As early as I can remember, I've always been a sports fan, with football being my first love. Those that know me today who have seen my closet will quickly identify me as a Carolina Panthers fan. Once upon a time though, I passionately rooted for the Washington Redskins. As a six-year-old crazed fan, I remember the Redskins getting whooped by the 49ers and then running to the upstairs TV thinking that somehow, some way, the score would be different on another screen? Saturday evening, I was reminded of my childhood imagination as HBO replayed the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley fight. I was going to watch it and re-score it again, and maybe I was going to see the fight on a different perspective. Maybe I would see the fight that I missed, not the one most people saw, and maybe I'd see the fight that 2 of the 3 official judges saw?
I had three pieces of paper in front of me. The first was my scorecard from the original night when I first saw and scored the fight 116-112 for Pacquiao. On the second paper, I set up a twelve round score sheet where I would tally my punch counts, planning to score the fight on the amateur system format where fighters would get a point for a solid shot landed. the third sheet was a professional scorecard that reflected the amateur score system converted into a ten point must format, so whoever won the round based on the amateur system would win the round 10-9. In the end, I had on my new scorecard 6 rounds to 5 and 1 even, or 115-114 in favor of Pacquiao.
As for the total punch counts using the amateur system scoring, keep in mind I had the luxury of the TV angle, not the angle of a specific side of the ring. Also keep in mind that with the amateur system, when two fighters are in an exchange, it is typically a wash with no fighters scoring points. What I always look for in that case is the big punch that started the exchange, telling blows by a certain fighter during the exchange, and usually there's a hard shot landed by one of the two fighters that ends the exchange. Those are punches I typically score in an amateur bout. So total score of the bout using the amateur system was 207-199 for Pacquiao. Pacquiao scored big margins of victory in rounds 4-6, while Bradley had a 21-8 tenth round score on my card. Round 1 was a one point victory for Bradley, 9 was a one point victory for Pacquiao, and round 12 was a 16-16 even round.
For me, Pacquiao gets the nod every time. You can dissect a bout however many times you want, but in the end, the only score that matters if you're an official judge is the score that you have at the time of the fight. The aftershock of June 9th will continue to carry over next week, putting the terrific and outstanding performance of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. against Andy Lee on the backburner of boxing talk. Nevertheless, the sport that is dear to my heart will continue limping forward on bad ankles, but this too shall heal.