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The sport of boxing is centuries old, with the first records dating back to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt (Kuch, 2024). Over the centuries, it has gone through many phases and rules. The current base of boxing rules was developed around 1867, by John Graham Chambers, and have slightly changed and developed over recent years. Since then boxing has become massively popular with already over 8 million people practicing the sweet science in the U.S. alone (Statista, 2024). With gambling on fights, sponsor money and in more recent years broadcasting of fights, there is a lot of money to be made in professional boxing. This has always come with a lot of corruption, may it be the mafia, fighters, or other entities fixing fights, the sports have always been infiltrated with money greedy people (Povolotski, 2022).

One place where GenAI could help get rid of this corruption would be with the judges. Over the past couple of years, some companies like Deepstrike, a tech start up by Jabbr, have been working on the creation of an AI judge. Implementing over 50 metrics, looking at punch type, punches landed, aggression, and defense (Boxbox, 2022). It takes footage from amateur smartphones and/or professionally recorded footage and analyses this. The idea is to reduce or eliminate human error, bias, and corruption all in one (Yahoo Is Part of the Yahoo Family of Brands, 2023).

By implementing the AI judge, a level of objectivity can be implemented, which is hard for judges to achieve. By full analysis of the fight video data, the AI can generate an unbiased score and help eliminate favoritism, style preferences, or human error. The transparency and objective view that comes with an AI-driven decision could help people gain more trust back into the sport, as currently there still are a lot of controversies within the sport.

It might also help with viewer engagement, through in-depth analytics during live broadcasts. AI can break down each round, show highlights and mark insights on why one fighter is outperforming the other. These analytics can make the fight a lot more engaging for viewers, offering detailed metrics such as punch count, movement patterns, and punch speed. Apart from showing more information depth to current fans, it could also attract new fans and sponsors, boosting further transparency and appeal.

Although, this AI judge could help with a lot of problems within current boxing, a lot of people are not big fans of this implementation (Reddit – Does Anyone Think AI Judges Could Be a Thing in Boxing ?, 2022). Boxing is not just a sport driven by data, there are loads of factors that are extremely hard to impossible to quantify into metrics. Think of ring generalship, controlling the pace and fighter heart, which could influence a human judge towards one fighter over the other. So although AI can track physical metrics, it may not be able to judge little nuances and context of the fight. Having a human judge, with countless hours of experience and the ability to interpret situations data won’t be able to tell, is worth a lot to much.

References:

Boxbox. (2022, October 20). AI boxing judge. Superinnovators. https://superinnovators.com/2022/10/ai-boxing-judge/

Kuch, M. (2024, September 23). Boxing History: Timeline & How it started. SportsFoundation. https://sportsfoundation.org/boxing-history/

Povolotski, G. (2022, June 1). How corrupt is professional boxing? from the past until today. Fighting Advice. https://fightingadvice.com/corruption-in-pro-boxing/

Reddit – Does anyone think AI judges could be A thing in boxing ? (2022). Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Boxing/comments/10lvz86/does_anyone_think_ai_judges_could_be_a_thing_in/

Statista. (2024, April 25). Boxing participation in the U.S. 2018-2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/191905/participants-in-boxing-in-the-us-since-2006/

Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands. (2023, July 30). https://sports.yahoo.com/future-ai-judging-boxing-just-151357959.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA30yy3nOdHEKtz-5HeC7P_Xr-TlbDN38-BRcROpySs9G9rPPKfsjGO4A4wDB7Vweausr5KsQYXQdJeYGMsC6aO9JYzaTgwK8KCxxDo0H_0U2ibq_JhuZGsDHXzN5qSP_9LcCfCE0TGodXpP6dtTZ72c_Zf87JZXLBr5t797bxik

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Can AI help a runner qualify for the Olympics? The short answer is yes. This year Olympics is the first to co-exist with ChatGPT and some athletes have used this AI to their benefit. John Heymans, a 5000-meter track runner, was also determined to qualify for the 2024 Olympics. He did have a problem, in 2022 he was still ranked outside the top 150 of the world and therefore nowhere near being able to qualify. John used the power of AI to his advantage to go from outside the top 150 world ranking to 42^nd place in only 2 years (Instagram, 2024). He scrapped the internet for historic data on races around the world that helped previous track athletes increase their overall ranking, and let ChatGPT solve an optimization problem to calculate which races would be most beneficial for him. He followed the suggested plan, qualified for the Olympics, and became 11^th in the final (Sporza, 2024).

A truly insane performance, but how could AI be beneficial for the average runner? Over the years, there have been several products popping up that incorporate AI to give runners better insight into their fitness levels. In 2023 Garmin, a technology company that sells activity trackers, releases their AI-generated workouts (Introducing Garmin’s Daily Workout Suggestions for Runners | Garmin, 2022). It gives you automated training plans based on all the data the watch collects. Herman Bonner, who works for one of Garmin’s daughter companies, says the biggest challenge is trust, “Anytime you’re giving advice, you first have to prove you are trustworthy” (Cochrane & Cochrane, 2023). The big question is, how far can AI take you in your journey to the Olympics? This of course depends on a million and one factors, and although for most people the AI-suggested workouts are probably not the most optimal way of training. Nevertheless, it’s still a good tool for people who have no idea how to train or are looking for new innovative ways to train (Cochrane & Cochrane, 2023).

References:

Cochrane, A., & Cochrane, A. (2023a, July 19). One runner followed his watch’s AI training plans for a month. Here’s what happened. Trail Runner Magazine. https://www.trailrunnermag.com/training/running-watch-ai-training-advice/

Cochrane, A., & Cochrane, A. (2023b, July 19). One runner followed his watch’s AI training plans for a month. Here’s what happened. Trail Runner Magazine. https://www.trailrunnermag.com/training/running-watch-ai-training-advice/

Introducing Garmin’s daily workout suggestions for runners | Garmin. (2022, June 27). Garmin Blog. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fitness/daily-workout-suggestions-for-runners/

Sporza. (2024, August 7). John Heymans, de bevlogen bio-ingenieur die dankzij ChatGPT in de olympische finale staat: “Het is gestoord.” sporza.be. https://sporza.be/nl/2024/08/07/john-heymans-de-bevlogen-bio-ingenieur-die-dankzij-chatgpt-in-de-olympische-finale-staat-het-is-gestoord~1723027243763/