THE topic of scoring fights is often a contentious subject with some arguments lasting years.
When Oleksandr Usyk became undisputed heavyweight champion in May he did so by winning a split decision against Tyson Fury. The Ukrainian sealed his victory, receiving scores of 114-113 and 115-112 from judges Mike Fitzgerald and Manuel Oliver Palomo, respectively. Judge Craig Metcalfe, however, saw it 114-113 for Fury.
Thankfully there was no bitter fallout after the result and both parties went their separate ways.
On Saturday night, however, during the highly anticipated rematch between the two there will be a fourth (non-official) scoring judge thanks to the world of artificial intelligence. Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Fund is behind the experimental scoring system.
Yesterday, on X, an introductory video was played on Alalshikh’s X page featuring the fourth judge with the A.I judge explaining what it would be doing.
“I analyse every round, every move and every decisive moment during the fight. Displaying real-time metrics like aggression, landed punches, impact in defensive deployment. With this data, I’m able to calculate a score and determine who should win the match. See you on December 21st for Usyk-Fury 2.”
Whether this will be a tool used for all Riyadh Season main events moving forward remains to be seen but back in the real world there has been a change to the three human judges assigned to Saturday’s rematch. Initially the line-up had been Pat Morley, Fernando Barbosa and Gerardo Martinez.
But according to Fight Freaks’ Dan Rafael, illness has forced Barbosa to withdraw. The Miami judge will be replaced by Steve Weisfeld who was a scoring judge for the second and third Fury-Wilder fights and Usyk’s two wins over Anthony Joshua.
