What are the least blatant robberies in boxing? These are the fights where either (1) a competitive fight was predetermined by biased judges, or (2) a robbery looks like a fair decision to ignorant, casual viewers.
Ward vs Kovalev. The fact Kovalev scored a knockdown and each single judge had to give Ward 7 rounds to win the fight when in no way did he win a majority of rounds in the fight showed that no matter what that fight was going to Ward.
No, I scored that for Ward as did others. Ward had a very narrow margin of victory though. Most people who scored it for him had him by one point.
Tarver--Johnson I. This gets swept under the table, but I have no clue how to score that for Johnson. Rigondeaux--Casmiero. Rigo totally stunk it up but won according to how boxing is scored. He turned Casmiero into a clown.
One of my favourite fights Juan Manuel Marques vs Marco Antonio Barrera seemed to already have a decision before the bell rang
The first Johnson-Dawson fight, maybe? On the undercard of Tarver-Woods in the big Light-Heavyweight extravaganza in Florida in 2008. Johnson was supposed to be a safe stepping stone for Chad along his way to a fight with the winner of the main event in a big unification match later that year to find a proper consensus champion at 175. Most people had high hopes for Chad and expected him to shine and build the anticipation for a fight against whichever headliner won. In the event I think Johnson beat him relatively clearly - certainly landed the more hurtful shots and had Dawson in trouble a couple of times. Instead Dawson got a UD which I think was very probably given with his greater earning potential and youth in mind. People didn't want to see Johnson against either Tarver or Woods yet again and he was going to have to absolutely dominate Chad throughout to get a decision that night.
Isn't there a seamless continuum from the most fair and just decisions to the least? If so then it would be hard to point out where the odd but justifiable decisions ended, and the least blatant robberies started.
Wrong. Ward by one point is one of the most common scores. Ward by four points would be an extreme minority.