On televised broadcasts, unofficial scorers often cite CompuBox numbers as evidence to support their scorecards. At the end of the night, viewers are presented with a tidy final tally: here’s your winner, and here are the punch stats to prove it.
But here’s the thing: judges don’t see CompuBox numbers. And CompuBox doesn’t measure the things that actually decide a round.
CompuBox tracks punches thrown and landed – but it doesn’t assess the quality of the punches, the damage they cause, or the other nuances of a round. Nor was it ever designed to.
“It was never intended to be a substitute for judging,” said Bob Canobbio, who co-founded CompuBox with Logan Hobson in 1984. “We were trying to set up a statistical profile for the fighters – a barometer of activity on a round-by-round basis.”
That’s exactly what CompuBox does. It gives viewers a sense of tempo and output. But it doesn’t measure who’s dictating pace, who’s imposing style, or who’s landing the more telling blows.
A brief history: From PunchStat to CompuBox
Think back to what computers looked like in the mid-1980s – clunky machines with floppy disks and no hard drives.
“Originally, we were known as PunchStat,” Canobbio said. “We had these big old machines that looked like sewing machines. Our job was basically to populate the boxing database with as much information as we could about the fighters and the fights. Our first fight was [Livingston] Bramble vs. [Ray] Mancini in 1984 on HBO.”
In 1985, PunchStat became CompuBox – the system still used today. Over the decades, it became a staple of boxing broadcasts on HBO, Showtime, ESPN, DAZN and beyond. Even casual fans now expect to see punch stats alongside the tale of the tape and final scores.
How CompuBox works
CompuBox isn’t powered by AI or machine vision. It’s not automated. It’s run by two human operators, each assigned to one fighter. Watching the action ringside – or via a broadcast feed – they press buttons to log:
- Jabs thrown / landed
- Power punches thrown / landed (everything that isn’t a jab)
- Body shots thrown / landed
It’s a fast and often accurate system – but it’s entirely dependent on human perception and timing. In a flurry, one landed punch might get counted, another missed. A grazing shot might be logged as a clean hit. A partially blocked power punch might not be registered.
“We have about a 2 per cent margin of error,” Canobbio said. “I mean, we’re not going to get every punch. But if we weren’t as accurate as we are, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The key thing to remember: CompuBox was built to count punches – not evaluate them.
Quantity vs quality
That doesn’t mean the numbers are meaningless. More often than not, the busier, more accurate fighter does win.
“From my experience, I’d say 95 per cent of the time, the fighter who throws and lands more punches wins the fight,” Canobbio said. “Unless it’s a bad decision, it’s rare the guy getting outlanded gets the nod.”
I agree. But there are exceptions – and they matter.
Think of a fighter like Miguel Cotto, who was deliberate and economical but landed with bad intentions. Bernard Hopkins was surgical in his precision. James Toney didn’t throw in bunches, but when he did, he made it count. And of course, Floyd Mayweather Jnr is the textbook example of a fighter who could land fewer punches — but win the round.
What judges see – and what CompuBox doesn’t
Judges are trained to score rounds using four criteria:
- Clean punching
- Effective aggression
- Ring generalship
- Defense
A punch that barely lands – or lands with no impact – might still get logged by CompuBox. But a judge may see it as inconsequential. Meanwhile, a fighter who is controlling the ring and landing fewer, sharper punches can win rounds even if he is outlanded numerically.
The public perception gap
In the age of Twitter scorecards and instant takes, CompuBox has become a shorthand for judging, even though it was never meant for that role.
Networks flash round-by-round stats and fans assume the fighter with more landed punches “won the round.” But that leaves out the nuance, subjectivity and context that judges must bring to each call.
As judges, we don’t just tally punches. We assess them. What matters more: the quick tap jab or the hard counter right? The flashy flurry or the single shot that stops a fighter in his tracks?
The future: AI and automated scoring
There has been experimentation with using artificial intelligence to score fights. Could it be the wave of the future?
“So far, what I’ve seen hasn’t been very accurate,” Canobbio said. “But if a company teamed up with CompuBox to refine it, I think it is possible it could become a serious tool.”
Could it supplement judging one day? Maybe. But for now, the human eye – trained, experienced and in real time – remains essential.
Bottom line
CompuBox is useful – and no doubt enhances the fan experience. It adds context to broadcasts, gives talking points and often reflects what judges are seeing. But it’s not a scoring system, and it shouldn’t be treated like one.
It counts punches, not impact. It shows quantity, not quality.
So the next time the numbers don’t match the cards, maybe it’s not that the judges “got it wrong.” Maybe they were watching with trained eyes – and CompuBox was doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep count, not make judgment.
