Artur Bazeyan’s European Championship quarterfinal in Sofia ended with a 4:1 split decision for
North Macedonia’s Alen Rustemovski on September 23, 2026. That figure describes how the
judges divided over the winner. It does not mean Rustemovski won four rounds and Bazeyan
won one, or that three points separated them. The distinction becomes easier to follow once
the judges’ verdicts and their scorecard totals are treated as separate records.
World Boxing’s report from the championships placed the bout in the men’s 60kg division and
recorded Rustemovski’s progression to the semifinals, securing at least bronze. Its result
summaries use split and unanimous labels alongside numerical verdicts. Those labels describe
agreement across the panel; each judge’s individual score supplies a different level of detail.
From Scorecard to Decision

In the three-judge professional boxing classifications used at Lucky Rebel, a unanimous
decision means all three judges favor the winner. A split decision means two favor the winner
and one favors the opponent. A majority decision means two favor the winner while the third
records a draw. Each term describes the relationship between the judges’ final verdicts, rather
than a combined points total for the fight.
Both split and majority decisions give the winner two of the three cards. The difference lies in
the remaining judge’s conclusion. A split verdict records a preference for the opponent,
whereas a majority verdict includes an even card. The word “majority” therefore has a specific
meaning in the result, beyond simply saying that most judges favored the winner.

ALT text: Unanimous, split, and majority decisions
Image Source: Created with AI
Each scorecard remains a separate record. Its points determine whether that judge favors one
boxer or has a draw, and the decision label describes how those individual conclusions align.
Agreement on a winner does not require identical totals. Judges can reach the same final choice
through different assessments of the action.
What Sofia’s Five-Judge Results Show
The Sofia results involved five judges, so their numerical verdicts should remain separate from
the three-card professional classifications. Rustemovski’s 4:1 result means four judges favored
him and one favored Bazeyan. The announcement identifies the division within that panel
without revealing the points on any individual card.
Sara Cirkovic’s 3:2 victory over Buse Naz Cakiroglu in the women’s 54kg division was also a split
decision, with three judges favoring Cirkovic and two favoring Cakiroglu. Compared with
Rustemovski’s result, the judges were more divided over the winner. That comparison concerns
their final choices. It does not establish that Cirkovic’s bout had narrower scorecard margins,
closer rounds, or a smaller difference in punches landed.
Azaliia Amineva’s 5:0 verdict against Armenia’s Elida Kocharyan supplies the unanimous
contrast: every judge favored the same boxer. That result came in the women’s 65kg
competition and took Amineva into the final. Here, the announcement establishes agreement
across all five cards, while leaving their exact totals unstated. The result gives the winner and
the panel’s division, without a numerical account of each judge’s scoring.
Bivol’s Three Cards Explain a Majority Decision
The published scores from Dmitrii Bivol’s rematch with Artur Beterbiev supply that numerical
detail. Bivol won their 12-round professional light heavyweight contest in Riyadh by majority
decision on February 22, 2025. The World Boxing Organization reported the three judges’ final
scorecard totals:
Published score Judge’s verdict
114-114 Draw
116-112 Bivol
115-113 Bivol

The drawn card explains the word “majority.” Two judges favored Bivol, while the third favored
neither boxer. It was not a split decision because the remaining card did not award the contest
to Beterbiev. Nor was it unanimous, because one judge had an even score.
The figures on these cards are points, rather than counts of punches landed. Each row records
one judge’s assessment of the same 12-round contest. The two winning cards also identify the
direction of the score: Bivol had the higher total, while Beterbiev had the lower one.
The two winning cards show why agreement and margin need separate explanations. One gave
Bivol a four-point advantage and the other a two-point advantage. Those judges agreed on the
winner while recording different numerical margins. The third card recorded no points
advantage at all.
Each winning card contributes one verdict for Bivol, regardless of its points margin. The four-
point and two-point advantages remain separate details of the judges’ assessments. Alongside
the drawn card, they produce the majority decision. Adding the three cards into one combined
score would discard the individual verdicts and conceal the role of the 114-114 card in the
announced result.
The WBO also records Beterbiev’s majority-decision victory in their October 2024 meeting,
showing that the same category applied when the winner changed.
The published totals do not, by themselves, identify every round each judge awarded. They
show the final numerical positions. A fuller account of where the judges agreed or differed
would require the scoring within the cards, beyond the totals reported here.
What a Decision Label Leaves Open
The judges’ agreement describes the outcome more clearly than words such as “dominant” or
“comfortable.” A unanimous result establishes a shared winner, while an account of dominance
needs evidence about the contest itself. Even published final totals leave the sequence of
scoring within the bout unexplained.
Bazeyan’s reported result and Bivol’s published totals therefore offer different amounts of
detail. One gives the division between judges; the other also supplies their final points. Keeping
both forms of information intact makes the announcement understandable without turning it
into a claim about dominance, judging quality, or what happened in every round.