Scorecard controversies are never far away from boxing.
There are plenty of infamous examples of great performances being spoiled by judging. One recent case was the first fight between Jack Catterall and Josh Taylor which many thought the underdog Catterall won after putting up a superb showing and even scoring a knockdown. However, he wasn’t rewarded with a win which meant he missed out on the chance to become the undisputed lightweight champion.
It took two years for a rematch to be arranged and Catterall did enough for the scorecards to go his way, but there were no belts on the line.
This past weekend, Bam Rodriguez won the WBC super-flyweight title are he scored an impressive knockout win over Juan Estrada. However, concern was raised by DAZN pundit Chris Mannix that before the stoppage, Bam was down on the cards despite that not reflecting what was going on in the fight.
“Everyone involved with last nights #EstradaBam show—@wbcmoro, the Arizona commission—needs to address the main event judging. For Javier Camacho to have Bam down at the time of the stoppage is inexcusable. Robert Tapper having the fight even is, too. Corruption, incompetence, maybe both. Gallo knew he lost. Two judges didn’t. They tried to rob Bam Rodriguez in Phoenix.”
Tony Bellew responded with a call for judges to have to explain their decisions.
“You’re spot on… These judges have to explain what they’ve seen after the fights! They just run off and face no one and give no explanations! The promoter talks! The fighters talk! Yet the people making the decision on who wins run off and say nothing! They have to be culpable..”
It was recently announced that WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman would like there to be six judges scoring the Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk rematch in December in an attempt to eliminate mistakes.
