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Lawrence Okolie vs Chris Billam-Smith: Take part in the Viewers' Verdict experience on the Sky Sports App tonight

Download the Sky Sports App to take part in the Viewers' Verdict experience and score the fights live during the Lawrence Okolie vs Chris Billam-Smith bill on Saturday night; the viewers' overall score will be shared on the television broadcast

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Natasha Jonas sits down with Phil Edwards from the British Boxing Board of Control to explain how a boxing fight is scored

Scoring a fight always creates plenty of debate, but you can deliver your own judge's decision during Saturday's Lawrence Okolie vs Chris Billam-Smith bill.

With the Viewers' Verdict feature, Sky Sports wants to know how you are scoring the action during Saturday night's show, live from the Vitality stadium at 7pm.

Users of the Sky Sports App will be able to score the Okolie vs Billam-Smith, Sam Eggington vs Joe Pigford, Karriss Artingstall vs Jade Taylor and Lee Cutler vs Stanley Stannard fights with our Viewers' Verdict experience.

Download the app now to play along on Saturday night.

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Lawrence Okolie and Chris Billam-Smith faced off on Bournemouth pier ahead of their clash at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday.

The audience's overall score will be shared on the live television broadcast.

How to score a fight

Professional boxing is scored round by round on a '10-points must' scoring system.

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The winner of each round is awarded 10 points and the loser typically receives nine.

If a boxer loses the round and is also knocked down, they will receive a score of eight, or, if knocked down twice, seven.

If both boxers are knocked down, these essentially cancel once another out and the winner of the round will take it on a 10-9 margin.

On rare occasions it can happen that if a fighter totally dominates a round, without knocking down the opponent, they can win the round 10-8.

It can happen that despite a knockdown a boxer is adjudged to have soundly won the rest of the round, a judge can then score it 10-9 in their favour.

Live Fight Night

A round can be scored level at 10-10 if the two fighters really can't be separated, but it is good practice to try to identify the winner.

The referee can take a point away from a boxer for infractions. This can be immediately for a deliberate foul (e.g. a head butt, hitting below the belt, biting etc.) or repeatedly committing an accidental foul too often (like holding too much for instance).

How to win a round

The judges are looking for clean scoring punches and volume of landed punches to decide which boxer has the edge.

"By a scoring punch, I'm talking about a punch that lands with the knuckle part of the glove on the target area, which is basically the front and the side of the head and the front and side of the torso down to a line across the top of the hip bones," seasoned British Boxing of Control referee and judge Phil Edwards explained.

"Also which boxer is taking the initiative, if you like being effectively aggressive. But also which boxer is defending well and is imposing his or her will on the opponent, making the opponent fight his or her fight."

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Watch Lawrence Okolie vs Chris Billam-Smith live from 7pm on Sky Sports Action and Sky Showcase

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