DON’T LEAVE IT TO THE JUDGES

WEEK OF 2/09/26

 

You hear this all the time in combat sports:  never leave it to the judges.

And, admittedly, that’s a great perspective to have.  But it can cut in two ways.

On one hand, judges are fallible, and they sometimes get it wrong.  Leaving it to the judges introduces some margin of error that may not be in your favor.  Sometimes you rightly should have won, but they men and women in charge see it differently.  Such is sport.  Your outward performance will always be seen through the lens of the observer, whether it’s your coach, the crowd, your supporters, or in this case, the judges.

I prefer not to subscribe to the adage when it relates to the above meaning.  Yes, judges are fallible.  They often get it wrong.  But sometimes that’s in your favor, so it’s a wash, isn’t it?  There’s nothing inherently unfair about judging (corruption notwithstanding), and distilling winning and losing into a decision handed down by a third party is just, well, just.

On the other hand, not leaving it in the hands of the judges can also be about inner performance.  I have absolutely “won” fights in which I didn’t perform or show up well, and I’ve absolutely lost fights where I was incredibly proud of my performance.  The wins felt more like losses, and the losses felt more like wins.  Taking an L on your record always hurts, but getting a W on your record when you merely skate by and survive doesn’t feel great either.  In many ways, it can feel worse.

I write this on the heels of a split decision loss this past weekend in NYC.  Sure, objectively, I think our fighter, Dashaun, won.  I think he did more than enough to get the split decision win and I disagree with any notion that he lost the third round.  Objectively speaking, I think the judges got it wrong.  Unfortunately, my opinion doesn’t objectively matter here.

However, I know how much potential Dashaun has, and he wasn’t able to calibrate and line it up properly in the ring.  Would having his hand raised at the end of the fight change that?  Would the win be any more of a victory simply because some third party observers decided it to be?  In the context of the fight night, I don’t think Dashaun would have won even if he had his hand raised.  Why?  Because he didn’t get to display the full range of his skills, and as a game athlete I know he wasn’t going to be happy with his performance either way.  Winning a fight that you didn’t perform well in can feel like a loss, and can haunt you in ways that mess with your confidence.  If we view an athlete’s career holistically, across long time horizons, better to have these formative and challenging experiences early on so you are oriented in the right direction from the start.

So when we say “never leave it up to the judges,” we can mean a few things.  For me, it means to never let a third party tell you whether you are a winner or a loser.  The only once who can decide that is you.