by David P. Greisman

One school of thought is that Andy Lee’s seventh-round knockdown of Peter Quillin this past Saturday provded to be the difference between him losing and the actual result of a split draw.

But even with that knockdown, there is one other thing that proved to be the difference between a draw and a defeat — how judge Glenn Feldman scored the third round, in which Quillin scored his second knockdown on Lee of the evening.

Feldman had it 10-9 for Quillin, while judges Guido Cavalleri and Eric Marlinski had it 10-8.

Cavalleri’s final scorecard was 113-112 for Lee. Marlinski’s final scorecard was 113-112 for Quillin. Feldman was the judge who had it a 113-113 draw. And if Feldman had given a 10-8 score to Quillin for the third instead of a 10-9, he would’ve had Quillin ahead at the end by a score of 113-112, giving Quillin the split decision victory.

Meanwhile, if Cavalleri and Marlinski had decided to score the knockdown round at 10-9, like Feldman did, there wouldn’t have been a chance in the final result. It would’ve been a majority draw instead of a split draw, with what would’ve been final scores of 113-113 on two cards and 114-112 for Lee on the third.

Otherwise, there was very little disagreement between the three judges.

All of them had Quillin taking rounds 1-3, then Lee taking Round 4.

All of them had Quillin taking Round 5, then Lee taking rounds 6 and 7.

All of them had Lee winning round 9 and 11, then Quillin taking Round 12.

The only other variance was in rounds 8 and 10.

Cavalleri and Feldman had Lee winning Round 8. Marlinski had it for Quillin.

Cavalleri and Marlinski had Quillin winning round 10. Feldman had it for Lee.

If you were to make those outliers agree with the majority, then the final cards would’ve been Cavalleri still scoring it 113-112 for Lee, Feldman scoring it 114-112 for Quillin (or 114-111 if he’d also had a 10-8 round in the third), and Marlinski having it 113-112 for Lee, making it a close split decision for Lee.

Then again, if we were to take a score from “majority rules” — in which a fighter gets the edge from at least 2 of the 3 judges for that round — then there would’ve been six rounds apiece for each man. Take off the knockdowns, and include a 10-8 round for Quillin in the third, and the score would’ve been 113-112 for Quillin.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com