If you were one of the many, many people who watched HBO's card last Saturday night you'll have seen one of the best rounds of slugging this year as Alfredo "El Perro" Angulo and James "The Mandingo Warrior" Kirkland slugged it out, traded knockdowns and threw 177 punches...or did they?
The official Compubox figures had Angulo throwing 73 punches in the opening 3 minutes whilst they had Kirkland throwing 104. Having watched that opening round a number of times I'm still asking myself how they got to those numbers. Angulo, by my count went not only over 100 but nearly DOUBLE of the official numbers, and Kirkland, whilst throwing a lot himself, certainly DID NOT throw 30 more than Angulo (in fact, from just watching the fight and not counting I'd have said he actually threw less than Angulo).
Rob Day, friend of mine working for the Boxing Tribune, made a very similar point at the start of the year in his article "Compubox – Fact or Fiction?" Rob stated "it should always be remembered that the live figures aren’t completely accurate due to very likely human error". Problem is that human error is only part of the issue, lets be honest for a Compubox judge to miss around 50% of Angulo's punches is more than just human error, it's...somewhat disgraceful.
Dave Allen, another friend posted on a forum posted an excellent point explaining some of the issues with the system:
"Compubox is not 100% correct,it would be more reliable if you had four counters on each side of the ring.But also there are times when the referee would obstruct your view,so as far as i am concerned as long as it do not effect the decision carry on if thats what floats your boat.
I never take any notice of the punch stats,its what i see with my own eye's which makes up my mind who won the bout.Never had them when i first started my passion for the sport,standing out in the cold watching Tom Sawyers swing his bare fist." (Talking Boxing with Billy C)
And maybe Dave gets it spot on, the referee can get in the way, though their is so many other issues. Did you know CompuBox regards anything other than a jab as a "power punch"? Did you know that each fighter has 1 man counting "thrown and connected" on what is no more than a glorified amateur scoring system?
The well established Billy C (see the above link) actually got asked to stop talking the system when he was giving it a hard time on his radio show but sadly for CompuBox they seemed happier in saying "shut up we're right" rather than "we'll try to improve we see we have problems". Maybe this is the biggest issue, they don't want to improve, they have a cushty deal with HBO to provide "official figures" and lets be honest whilst HBO are paying them for a half assed job, why would they want to put money into creating an ACCURATE system? It seems obvious when Jim Lampley or Mex Kellerman state the CompuBox numbers as fact they they are happy with them being "official" which is just a giant shame.
Whilst it seems unlikely that CompuBox will take their head out of the sand it's be nice if more people did begin to question them.
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