‘Fighting Words’ — Revisiting Vergil Ortiz-Serhii Bohachuk and settling some misconceptions

There is text, and then there is subtext.

As promoter Tom Loeffler and trainer Manny Robles spoke following Serhii Bohachuk’s decision loss to Vergil Ortiz Jr. on August 10, there was the text — they spoke of what they considered an incorrect result, scorecards they believed should have gone their fighter’s way.

And then there was the subtext. This was not so much about a robbery (a term they never used) as about the ramifications. 

To them, Bohachuk is not merely the fighter they work with and have invested considerable time and money in, but a person they’ve mentored, someone they care for. They described how Bohachuk was able to get permission to leave Ukraine while his home country is at war, and the journey it took for Bohachuk to eventually land in the United States.

“And then to lose a decision, lose a fight like this, that’s the part that makes it frustrating,” Loeffler said.

“You have to understand: You’re not just a coach,” said Robles. “You’re like a father figure to him. You change their lives.”

The rest went unsaid but remained understood: A win would have been hugely significant for Bohachuk, who is not signed to any of boxing’s foremost promoters, networks or streaming services. A loss could be tremendously consequential for the same reasons.

With Bohachuk and Ortiz each no longer in the arena, asked by the athletic commission to go to the hospital for precautionary scans given their 12-round war, Loeffler and Robles sought to make a case. 

This was foremost an emotional response from them, but it also served to start a drumbeat so that the WBC might grant Bohachuk another opportunity, so that the people who pay for the fights — including streaming network DAZN and boxing financier Turki Alalshikh — may potentially be sold on a rematch, or at least on having Bohachuk back against another major opponent.

It’s a rational approach. That doesn’t mean that all of their arguments are correct.

This is not to single Loeffler and Robles out. It is less offensive for them to advocate for their fighter when he loses a close fight, even if it wasn’t a robbery, than it would be if they said nothing, or merely shrugged and concluded that the result could have gone either way. They recognized that Ortiz vs. Bohachuk was close; they just feel that Bohachuk should’ve had his name read and gloves raised.

Nothing Loeffler and Robles said is any different than what any other promoters and trainers claim when they feel their fighter got the short end of a decision. But theirs is the most recent example — and so this column serves to provide some truths, nuances, and counterpoints to the arguments that tend to come up after close fights.

Topic: The fighter who lands more punches deserves to win

“Serhii was pressing the action, he was coming forward, he was landing more punches than Vergil,” Loeffler initially said at the post-fight press conference. In truth, CompuBox had Ortiz out-landing Bohachuk in total punches, 265-225, including in power shots, 189-143.

“You can’t score a fight by CompuBox,” Loeffler later posted on X. “Even if you do, Serhii still won the fight with the knockdowns in rounds 1 and 8 and landing more punches in four other rounds. If you scored by CompuBox, Bohachuk wins by two points.”

Let’s take this one piece at a time.

According to CompuBox, Bohachuk out-landed Ortiz in total punches in rounds four, six, seven and 10. He out-landed Ortiz in power punches in rounds four and six, and had the same number as Ortiz in the seventh.

If you were to award Bohachuk the first, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and 10th rounds, then yes, with the knockdowns, Bohachuk would win 114-112.

But as Loeffler said, one cannot score a fight by CompuBox alone. CompuBox statistics can help support a larger storyline, but they cannot be the main driver of an argument.

As we all know, CompuBox doesn’t tell us how hard one fighter’s shots were as opposed to his opponent’s punches. It doesn’t tell us how cleanly a punch landed, how much of an effect it had, and so on.

So in a round like the sixth — when Bohachuk landed 22 punches to Ortiz’s 20, including 11 power shots to Ortiz’s 9 — the statistics alone cannot indicate who deserved the judges’ nod.

Even larger statistical margins over the course of a full fight don’t necessarily tell the complete story. Out-landing your opponent by 40 punches over the course of 12 rounds means, on average, you landed about three more punches per round than your foe, or one more punch per minute. That is not a huge statistical margin. 

On a round-by-round basis, in the eight rounds where he out-landed Bohachuk, Ortiz was better than that average; he had three rounds where he landed four or fewer punches more than Bohachuk did. The actual margins were 8, 13, 4, 2, 6, 2, 10 and 6.

But again, fights are judged based on what those gloved fists do in those individual three-minute periods, not on what the fingers hitting the CompuBox buttons count. To boil it down as simply as possible, judges look for who did better on offense and defense.

