Only In Boxing: What Is Clearly Wrong With The Sport

As most of you already know, there will be a rematch between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Brian Vera following the controversial result last Saturday which gave Chavez Jr. a unanimous victory.

Most experts on hand, including HBO analyst Jim Lampley, had Vera winning the bout, however, the judges had other ideas. Now, instead of taking the correct approach, which is to setup a committee to investigate the judge’s decision, the federation has decided to go for the money making approach and have a rematch.

This situation is something that only happens in Boxing. Only in this sport do you have federations gaining from their own official’s (the judges) mistakes.

There is no credibility left in the sport. I know most of you will say that promoters are at fault as well because they push the boxing federations to keep the status quo because let’s face it, they gain tremendously from the current structure in boxing.

Promoter’s aside, the federations have a final say as to the officials that will be responsible for judging the fights. The lack of accountability for judges and the dubiousness of those individuals is the greatest concern right now.

The idea that a fighter can train for months and leave everything in the ring (including his soul) and still have a result dependant on outside factors or a dubious judge is atrocious.

This is truly the only sport that is still stuck in the past and it is no wonder that we are losing many of our fan base because the sport offers little reward to a viewer who wants to see a just result.

I realize that there is a prevalent school of thought that believes we should not mess with tradition. These apologists argue that one of the reasons this sport is so great is because of the human element which has been a part of boxing since its inception and who are we now to change that?

To the apologists, I argue that other sports, which rely on officials to determine important decisions, have evolved such as Baseball which now has a system in place to hold referees accountable for their mistakes.

If there exists such committees at the different Boxing federations then they are only there in name. Look at Baseball and tell me that the sport has lost its appeal because of instant replay or umpires being accountable.

There is no doubt that mistakes do happen, but make the personnel explain themselves and give them some sort of punishment; don’t have them work another event until there has been some training to cover past mistakes.

I will never understand why they allowed C.J.Ross to be a judge for the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. bout after she gave a controversial result when judging the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley bout, scoring it a victory for Bradley.

In fact, she was the only judge to score a draw (114 -114) in the Mayweather vs. Alvarez bout, which is preposterous, since the other two judges scored a dominating victory for Mayweather (judge Craig Metcalfe (117-111) and Dave Moretti (116-112)).

Following the Vera vs. Chavez Jr. bout, HBO telecasters were shocked, as was the crowd, that all three judges scored the bout in favor of Chavez. Even HBO telecaster Jim Lampley reportedly mentioned that the Chavez family name has enough power in California to determine a favorable decision for their corner.

That is exactly what appeared to happen and what’s worse, all three officials gave a majority decision to Chavez which either means that the fight outcome was somehow pre-determined or that the officials were all biased in their scorecards.

Either way, that decision reminded me of the 1988 Seoul Olympic judging when Roy Jones Jr. got his gold medal robbed because the officials gave the fight to the Korean fighter who was clearly outmatched.

Another reminder of the questionability in the sport was given by a friend who reminded me of the preposterous result between Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns in their 1989 bout when all three judges scored a ridiculous draw; even Leonard stated publicly after the fight that Hearns was the clear victor.

This is where the problem lies for boxing; too many of its fans are scarred by the perception of a systematic sense of corruption that trickles down from the federations to the judges, to the promoters and then finally to the fighters.

Only in the sport of Boxing do federations turn the other cheek to this situation. Let’s hope in the future, the sport can recover. Before it’s too late.