Joshua Buatsi vs Pawel Stepien: Take part in the Viewers’ Verdict experience on the Sky Sports App tonight
Scoring a fight always creates plenty of debate, but you can deliver your own judge’s decision during Saturday’s Joshua Buatsi vs Pawel Stepien bill.
With the Viewers’ Verdict feature, Sky Sports wants to know how you are scoring the action during Saturday night’s show, live from the Resorts World Arena at 7pm.
Users of the Sky Sports App will be able to score the Buatsi vs Stepien, Lauren Price vs Kirstie Bavington, Ben Whittaker vs Jordan Grant, Tyler Denny vs Macaulay McGowan and Kaisee Benjamin vs Sean McComb fights with our Viewers’ Verdict experience.
Download the app now to play along on Saturday night.
Unbeaten pair Joshua Buatsi and Pawel Stepien faced off against each other for the last time before they meet in the ring.
The audience’s overall score will be shared on the live television broadcast.
How to score a fight
Professional boxing is scored round by round on a ’10-points must’ scoring system.
The winner of each round is awarded 10 points and the loser typically receives nine.
If a boxer loses the round and is also knocked down, they will receive a score of eight, or, if knocked down twice, seven.
If both boxers are knocked down, these essentially cancel once another out and the winner of the round will take it on a 10-9 margin.
On rare occasions it can happen that if a fighter totally dominates a round, without knocking down the opponent, they can win the round 10-8.
It can happen that despite a knockdown a boxer is adjudged to have soundly won the rest of the round, a judge can then score it 10-9 in their favour.
Live Fight Night
Saturday 6th May 7:00pm
A round can be scored level at 10-10 if the two fighters really can’t be separated, but it is good practice to try to identify the winner.
The referee can take a point away from a boxer for infractions. This can be immediately for a deliberate foul (eg a head butt, hitting below the belt, biting etc.) or repeatedly committing an accidental foul too often (like holding too much for instance).
How to win a round
The judges are looking for clean scoring punches and volume of landed punches to decide which boxer has the edge.
“By a scoring punch, I’m talking about a punch that lands with the knuckle part of the glove on the target area, which is basically the front and the side of the head and the front and side of the torso down to a line across the top of the hip bones,” seasoned British Boxing of Control referee and judge Phil Edwards explained.
“Also which boxer is taking the initiative, if you like being effectively aggressive. But also which boxer is defending well and is imposing his or her will on the opponent, making the opponent fight his or her fight.”
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Watch Joshua Buatsi vs Pawel Stepien live from 7pm on Sky Sports Action and Sky Showcase
