Three Judges, Three Different Fights: The Unfilled Gap in Combat Sports Scoring

On the night of September 16, 2026, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, a scorecard was raised and the arena broke into boos. Adalaide Byrd scored Canelo Alvarez against Gennadiy Golovkin 118-110 in Canelo's favour. The other two judges scored it 114-114 and 115-113 for Golovkin. The fight ended in a draw, but the centre of every argument that followed was not either fighter. It was a woman sitting three rows back from the canvas.

I was watching at home that night and did exactly what anyone who has ever held a whistle does on reflex: I muted the commentary, slowed every round down, and scored it myself before hearing anyone else. Rounds four, seven and nine went to Golovkin for me. Rounds three and twelve were so close that I hesitated. That was the moment I understood something the hundred thousand people in the arena never receive: three different viewing angles produce three different fights, and none of those viewers is technically wrong.

If you have ever sat in a judge's chair, you know the distance between two men fighting is only six or seven metres. At that distance, a punch that lands on the chin and a punch that misses by two centimetres look almost identical. A judge has no slow-motion replay, no overhead camera, and no right to rewind. They have one look, one time, and thirty seconds to write a number on a scorecard.

THE 10-9 SYSTEM AND THE PROBLEM OF CLOSE ROUNDS

To understand why a scorecard causes an argument, you have to understand the system it operates in. In boxing and most professional combat sports, the 10-9 must system says the winner of a round takes 10 points and the loser takes 9. Two fighters cannot both take 10 for a drawn round, because that rule was abolished in most American states decades ago.

That means every round, even one separated by a single punch, creates a one-point gap. Twelve rounds means twelve gaps. A round you feel is fairly close can still be scored as a clear margin, and those margins accumulate into the final result.

In 2026, the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports, known as the ABC, published a new set of scoring criteria for MMA, adopted by most major organisations. Those criteria put effective striking and effective grappling first, emphasising damage and impact rather than simply counting significant strikes. It was a genuine step forward. But it also opened a door few people noticed: once impact becomes the measure, the definition of impact depends on each person's perception.

In combat sports, the biggest argument does not come from judges who are wrong. It comes from a correct criterion interpreted in two equally reasonable ways.

THREE ANGLES, THREE FIGHTS

That night, if you had asked the three people seated on three sides of the canvas the same question, who won round seven, you would have received three equally confident answers. The one on the left saw Canelo marching forward, pinning his opponent to the ropes, and remembers the body shots. The one on the right saw Golovkin controlling distance, countering more precisely, and his jab was clearly sharper. The one in the middle hesitated.

All three were right in their own view. That is what television viewers find hardest to accept, because the main camera always shows the widest angle, and the commentator always tells them who is winning. Fans do not score fights. They are told who is winning.

Over nine years watching combat sports in Japan, Australia and Vietnam, I have noticed a pattern. The most fiercely disputed fights are rarely the ones where one fighter is completely dominant. They are usually the ones where two men cancel each other out, and the outcome depends on which factor the judges prioritise.

In Vietnam this story is far from unfamiliar. Domestic professional MMA promotions have begun using international scoring criteria in recent years. Every time a fight ends on the judges' decision, the country's martial arts community erupts across forums. Five thousand members, one old screen, and a belief split into five thousand pieces.

That is the biggest blind spot among viewers in general. They argue about the final number, while the problem lies in the definition behind it.

SLOW MOTION CANNOT ERASE AMBIGUITY

If there is one tool everyone trusts, it is replay. Many American athletic commissions have allowed instant replay in boxing and MMA to review situations that could affect the result of a fight. That tool has a limit rarely mentioned: it is only used to correct errors the naked eye can clearly see. Slow motion cannot rescore a round containing seven exchanges.

The first bell blown by a camera sounded to me like the whole world holding its breath. But replay fixes mistakes. It does not fix ambiguity.

On the night of a major semi-final, I betrayed my own conviction to embrace the crowd. I wrote that there was not enough evidence for a decision, and twenty minutes later, as hundreds of objections poured in, I edited the piece. When the commission confirmed the original call was correct, some people came back to mock me. That was the most expensive lesson I have learned about the distance between analysis and mass emotion.

I see what no one else sees, and I have to live with it.

THE PARADOX OF TRUST

The more tools there are, the thinner fans' trust becomes. When a disputed decision goes up on the screen and is resolved in thirty seconds, viewers do not feel reassured. They feel robbed of the right to argue. Slow motion does not erase doubt. It pushes doubt down to another layer.

Giving the camera the authority to rule has turned every difficult decision into a referendum that nobody can win.

There is an uncomfortable thing people inside the sport rarely say: judges are not paid to be right. They are paid to make a decision, and every decision can be disputed. A judge who scores a close round differently from the majority is not necessarily wrong. That judge may be applying a different criterion, or seeing something the main camera missed.

The problem is that the system has no mechanism for explanation. A scorecard is published, but the reasoning behind it is not. Fans receive the number without the argument, and in that gap, every speculation finds a place to stand.

I have sat in that chair. I know the feeling when thirty seconds pass and you must choose a number. No colleague pats your shoulder and tells you that you were right. The bell for the next round simply rings, and you have to carry on.

WHAT SHOULD CHANGE

If you ask me for a proposal, I would not propose more cameras. I would propose publishing the reasoning behind the scoring: each judge records which criterion was prioritised in each round, and that record is released after the fight. Fans may disagree, but they will argue about the reasoning instead of arguing about the number.

Alongside that is the question of training. Many judges at regional events have never been properly trained on the new criteria, and they score on instinct accumulated over years of watching boxing. Instinct is not wrong, but it needs to be verified periodically, through video, through testing, through review sessions after each event.

A sport only loses trust when fans believe the result was decided before the first bell rang.

I still keep the habit of muting the sound and scoring before hearing anyone. Not to prove that I am right, but to remind myself that every time I hesitate, there is a judge out there who has to decide on my behalf. A referee blows the whistle, but the fans are the ones who deliver the final score.