If a knockout or disqualification does not occur, the fight is determined by decision. In the early days of boxing, the referee decided the winner by raising his arm at the end of the bout, a practice that is still used for some professional bouts in Britain. In the early twentieth century, it became common for the referee or judge to score bouts by the number of rounds won. To improve the reliability of scoring, two ringside judges were added besides the referee, and the winner was decided by majority decision. Since the late twentieth century, it has become common practice for all three judges to be ringside observers, though the referee still has the authority to stop a fight or deduct points. At the end of the fight, the judges add their scores for all rounds, and each judge thereby determines a winner. If all three judges choose the same fighter as the winner, that fighter wins by unanimous decision. If two judges have one boxer winning the fight and the third judge scores it a draw, the boxer wins by majority decision. If two judges have one boxer winning the fight and the third judge has the other boxer winning, the first boxer wins by split decision. If one judge chooses one boxer as the winner, the second judge chooses the other boxer, and the third judge calls it a draw, then the bout is ruled a draw. The bout is also ruled a draw if at least two out of three judges score the fight a draw, regardless of the third score. In the United Kingdom, the bout is only scored by the referee, except when a title is at stake, in which case it is scored by three judges.
10 Point System - so named because a judge "must" award ten points to at least one fighter each round (before deductions for fouls). Most rounds are scored 10-9, with 10 points for the fighter who won the round, and 9 points for the fighter the judge believes lost the round. If a round is judged to be even, it is scored 10-10. For each knockdown in a round, the judge deducts an additional point from the fighter knocked down, resulting in a 10-8 score if there is one knockdown or a 10-7 score if there are two knockdowns. If the referee instructs the judges to deduct a point for a foul, this deduction is applied after the preliminary computation. So, if a fighter wins a round, but is penalized for a foul, the score changes from 10-9 to 9-9. If that same fighter scored a knockdown in the round, the score would change from 10-8 in his favor to 9-8.
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