Put these in order from worst to not as bad Bradley over Pac Ramirez over Pea Lewis drawing with Holy
Its between Ram-Pea and Brad-Pac. Those fights weren't even close. Lewis-Holyfield was more unsatisfactory than an outright robbery. That was one of the most disappointing events Ive ever witnessed. Lewis had several of those to his credit.
Pea-Ramires Lennox-Holyfield Brad-Pac Although Pacquaio battered Bradley at times on a round by round it's close. Pac won but it's not as wide as the others.
They're all awful. Can't really differentiate between the last two. I guess you could argue that Bradley-Pac was awful but slightly less awful, given how ineffective Pacquiao was overall.
Lewis-Holyfield was the first time that I watched an entire fight closely and was then stunned by the decision. Haven't seen it in a long time but the decision seemed so inconceivable that I thought it surely must have been a mistake (I was younger and less jaded back then).
Lewis-Holyfield definitely caused a bigger outrage in the US than Bradley-Pac. The Pea fight was before my time.
It was the bigger outrage because they were heavyweights and because it still happened at the tail end of when people still watched HW boxing, by people I mean casual fans. But that fight was not a blowout. It wasn't a one sided fight. It was a tepid, unsatisfying affair and the fence sitting decision just added to it. A lot of people at the time felt Pac dominated Bradley but I didn't. Though I admit I watched it after the controversy and really striving to give Bradley every close round still had Pac winning by two points so if you are scoring fairly theres not much case you can make for Bradley. The Pea fight was probably an outright fix and Whittaker clearly outpointed Ramirez but he did it in such a "tag your it" negative style that Ive never really seen that fight as being as one sided as most did at the time. I cant stand pitty pat boxers and that's what Pea was for most of his fights. After thinking all of this through above Id say in order of worst to least: Pac-Bradley I Pea-Ramirez I Holyfield-Lewis I
Lewis vs Holyfield 2 was closer than the first. I blame Lewis though , he had plenty of moments to put the older, smaller , past prime Evander away , but never did. Don't leave any decisions to Don King.
I have no evidence to back it up, but I really think there might have been a fix in the Ramirez vs. Pea fight... It was just so lopsided imo that I can see no way somebody could score it for Ramirez.
I can't see a justification for giving Lewis v Holy a draw. Pac v Bradley I can imagine it being close because Pac fought for the last minute of every round and Bradley fought for the first two minutes of every round. Ramirez v Pea is the age old style argument of what you like. If you score aggression over all else it can be justified. But for me, in order of bad to worst I'm gonna go: Pac v Bradley (whilst I see how it can be scored for Bradley, I had it closer to 12-0 for Pac because of the damage done each round in the last minute) Pea v Ramirez (again it is down to a preference but for me clean effective punching takes it and in no round did Ramirez punch cleaner than Pea so I could give that 12-0) Lewis v Holy (whilst this is the hardest one for me to justify, Holy certainly took at least 3 rounds so I had it 9-3)
Mexican based WBC and Ramirez's temporary home base was Italy, where the fight happened. Duva and company got shafted, for sure. Boxing politics 101 on full display here. Then, it happened again years later when Pernell outboxed JC Chavez.
Ramirez "W12" Whitaker was as bad as I've seen. That had to be some sort of inside job. I think Lewis won big over Holyfield, but I could actually see an incompetent judge making it closer than it was in reality. Never saw the Bradley vs. Pacquaio fight.
