Key takeaways
- Result authority and upcoming-schedule authority use different source orders.
- An event being finished does not automatically verify every bout result field.
- A weaker source can fill an empty field but cannot erase a stronger accepted value.
- Schedule-only events remain useful calendar evidence, but are not complete fight guides.
Authority depends on the question
An athletic commission is positioned to publish the formal result it regulates, while a promotion normally knows its own upcoming card first. Fights Now therefore does not assign one universal source score to every fact. Administrator-reviewed corrections have the highest local authority when they are supported and recorded.
| Fact | Authority order |
|---|---|
| Completed outcome | Official athletic commission → official promotion → ESPN scoreboard → Wikipedia secondary facts → unverified manual submission |
| Upcoming schedule | Official promotion → official commission schedule → ESPN scoreboard → Wikipedia secondary facts |
| Reviewed correction | Documented administrator-reviewed correction with retained provenance |
A field-level reconciliation example
Imagine that an attributed scoreboard first supplies a winner and round but no elapsed time. Those two published fields can be shown with their provisional source context while time remains empty. If a commission document later confirms the winner and supplies method, round and time, the stronger values can upgrade those fields. The earlier source record is still traceable.
Now reverse only one detail: suppose a later low-authority response omits the method. That omission cannot blank the accepted commission method. If it supplies a conflicting winner or time, the difference is recorded for administrator review rather than resolved by arrival order. This example describes the reconciliation rule, not a claim about a particular real bout.
Event status, bout lifecycle and verification are separate
An event status describes the card as upcoming, live, finished, postponed or cancelled. A bout lifecycle can separately be active, cancelled or superseded. Verification describes the evidence behind a schedule or result. Keeping these dimensions apart prevents a finished event from turning incomplete secondary results into official ones.
| State | What it supports | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Upcoming | The accepted source still schedules the event | That every matchup or start time is final |
| Live | A trusted status source identifies the event as in progress | That passing the scheduled clock alone created live facts |
| Finished | The event concluded | That every method, scorecard or official is verified |
| Superseded bout | A result-less published pairing was removed from an updated card | That the earlier source observation never existed |
| Cancelled event | The recorded card will not proceed in that form | That a replacement event shares the same identity |
Identity comes before aggregation
The same card can appear on a promotion page, commission schedule and scoreboard. Fights Now keeps the source-local event rows and links them non-destructively only when the evidence is strong enough. Automatic cross-source matches require a score of at least 75 using date, venue, city, promotion, shared fighters and, where available, a commission event number. A similar event title alone is not enough.
Bout compatibility also considers the stable fighter pair, event date and name, organization, sport and non-conflicting stage or result details. Same-source rematches, tournament stages and ambiguous rows stay separate. This protects the record from a visually convenient but wrong merge.
Why card changes do not rewrite history
Upcoming cards change frequently. Where a source-specific collector supports reconciliation, a clean official response can mark a removed result-less pairing as superseded while retaining its provenance. The same stable pairing can reactivate if it reappears. Completed rows are not hidden merely because a later event page omits them.
Postponed and cancelled also mean different things. Postponed preserves the possibility that an event returns on a new date. Cancelled says the recorded card will not proceed in its stored form. A genuinely replacement event should retain its own source identity instead of silently inheriting every field from the cancelled card.
Schedule-only shells and missing result details
An official event listing with a date and venue but no named matchups is useful as calendar evidence. It should say that the card is pending, remain out of advertising placements and wait for substantive content before becoming search-indexable. TBA opponents are not fabricated to fill the layout.
The same rule applies after a fight. If a source says decision but publishes no scorecards, the method can be shown while scores remain empty. A published round does not imply an elapsed time. A completed card with an unknown result should say that the result is awaiting publication rather than infer a winner from surrounding text.
Corrections need durable evidence
A useful report links the affected Fights Now URL, names the disputed field and supplies a direct commission, promotion or other authoritative publication. A screenshot can explain a problem but is weaker than a durable source URL. Accepted manual corrections record a reason and retain supporting provenance; an unsupported request does not override stronger evidence.
- Identify the event, bout or fighter precisely.
- Separate a publisher update from an error introduced by Fights Now.
- Explain identity differences when two athletes share a similar name.
- Do not send passwords, identity documents or unrelated sensitive information.
Sources and further reading
Primary or directly relevant publications used to check this guide. External publishers control their own pages and update schedules.