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MOST CONTROVERSIAL DECISIONS
MOST CONTROVERSIAL DECISIONS
by William Dettloff
Marco Antonio Barrera's win over Rocky Juarez last May wasn't the most controversial outcome in the business since Julio Cesar Chavez' 1990 victory over Meldrick Taylor (which, incidentally, is running all month on HBO's Legendary Nights series). It was controversial just the same, and would have been so even if the official outcome hadn't been changed to a split decision win for Barrera rather than the draw that was announced in the ring. It was a close, tough fight. The fact a scoring error altered the outcome only added fuel to the controversy. Hence the rematch, which will air on HBO PPV on September 16.
As controversial as Barrera's win was, it pales in comparison to others that have occurred in the game over the last quarter century. Here's our list, in chronological order, of the 10 most controversial decisions of the last 25 years.
Michael Spinks W 15 Larry Holmes, April 19, 1986
You couldn't blame Holmes for thinking he'd beaten Spinks in their rematch. Yes, he was 36 years old and past his prime and sure, Spinks again used that awkward, herky-jerky style to throw off his rhythm. But Holmes, an 8-5 favorite to regain the IBF heavyweight title, did far better the second time around than he had the first.
He landed his famed jab from the outside. He manhandled Spinks and staggered him at least three times with right hands. A broken right thumb kept him from following up and trying for the knockout, but he was in charge for most of the night, while Spinks' pesky counters weren't nearly as effective as they had been in the first fight.
Still, the split decision went to Spinks by scores of 144-141, 144-142, and 141-144, to the great surprise of those in attendance at the Hilton Center in Las Vegas as well as those watching on television. ''I had the man hurt, the man was running. I know the man didn't win the fight,'' Holmes told the New York Times afterward. Most everyone agreed.
Sugar Ray Leonard W 12 Marvelous Marvin Hagler, April 6, 1987
It depended on what you liked: did you like Leonard's flashy, round-stealing flurries, or Hagler's steadiness and consistency? Did you prefer Leonard's faster, lighter punches, or Hagler's heavier, more telling, but less frequent blows?
Everyone has an opinion on this one and whatever yours is, you can easily find one that goes the other way. Hagler supporters claim the judges fell victim to Leonard's charisma and story and ignored the fighting. Leonard fans maintain Hagler fought stupidly, giving away rounds and fighting Leonard's fight. The 15,336 fans at Caesars Palace seemed split.
Whichever side you're on, most agree that it was close and dismiss the ridiculous 118-110 score submitted by judge Jose J. Guerra. It's harder to dispute the 115-113 and 113-115 scores turned in by the other judges. Still, if you think Leonard won it, there's no changing your mind. Same with those who think Hagler was robbed. That the fighters came from very different backgrounds and took wholly opposing roads to the top only adds to the passion around the debate.
Jose Luis Ramirez W 12 Pernell Whitaker, March 12, 1988
Whitaker did about everything in this fight that one fighter can do to another without knocking him out. And from about the sixth round on he did it with a fractured left hand. He outboxed Ramirez, out-punched him, out-maneuvered him, and generally made him look foolish. It wasn't close and at the end of 12 rounds, it looked like a no-brainer: Whitaker was the new WBC lightweight champion.
Those used to the way things go in boxing figured the judges might throw a few mercy rounds Ramirez' way, as the fight was held in his adopted hometown of Paris, France. But nothing could have prepared us for the split decision in Ramirez' favor by scores of 116-115, 113-117, and an unconscionable 118-113.
Today it is universally recognized as one of the worst decisions of the era and maybe the worst decision in a lightweight title fight in 50 years. The usual cries of "fix" pervaded the aftermath. The score wasn't settled until the following year when they met again and Whitaker won a deservedly lopsided decision.
James Toney wasn't always a chubby, trash-talking heavyweight. Back in the early - '90s he was a svelte, trash-talking middleweight who dehydrated himself to get down to the 160-pound limit.Azumah Nelson D 12 Jeff Fenech, June 28, 1991
You had to feel a little sorry for Fenech. He'd done everything he needed to do to wrest the WBC junior lightweight belt from the Nelson in front of nearly 15,000 witnesses in Las Vegas. After a slow start he consistently bulled Nelson to the ropes and worked him over, wearing him down with body shots and crisp combinations.
In the 12th Fenech swarmed all over Nelson and had him reeling at the bell. It looked like a complete victory - to everyone but the judges, who scored it 115-113, 116-112 and 114-114. "He put up a great fight, but I know I won," Fenech told KO magazine later. He found many allies, including WBC President Jose Sulaiman, who called the decision a "grave controversy."
Gus Mercurio, boxing writer for The Sunday Age, a leading Australian newspaper, seemed to speak for everyone when he described the verdict as outrageous. "It was an incompetent decision. You shouldn't find that kind of discrepancy among judges at this level." You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who disagreed, especially Fenech. He was never the same fighter again, and in a rematch the following year, Nelson knocked him out in the eighth round.
James Toney W 12 Dave Tiberi, February 8, 1992
James Toney wasn't always a chubby, trash-talking heavyweight. Back in the early - '90s he was a svelte, trash-talking middleweight who dehydrated himself to get down to the 160-pound limit. That made title defenses harder than they had to be and almost cost him the title against Tiberi. Most thought it should have.
Tiberi, a Sunday school teacher from New Castle, Delaware and no great fighter, pressured Toney from the start, driving him to the ropes and outworking him. Toney, who revealed afterward that he'd lost seven pounds in three days to make weight and had been taking diuretics for a month, struggled to keep up with Tiberi's work rate.
