Professional boxing
Most high-profile bouts obtain the endorsement of a sanctioning body, which awards championship belts, establishes rules, and assigns its own judges and referees.
Protective headgear[1] is not permitted, and boxers are generally allowed to take substantial punishment before a fight is halted.
These rules specified more accurately, the role of the officials, and produced a system of scoring that enabled the referee to decide the result of a fight.
In 1929, the BBBofC continued to award Lonsdale Belts to any British boxer who won three title fights in the same weight division.
In the early twentieth century, most professional bouts took place in the United States and Britain, and champions were recognised by popular consensus as expressed in the newspapers of the day.
Other famous champions included light heavyweight Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and middleweight Tommy Ryan.
In 1900, the State of New York enacted the Lewis Law, banned prizefights except for those held in private athletic clubs between members.
Thus, when introducing the fighters, the announcer frequently added the phrase "Both members of this club", as George Wesley Bellows titled one of his paintings.
At lighter weights, ten round fights were common, and lightweight Benny Leonard dominated his division from the late teens into the early twenties.
Championship level prizefighters in this period were the premier sports celebrities, and a title bout generated intense public interest.
[7][8] For decades, boxing matches went on for 15 rounds, but that was all changed on November 13, 1982, following the death of Korean boxer Kim Duk-koo in a fight against Ray Mancini.
In the early twentieth century, it became the practice for the referee or judge to score bouts by the number of rounds won by each boxer.
To improve the reliability of scoring, two ringside judges were added besides the referee, and the winner was decided by majority decision.
Since the late twentieth century, it has become common practice for the judges to be three ringside observers who award a score to each boxer for each round, with the referee having the authority to deduct points for certain violations.
Furthermore, the subsequent adoption of this system, both nationally and internationally, allowed for greater judging consistency, which was something that was sorely needed at the time.
[11] There are many factors that inform the judge's decision but the most important of these are: clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defense.
[12] These rules did not, however, provide unified guidelines for scoring fights and instead left this in the hands of individual sanctioning organizations.
[11] The adoption of this system, both nationally and internationally, established the foundation for greater judging consistency in professional boxing.
If a fight is stopped due to a cut resulting from a legal punch, the other participant is awarded a technical knockout win.
