Boxing judges score fights using the 10-point must system. Three ringside judges independently score each round, awarding 10 points to the winner of the round and 9 or fewer to the other fighter. At the end of the fight, the three scorecards are added up to determine the winner by unanimous, split, or majority decision.

That’s the simple version. The reality is messier, and understanding how the system actually works explains why so many decisions feel wrong.

How the 10-Point Must System Works

Every round starts at 10–10. The judge watches the full three minutes, then decides who won the round. The winner gets 10 points. The loser gets 9. If there’s a knockdown, the fighter who got dropped loses an additional point, making it a 10–8 round. Two knockdowns in the same round typically means 10–7. A rare dominant round with no knockdown can still be scored 10–8 if the gap in performance is overwhelming.

An even round — where neither fighter clearly won — can technically be scored 10–10, but judges are discouraged from doing this. The system is called “must” because someone must get 10 points every round. Judges are pushed to pick a winner, even in close rounds. This is where the controversy starts.

What Judges Are Actually Looking For

The four official scoring criteria, in order of importance, are clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship, and defense. In practice, most rounds come down to one question: who landed the cleaner, harder shots?

Clean punching is king. A fighter who lands 15 sharp, accurate punches will almost always outscore someone who throws 50 and lands 20 sloppy ones. Judges are trained to value quality over volume. This is why counter-punchers like Floyd Mayweather consistently win decisions even when the other fighter appears busier.

Effective aggressiveness matters, but only if it leads to landing. Walking forward and throwing punches that miss or get blocked earns nothing. Pressing the action while connecting is what judges reward. There’s a reason the word “effective” is in there.

Ring generalship is about who controls the geography of the fight. Who dictates where the action happens? Who cuts off the ring? Who makes the other fighter fight on their terms? This rarely decides a round on its own but can tip a close one.

Defense is the tiebreaker. Making an opponent miss, rolling with punches, slipping shots cleanly — these count. But defense alone won’t win rounds. You still have to punch back.

Why Decisions Feel Wrong So Often

The biggest source of controversy is that judges see different things depending on their seat. A judge sitting on the south side of the ring may see a jab land clean that looks like it missed from the north side. Multiply that by 36 minutes of action across 12 rounds, and three judges can walk away with genuinely different takes on the same fight.

There’s also the problem of round-by-round scoring. A fighter can dominate 6 rounds clearly but lose the other 6 by razor-thin margins and still lose the fight on the cards. The system doesn’t account for how much you won a round by — a 10–9 is a 10–9 whether you barely edged it or put the other guy on roller skates.

Why This Matters in a Real Fight

The Canelo Álvarez–Gennadiy Golovkin first fight in 2017 is the textbook example. One judge scored it 118–110 for Canelo, a score so wide it was almost universally ridiculed. The other two had it a draw and 115–113 for GGG. Three trained professionals watched the same 12 rounds and came away with three wildly different conclusions. That’s not a broken system — it’s a human one. And as long as boxing uses human judges sitting in three different seats, close fights will produce controversial cards.