Toney landed the sharper blows but the great majority of fans and fight media thought Tiberi clearly deserved the decision and the IBF middleweight title. The judges thought otherwise, giving Toney the split decision win by scores of 116-111, 115-112, and 111-117. How unpopular was it? A U.S. senator called for an investigation, and the IBF ordered an immediate rematch that never took place; Tiberi was so disgusted with the decision he never fought again.
Julio Cesar Chavez D 12 Pernell Whitaker, September 10, 1993
If you have any doubt that Pernell Whitaker whipped Chavez outright, all you have to do is recall the sound made by the 57,000 Chavez fans who packed the Alamodome: there wasn't any. Not after the first few rounds, anyway. It was dead quiet.
So clear was Whitaker's superiority, so thorough was his mastery of the great Chavez that by the fight's midway point, the overwhelmingly pro-Chavez crowd was a non-factor. Whitaker largely had his way with Chavez, running him into straight left hands, banging hard shots to his body and out-maneuvering him at every turn.
How bad was the draw? A ringside poll conducted by The Ring magazine after the fight had 14 writers favoring Whitaker by an average margin of three points. Seven out of 10 newspapers - in Mexico, no less - agreed that Whitaker had been robbed. "That's why I'm glad we fought on TV with millions of people watching," Whitaker said later. Too bad those millions of scores didn't count.
"He was trying everything," Ayala said afterward. "But that's what you do in a title fight. I knew I won. It may have been close at first, but I definitely won the last three rounds." He was largely alone in that thinking. Oscar De La Hoya W 12 Pernell Whitaker, April 12, 1997
It wasn't necessarily that De La Hoya won the decision over Whitaker in what most felt was a close, tough fight that probably wasn't the easiest type to score; Whitaker fights rarely were. It was more that De La Hoya won by lopsided scores: 115-111, 116-110 and 116-110. That's what drove most observers to frustration.
They could see a De La Hoya victory by a point or two, maybe three points. But by a combined 14 points? And that was with a knockdown Whitaker scored in the ninth round. "I think I got 10 out of 12 rounds," said Whitaker, who by this time should have been accustomed to such controversy. "It was unbelievable. It was a shutout."
If it wasn't a shutout, it was closer than the scores indicated. Whitaker landed more punches - 232 of 582 for a 40 percent connect rate, while De La Hoya landed 191 of 557, a 34 percent rate. De La Hoya did land landed twice as many power punches than did Whitaker - 146 of 363 to Whitaker's 72 of 192. But it certainly was no blowout.
Evander Holyfield D 12 Lennox Lewis, March 13, 1999
"Boxing's cesspool opens once again to emit an intolerable stench." So said HBO's Jim Lampley in the moments immediately following the announcement that the judges had somehow scored this one a draw. And Lampley wasn't the only one. The decision sparked immediate outrage among both fans and media and before long local politicians were getting into the act, promising a top-to-bottom investigation.
It couldn't have happened at a worse time. Lewis-Holyfield was for the undisputed heavyweight title, in Madison Square Garden in front of thousands of fans and hundreds of thousands more watching on HBO PPV. It was the biggest fight of the year -- maybe of several years.
Much of the controversy centered on the card submitted by Eugenia Williams, whose 115-113 score for Holyfield seemed especially questionable. To the vast majority of viewers, Lewis dominated from the outset, using his greater size and reach to control Holyfield and win many rounds decisively. Nothing ever came of all the accusations of wrongdoing, but Lewis righted things eight months later in a rematch, decisioning Holyfield in Las Vegas.
Paulie Ayala W 12 Hugo Dianzo, March 30, 2001
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Ayala got the benefit of the doubt in many of his closer matches, such as in his bouts with Johnny Bredahl, Johnny Tapia, and the first one with Bones Adams. He had an aggressive, fast-punching style the judges liked, and they rewarded him for it.
No fighter had a better reason to complain about the judges liking Ayala than did the little-known Dianzo, who floored Ayala in the fourth round, cut him under the eye in the fifth, outfought him much of the way, and still dropped a unanimous decision to him by scores of 115-113, 115-113, and 115-112 in Ayala's hometown of Fort worth, Texas.
"He was trying everything," Ayala said afterward. "But that's what you do in a title fight. I knew I won. It may have been close at first, but I definitely won the last three rounds." He was largely alone in that thinking. Many called it the worst decision of the year. The BBC called it a "tainted triumph." The ESPN broadcast crew, which aired the fight, had Dianzo clearly ahead at the end, as did most of the writers at ringside.
Courtney Burton W 10 Emanuel Augustus, July 6, 2004
It's not only the biggest fights that end in controversial decisions. Augustus was and is a journeyman fighter who is about as far away from a title shot as a fighter can be but he's grown a cult following, in large part because he is frequently the unhappy beneficiary of terrible decisions - none more egregious than this one.
Throughout the fight Augustus administered a boxing clinic, though frequently punctuated his successes with showboating and clowning. This clearly infuriated referee Dan Kelly, who inexplicably deducted a point from his score for spinning away from a clinch. On other occasions he ignored a knockdown Augustus scored and throughout warned him for imagined fouls. Still, Augustus outboxed Burton by every standard there is and appeared to win an easy decision.
The Michigan judges gave Burton the win by the obscene scores of 99-90 97-92, while the third had it for Augustus 98-94, which agreed with the scores most observers had tallied. The uproar, aided by the ESPN broadcast team, was intense and resulted in hundreds of fans registering complaints with the Michigan Athletic Control Board. In most circles it was seen as the worst robbery of the year.
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