Stop scoring fights like you're handing out participation trophies
I'm going to keep this short because the underlying point is short. The four scoring criteria are: clean punching, effective aggression, ring generalship, defense. In that order. The order matters. Read it again.
Clean punching is first. Not most punches. Not hardest punches. Clean punches — punches that land flush, with the knuckle, on a target that wasn't ready for them. A telegraphed haymaker that lands on a glove is not a clean punch. A short hook on the inside that the other guy didn't see is. If you can't tell which is which during the fight, watch the replay. It's slower.
Effective aggression is second, and it has the word "effective" in front of it for a reason. Walking forward into a jab is not effective. It is, in fact, the opposite of effective. It is a fighter purchasing damage on credit. Every time I see a card scored for the guy moving forward and eating shots, I want to mail the judge a dictionary with that word circled.
Ring generalship is third. This is where the casuals and the professionals tend to disagree the most. Ring generalship is not movement. It is control. A fighter who stands in the center of the ring and makes the other man come to him on his terms is exhibiting more generalship than a fighter circling the perimeter at speed. The center is the throne. Whoever sits in it gets the round, all else equal.
Defense is fourth and it is criminally underweighted by every commission in the sport. A fighter who makes the other guy miss eighty percent of his power shots has done more work than a fighter who lands forty percent of his. The card should reflect that. It rarely does. That is a problem with the people filling out the cards, not the criteria.
None of this is new. None of this is mine. It's been written down for decades. The fact that we have the same arguments after every close fight is not because the rules are unclear. It's because the people getting paid to apply them aren't reading them.
If you want the long version — with my round-by-round worksheet and a few examples of cards I've filled in real time on replay — I wrote it up on the scorecard page. It is free. It will remain free. I am not selling a course.