Boxing.com

The Malignaggi vs. Cano split decision Saturday night drew a bit of controversy. Here we do not take a normative position, but rather, we examine the round by round scoring for consistency. Judges Tom Miller and Nelson Vasquez saw it 114-113 for Malignaggi, while judge Glenn Feldman inked a 119-109 tally for the challenger Cano. But the total scores of this very competitive fight are a bit misleading. At face value, the total scores indicate that judges Miller and Vasquez saw the fight exactly the same, while judge Feldman was off-base. However, when we calculate the Pod Index for round by round consistency, we see a somewhat different picture. The judges were actually in agreement in five of the 12 rounds. In the seven split rounds, Glenn Feldman was in the minority five times, while Tom Miller dissented twice. Impressively, Nelson Vazquez was a part of the majority or unanimous opinion in all 12 rounds. The total Pod Index for the match was 61.1%—8 percentage points below the 69.6% overall average for fights falling in the most competitive category.

These three judges are all veterans with strong track records of consistency in championship fights over the past four years. Below is snapshot of their overall Pod Index scores, along with the average score of all judges. The numbers indicate that Malignaggi-Cano was most likely one of those fights where each judge’s style preference and vantage point had a noticeable influence on the results. My conclusion: three quality judges, who typically score fights consistently with their counterparts, had a legitimate difference of opinion on Saturday night.