No clear winner

At hindsight, the consensus among fight fans is the Floyd Mayweather, Jr.-Oscar de la Hoya bout should’ve been declared a draw because there just wasn’t a clear winner.

Judging a boxing match is such a subjective thing that the effort to establish standards has remained wishful thinking in the minds of supervising officials. The fact is it’s difficult to program how three judges view a fight on a parallel basis. Each has a mind of his own with personal biases, preferences and outlooks.

Judges are human and therefore, make mistakes. From where they sit around the ring, one may see something the other two aren’t able to because of the angles aligned to their vision.

In Las Vegas last Saturday, De la Hoya was the aggressor most of the way. He often pinned Mayweather to the corners and along the ropes, trying to land the bomb to end it all. Mayweather’s defense, however, prevented any detonation. And with younger legs, Pretty Boy made De la Hoya look pitifully slow in the last three rounds which he swept.

Mayweather fought intelligently and cautiously despite pre-fight hype that he would massacre the Golden Boy. He picked his punches, blocked a lot of De la Hoya’s blows and used his speed to throw off the crowd favorite’s timing. Mayweather frustrated de la Hoya who wanted to make a brawl of it but couldn’t because his opponent wouldn’t cooperate.

Mayweather did what he had to do to win. He played it cool. From a fan’s standpoint, he was a bore. Mayweather never took chances, stayed away from harm’s way and fought just hard enough to convince two of the three judges he deserved the WBC superwelterweight crown.

Mayweather couldn’t care less if he’s the world’s most popular fighter (which he isn’t). What he cares about is the money he takes to the bank.

From what he showed against De la Hoya, Mayweather has little basis to claim the prestigious distinction of being the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter. That distinction should belong to Manny Pacquiao.

No doubt, Mayweather is technically skilled and has the savvy of a proficient stylist. But he’s not exciting. He’s the reason why boxing is losing ground to mixed martial arts in the pay-per-view stakes. Fans pay good money to watch action in the ring, not a contest of IQs.

Mayweather said he’s retiring. De la Hoya is thinking about it. A rematch wouldn’t make much sense even as the outcome of last Saturday’s fight was far from convincing. It would be a repeat performance with Mayweather once more boring the fans to death with his unexciting style and de la Hoya unable to turn back the clock for a final burst of glory.

For the record, judges Tom Kaczmarek scored it 115-113 for De la Hoya while judge Chuck Giampa saw it 116-112 and judge Jerry Roth 115-113 for Mayweather.

By the way, Kaczmarek, 79, authored the 29-page manual "You Be The Boxing Judge."

"Of the three basic fundamentals in scoring a fight, a combination of clean punching and effective aggressiveness are the key factors," he said in the manual. "Whatever else is happening in the round, the fighter who is scoring clean solid punches, forcing the action and getting off first is going to win the round. Skillful ring generalship, which enables the fighter to control his opponent is also significant.

"Good fighters usually possess a combination of good clean punching, effective aggressiveness and ring generalship. They score points and ultimately win rounds. If there is still not a clear winner, considering these factors, then good defense may well become the deciding factor."

Now you know why Kaczmarek scored it for de la Hoya.

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