There could well be some big changes to the way Tyson Fury versus Oleksandr Usyk is scored with the WBC president stating that the fight could see five judges involved.
This much anticipated clash has a rescheduled date of May 18, when the WBC and lineal heavyweight champion Fury and the WBA, WBO and IBF title holder Usyk finally come to blows out in Saudi Arabia after the first date was postponed due to a cut to Fury.
It has emerged that the WBC organisation is advocating for more ringside officials to score the bout with president Mauricio Sulaiman hoping that video replays will be implemented, explaining that any controversy in such a significant fight would be unacceptable.
He has in fact said to Sky Sports that he would like to see five or six judges at ringside.
“That is my recommendation. We will see. Boxing is a sport in which change is very difficult to get. We’re purists, traditionalists, we don’t want changes. I will continue to make the proposal. Some like the idea, some of the people in the decision-making process. We will see.
He went on to discuss a remote scoring system the WBC has developed for use in some situations.
“We do have a remote scoring system which is used for training and evaluating ring officials from all over the world. They score live in the WBC system that we developed.
“We have found through fights done in this system that the more officials that score a fight, the less possibility of a wrong decision. Anybody can have a bad night.
“If you have one judge have a bad night and the two others get it correct, you still save the fight. You have two judges with a difficult fight and then one round can shift the whole result. But if you have more officials then the possibility of a wrong score goes to a minimum. But we will see.
As this is the biggest heavyweight fight in 25 years, it is important to get the result right so these changes might well be welcomed by all.