The Washington times., 1931-07-24
OFFICIALS USE
DIFFERENT
SYSTEMS
BY JACK DEMPSEY
Here are what might be called
random thoughts:

BY JACK DEMPSEY
Here are what might be called
"random thoughts:
A School for Referees
It's needed. With boxing gain
ing in popularity throughout the
nation. and with more and still
more States sanctioning glove
duels, there are not enough COM
petent referees and judges to
fill the need.
Get a group of ring officials
together, ask each how he scores
a bout. and the chances are that
the method of each will be rad1-
cally different. This condition
shouldn't exist, and, if there was
a school for youngsters who
wanted to become referees, and
they were all drilled from a
standardized set of regulations,
the result eventually would be
reasonably perfect decisions.
Cleverness Ignored
I've found plenty of officials
who stress forcing Of a fight"
in making their decisions and
pay no attention to the defensive
cleverness of the other man.
For instance; Smith is a
wild-swinging rushing type Of
fighter, who throws punches
without aiming; Brown is a
keen and alert man on defense
and cleverly ducks, slips or
blocks Smith and makes him
look like what is called a
Sucker"
How should that be scored?
Should Smith, who is doing
nothing but walking in and
throwing fists that land nowhere,
get the points because OF ag-
gressiveness, or should the scor-
ing be in favor of Brown, who
learned the science of defense
and nulls the value of Smiths
swings by using his knowledge
Of defensive tactics?
What value is to be placed on
o knockdown?
Suppose Smith knocks down
Brown once in each of the first
four rounds and wins each Of the
four by wide margin, after
which, Brown rallies and wins, by
a slight edge, the remaining six
rounds of a 10-round battle. That
makes the count 8 to q in favor
of Brown and gives him the fight
according to the majority OF
rules in vogue.
Not Quite Fair
But that doesn't seem to be
quite fair. For Smith in four
rounds damaged Brown far more
than Brown damaged him in the
last six. The sum total for the
entire fight gives Smith the ad-
vantage but because each round
is scored separate, then the fight
goes to Brown.
In baseball they don't award
the game to the team that
scored Oftenest in the matter Of
innings. If one team scored a
run in each inning and other
scored 10 in a single inning, the
victory goes to the latter club
by the score of 10 to 9. The
same scoring plan prevails in
practically all games Of sport
except boxing.
Is the present plan a fair one
or should some new rules be made
giving so many points for knock
downs, so many for aggressive
ness, so many for defensive skill
all these to be totaled at the end
of the fight and the man with the
greatet number of points for the
ENTIRE battle be given the de-
cision?
The most difficult thing in a
ring contest is to send the other
fellow to the canvas. Yet under
some scoring rules, a man who
has flattened his opponent in one
round isn't given anything but
the round. And he loses that ad-
vantage If the other fellow out
stabs him few times in the next
session.
Isn't that program all wrong?
So long as all of the boxing
commissions refuse to band TO-
gether and form a uniform ma
tional set of rules, we may
expect a continuance of conflict
ing decisions.
But despite this, I believe that
a school for referees and judges
is a good thing because it could
teach the basic principles of the
work and develop the young men
to a high degree of efficiency,
instead of permitting most of
them to go in and referee on the
catch-as-catch-can basis.
DEM0I AVS c0NVEME