To the judges, Ortiz did better than Bohachuk in more rounds.

Topic: One fighter knocked the other down multiple times

“The decision should’ve went our way. Sometimes you’re watching a close fight and you try to find a way to say, ‘OK, well he got a 10-8, it’s a close fight, but what’s going to make the difference is a knockdown. In this case there wasn’t one knockdown. There was two knockdowns. And we still didn’t get the decision,” Robles said at the post-fight press conference.

“With the second knockdown, I figured there was no way they can overcome two knockdowns, and somehow they figured out a way to do that,” Loeffler added.

Wladimir Klitschko, whom Loeffler promoted, was knocked down three times by Samuel Peter in their 2005 fight, but Klitschko still won the unanimous decision. The scorecards all read 114-111, which meant Klitschko had won nine rounds and lost only the three in which he visited the canvas.

Interestingly, Peter was later on the victorious end of a similar phenomenon, sent to the canvas three times by Jameel McCline but winning by unanimous decision in 2007.

For Bohachuk to have won by decision, he would’ve needed to win six rounds, which Loeffler believes his fighter did. Alas, two judges had the fight 114-112 for Ortiz, giving eight rounds and Bohachuk four, while the third judge had it 113-113, or seven rounds to five.

Side note: Knockdowns aren’t automatic 10-8 rounds

The Association of Boxing Commissions’ guidelines for judges include a general principle and an important caveat.

The general principle for a 10-8 round: “One knockdown, or one boxer wins the round in an extremely decisive manner, including hurting their opponent. This is particularly

true if one boxer has done nothing offensively in a round (runs or just survives by

being in a defensive mode throughout the round).”

The important caveat: “If Boxer A scores a knockdown, the round should be scored 10-8 for Boxer A. However, if the balance of the round is decisively and dominantly won by Boxer B, and Boxer B has actually hurt Boxer A during this time – you may score this round 10-9 for Boxer A.

A 10-10 in this circumstance is not advisable.”

The guidelines also emphasize this: “Do not assume that a knockdown for a boxer gives him an automatic 10-8 round (especially if the knockdown occurs early in the round). You must score the entire round.”

Although I didn’t score the fight live from my seat in press row, I noted while watching the fight that Ortiz had battled back after that Round 8 knockdown, and I believed it should have been a 10-9 round for Bohachuk.

All three official judges disagreed with me. They awarded Round 1 and Round 8 to Bohachuk with 10-8 scores. 

Topic: Close rounds and close fights

“You can’t give every close round to Vergil,” Loeffler said at the post-fight press conference.

Sure you can.

“Be cautious of close rounds,” reads the Association of Boxing Commissions’ guidelines for judges. “If one fighter wins all the rounds by the slimmest of margins, your championship score could read 120-108. Do not award rounds just to make your scorecard closer in a close fight unless the fighter deserves it.”

The official judges do not have the luxury of providing a grander perspective on the action. Their scores are their scores.

However, the rest of us unofficial scorers can and should recognize the subjectivity of close rounds and make note of when there are these “swing rounds.”

Then, when the fight is over, we should look at our final tally, then turn those swing rounds in the other fighter’s direction — and this will reveal an acceptable range of scores.

I did this after the first fight between Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward. I scored that fight for Kovalev but did not feel that the decision, razor-thin for Ward, was a robbery. My column at the time examined the official scorecards, as well as several from us unofficial observers, to examine why.

As for Ortiz vs. Bohachuk, just going by the official scorecards, the judges only disagreed on three rounds:

– Round 6: David Sutherland and Steve Weisfeld gave it to Ortiz; Max DeLuca gave it to Bohachuk

– Round 7: DeLuca and Weisfeld gave it to Bohachuk; Sutherland gave it to Ortiz

– Round 9: DeLuca and Weisfeld gave it to Ortiz; Sutherland gave it to Bohachuk

At the end of the fight, Sutherland and Weisfeld had Ortiz winning 114-112 while DeLuca had it even at 113-113.

If you take their swing rounds: All three judges’ scores could’ve been anywhere from 115-111 for Ortiz to 114-112 for Bohachuk — which is the exact score that Loeffler says is possible if you were to go by the four rounds Bohachuk out-landed Ortiz plus the two rounds with the knockdowns.

