any quicker with them than you would with the men. We had two bouts at this last Golden Gloves tournament stopped, one by a referee who I normally consider one of the best, without even looking at the girl before stopping the bout. In one of the bouts the opposing coach said it was one of the most ridiculous stoppages he had seen. In both bouts the girls were battling relatively equally. Women in boxing are here to stay, I know the temptation is to protect them, but they are in there to fight. A hint, not that I am an expert, but women tend to shed tears as an expression of emotion. As one of my female boxers said, "Don’t worry if I cry during my match, I always cry when I get fired up."

One last point. Alex (Trottier) and I have cornered hundreds of matches together since we started four years ago, all but three of those matches are on film. We film every match we participate in and review the film with our boxers. Do you judges and referees do the same? If so, I commend you. If not I recommend it.

There is no guarantee for a boxer, no matter how diligent their efforts, that they will succeed in the ring. What they need to be assured of is that they will receive, fair, equitable, and most of all consistent judging and refereeing.

What should be remembered from these tournaments are the performances of the boxers, not the decisions of the judges and referees. By striving to consistently enforce and judge by the standards set out by USA Boxing we will be taking big steps in achieving that.

Brett Blaney

Impact Boxing

Questions or Comments?  Contact Brett by e-mail or post it on the Fight Fans Forum

By B. Blaney

Several things happened this weekend that brought the subject of "heart" to the forefront of my attention. First I was watching Sportscenter and it was announced that Phil Mickelson had won his first career major. Mickelson, or Lefty as he is affectionately referred to by his followers, had long been lamented for his inability to win the "big one". Well this weekend after sinking a crucial putt on the final hole, he was able to capture the granddaddy of them all, the Masters. His win in Augusta will now dispel the claims that he lacks fortitude or heart.  In other words, the ability to win in clutch situations. For all of us Bronco fans this has to bring back memories of the criticisms that Elway endured until his Super Bowl win over Green Bay dispelled all doubters.

Later I was reading an article in Sports Illustrated on the subject of hitting in the clutch. The subject of the article concerned the validity of the term, "clutch hitter". It seems that the statisticians with all their newly found data, due to the continual advancement of computers, dispute the very existence of such an anomaly. They claim that over the course of a baseball season good hitters hit good and poor hitters hit poor , regardless of the situation. They claim that most hitters will hit at about the same average in a clutch situation as they do in any other at bat. Now baseball insiders, that being managers and players, and in my opinion, anyone who has played the game, will dispute the statisticians. If you have ever played baseball you know there are certain players who seem to excel when the stakes are the highest. Guys you love to see come to the plate when the game is on the line. It seems as though their concentration and focus reaches it's zenith in those moments. I guess you would have to say they have great heart. A stronger desire to win.

Now we come to boxing. Early Sunday morning my brother called me. His urgency made me think that he must have some un reimbursed expense related to the gym. Being the Executive Director for Impact Boxing that is usually what urgent calls derive from, especially from my brother. To my surprise though, he asked if I had seen the Klitschko fight. I told him no that I had decided to reacquaint myself with my wife, being that the boxing business was taking a toll on our marriage and that a short sabbatical was in order. He went on, seemingly unconcerned over my marital strife, that Klitschko had just collapsed after giving Brewster a beating for the first three rounds of the fight. Brook went on to say that he felt the problem was that Klitschko wasn't breathing properly and that Steward should have instructed him to take deep breaths between rounds versus spending his time instructing him on strategy. This conversation stirred my curiosity. Of course, being a good boxing man I said to hell with marital concerns and abandoned my self-induced sabbatical. Finally after an in-depth search on the channel guide I was able to find a rebroadcast on one of the myriad of HBO channels. I must say Jones is a great improvement over George. Now we need to get rid of Harold Lederman. At any rate, after watching Klitschko's untimely demise I was left with only one conclusion. That being, Klitschko's problem didn't lie within his lungs but instead the muscular organ that lies behind them, that of course being the heart. My conclusion was based on the fact that Brewster had picked himself up from the canvas after sustaining a brutal shellacking and Klitschko in return collapsed like a house of cards upon Brewster returning the favor. How could anyone conclude anything else?

The preceding events brings to mind a statement my late father once told me. He said that there is really only black and white in this world. A statement to this day I vehemently disagree with. In my mind the world is made up varying shades of grey. It seems that when we think we know something to be cold hard fact, something comes along, almost divinely to show us that our knowledge may not be so secure. As I am writing this article I came across breaking news that Klitschko's blood sugar level was four times the normal level, giving possible explanation to his collapse. So his collapse may have more to do with his pancreas than it does his heart. Thus the theory of shades of grey. Nothing is as it appears.

We move on to the local level and the fight between Ray Sanchez III and 'Bam-Bam' Conchas. After all of Bam-Bam's boasting he went on to unceremoniously surrender to Sanchez's assault under the glaring eyes of the New Mexico faithful. One has to ask how could Conchas give in so easy after laying out such a gauntlet in the pre-flight hype? I don't know. Has anyone checked his blood sugar levels?

One of my boxers asked me once what makes a good chin. I replied, "there are two kinds of chins". "The first", I said while taking my index finger and touching his chin, "is here". "The second", I continued while placing that same index finger on his sternum, "lies here". I went on to tell him of my trap door theory. I said, "some fighters have a chin like a trap door. When they take a hard shot, the door trips and their heart falls to their feet." Of course there are other fighters who would rather face death than go down. A novice boxer once asked me about taking a knockdown. I told him if you need to ask yourself if you should go down, you better damn well not go down. I went on to tell him when you get knocked down, you usually hear a loud bang and the next thing you know you are on the canvas wondering how you got there.

When dealing with a fighter, there is no worse criticism you can lay on them than saying, "they ain't got no heart". You can question their manhood, or even their mother's moral fiber. Neither will raise their hackles more than the former criticism.

In conclusion, a boxer will be judged his entire career by those who have done less and in the end possess much less heart than the boxer himself. He will still endure those questions of heart and courage. That is the price they pay for the right to call themselves a fighter. In the end each fighter has to stand in front of the mirror and ask himself, "did I fight the good fight?, Did I show heart?" I would imagine Klitscho and Conchas are have those conversation with themselves today.

Brett Blaney
Impact Boxing

Questions or Comments?  Contact Brett by e-mail or post it on the Fight Fans Forum