9201290171
DETROIT FREE PRESS
920803
Monday, August 03, 1992
METRO FINAL
5C
Photo BILL SKIES Associated Press
:
U.S. boxer Eric Griffin cheers on teammate Tim Austin, who
ousted Bulgaria's Julian Strogov.
MITCH ALBOM
BARCELONA '92
Copyright (c) 1992, Detroit Free Press
THUMBS DOWN ON COMPUTER BOXING
GRIFFIN VICTIMIZED BY JUDGES, SCORING SYSTEM
BARCELONA, Spain -- And you thought your little 9-year-old, sitting in the
house playing video games all day, was blowing his chance at the Olympics. Are
you kidding? We have a job for him right now.
Boxing judge.
In fact, if we had a few more 9-year-olds over here, we would probably
have one fewer Olympic controversy this morning. That's because boxing, a
sport that seems determined to sink under its own stupidity, has suddenly
made it more important to test the reflexes of its judges than its boxers.
See if you can follow this:
Over the weekend, a panel of five judged a flyweight bout, and they all
agreed that Eric Griffin, the captain of the U.S. team, handily defeated a
Spaniard named Rafael Lozano.
Now. Getting five boxing judges to agree on anything is like getting Iraq
and Kuwait to spend Christmas together. Yet there it was. Five judges. All
said Griffin won. So what do they do?
They give the fight to the Spaniard.
For this they blame the computer. Yes. The computer has arrived in
Olympic boxing, and, as with any field when computers are introduced, the
result is a group of otherwise seemingly mature, breathing adults, turning
into potato heads.
This is how the boxing computer is supposed to work: Judges keep one thumb
on a blue button (for the blue fighter) and one thumb on a red button (for the
red fighter.) They press the appropriate button when they think a "scoring"
punch has landed -- not that anyone knows what a "scoring" punch is -- and
they try to keep up with the fight. They are sort of like contestants on
"Family Feud" without all the kissing.
But here is the problem: A punch is only "officially" counted if three of
the five judges press the same button within one second of each other.
Otherwise, no points.
So, in theory, a boxer could get knocked out of the ring, and if three of
the judges were a little slow in pressing the button, they could wind up
giving the guy a gold medal.
Assuming they could wake him up.
Regurgitating the past
Only boxing could think up this system -- and claim they did it to
eliminate controversy from their sport. Good thinking, fellas. And now, for
your next trick, world peace.
Let's face it. Controversy is as much a part of boxing as bleeding.
Especially at the Olympics. Over the years teams have protested, walked out,
sat in the ring and even attacked the judges over bad decisions.
Once a Spanish fighter got so fed up, he turned and punched the referee in
the face. I'm not sure how they scored that one.
The most recent controversy -- before this weekend -- was in South Korea
four years ago, when American Roy Jones was robbed of his gold medal by judges
who gave the fight to a home-country favorite named Park Si-hun. A French
newspaper summed up the decision with the headline "TO VOMIT."
Ah, the French. Such a way with words.
Anyhow, it was this awful Roy Jones decision that led to the new system
of scoring -- and we can see how well this is gonna work. Have you ever
watched a kid and his Grandpa sit down at a video game, and Grandpa says, "All
right, now, Billy, how does this thing --"
And the kid already has 8,000 points?
Well, picture a bunch of balding boxing judges trying to 1) watch a flurry
of punches, 2) determine which ones landed, 3) who threw them, 4) how many
times they should press a button, 5) oops, which color button? 6) all within
one second of one another?
No wonder Griffin got robbed. He punches so quickly, the judges were
probably paralyzed.
"They turned my kid from a million dollar fighter to a $300 a night
fighter," moaned Bob Jordan, a Tennessee businessman who is also Griffin's
sponsor. He appealed the decision. He lost.
"What do we have to do to get a fair fight over here? I think every
American should write their damn congressman and tell him to stop foreign aid.
Without us, these jerkwater foreign countries would dry up."
Did he say his name was Bob, or Billy Bob?
Button pushers screwed up
Anyhow, here's the most amazing thing about Griffin's fight: On their own
screens, every judge had Griffin outslugging the Spaniard. One judge counted
29 scoring punches for the American. If you added the total cards, it came
out 81 punches for Griffin, 50 for Lozano.
Yet when the computer score came out, it was Lozano 6, Griffin 5.
Five punches? For the whole fight? Obviously, we need to take these
judges to a video arcade.
Lord knows how many more times this system will backfire. Meanwhile, who
takes care of Griffin? The guy was a gold-medal favorite, a four-time world
champion. He worked as a dishwasher to get here. He trains in a converted
drugstore in Tennessee. An Olympic title could have put his life on a
different track. He has a baby son. What will he tell him about these
Olympics?
"It's funny," Griffin sighed on Sunday. "When I heard about the computers,
I thought it was safe. I thought computers don't lie."
Yeah. And judges don't screw up. Before the Olympics, Griffin told a
reporter he was coming to Barcelona because "I always wanted to be something."
Now he is. A victim.
Leave it to boxing.