Topic: Look at the other guy’s face

“If you look at Vergil’s face, I think that kind of tells the story of this fight,” Loeffler said at the post-fight press conference.

“Serhii arriving at his after-fight party like the champion that he is, face looking clean as he rolled with many punches,” Loeffler posted on X. “Vergil looking rough after 12 grueling rounds getting hit with clean punches to the head.”

Boxing matches are scored round-by-round, not wound-by-wound. Yes, cuts and swelling can lead to a fight ending by technical knockout or can change the course of a match, but otherwise one cannot always merely look at the two fighters’ faces and determine the deserving victor.

Tyson Fury had a nasty gash over his eye but won a comfortable decision over Otto Wallin. Meanwhile, Vitali Klitschko was ahead on the scorecards after six rounds with Lennox Lewis but had a horrifying cut that led to him losing by TKO.

According to the Association of Boxing Commissions’ guidelines for judges: “Judges should not be swayed by blood or the swelling of a boxer. There is no question that some fighters cut more easily than others. Just because a fighter is cut does not necessarily mean he is losing the round.”

Topic: Judges get away with it

“These officials, I don’t know what the fuck they’re looking at. And not only that. Nobody holds them accountable. They interview the fighters. They interview the judges, the managers, the promoters. Everybody except the judges. They [the judges] just go home and nobody tells them anything. Nobody questions them. Nobody puts them on the spot. I believe that’s got to stop. I believe they should be held accountable,” Robles said at the press conference.

This is dead-on from Robles. It’s exceedingly rare that judges have been held accountable by athletic commissions and sanctioning bodies, even though it is quite often that they should have at least been questioned about the logic behind their scores.

We boxing reporters need to do more to attempt to get boxing judges on the record. And given that they are unlikely to talk with us, we then need to contact the athletic commissions and sanctioning bodies to ask their thoughts on certain scorecards, whether any action will be taken, and why or why not.

Yes, scoring is subjective. But there are still fights where you can look at the action, and then look at how a judge saw it, and conclude that something is wrong.

Silver lining: Bohachuk should have another opportunity

“We’ll see what options there are. The great thing about the division, for Serhii and Vergil, is there’s other great fights out there for both of them,” Loeffler said at the post-fight press conference.

“One thing everyone can agree on is that it was a great fight between Serhii Bohachuk and Vergil Ortiz. The fans won, and both of these warriors deserve tons of credit for putting on one of the best fights that we’ve seen in a long time,” Loeffler posted on X.

“As much as we believe we won the fight, I learned one thing a long time ago from my dad, man,” Robles said. “What he would tell me is in victory you keep your head down and stay humble, and in defeat you keep your head up to show your dignity. And that’s what happened today.”

Loeffler’s wishes will hopefully become true. 

In my eyes, Bohachuk lost fair, but that does not mean he is a lost cause. He remains a junior middleweight contender in a division that is in flux in the wake of Jermell Charlo — formerly the undisputed 154-pound champion — vacating his world titles after going more than two years without defending them.

The thing that potentially works against Bohachuk can also be to his benefit. He isn’t with Top Rank or PBC or Golden Boy or Matchroom, isn’t signed to a deal with DAZN or ESPN. But he’s with a promoter who can work with all of the above. And Bohachuk, by elevating his stock against Ortiz, has helped his cause when other junior middleweights and their teams consider potential opponents. Bohachuk remains risky, but he also brings more reward than he did before the Ortiz match.

Yes, a win would have of course been better for Bohachuk’s career. He would have held on to the interim WBC belt he earned in March. Bohachuk was supposed to face Sebastian Fundora for the full WBC title on the undercard of Tim Tszyu vs. Keith Thurman. But when Thurman got injured, Fundora stepped in to face Tszyu, and that fight was suddenly for Tszyu’s WBO title and the vacant WBC. To protect Bohachuk’s position, his bout with replacement opponent Brian Mendoza was for the interim title.

That title is now Ortiz’s, which positions him as mandatory for the winner of an expected fight between Fundora and Errol Spence. 

Bohachuk isn’t out of the picture, though. If a rematch with Ortiz doesn’t happen, then he could aim for many of the other names.

Just like during his fight with Ortiz last week, Serhii Bohachuk will absorb this punishment but won’t go away easily. He’ll fire right back at the first chance he gets. 

And that chance will probably come soon, not just because of the words from his promoter and trainer, but because the fighter himself is a man of action.

Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2. His book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.