The Chavez robberies/gifts thread

jyuza, the Chavez-Taylor stoppage has been done to nauseum in this forum. You've been in this forum long enough to know that there was actually about 6 seconds left when Steele waived the fight off.
The seconds on the official clock continued to run even though the fight had already been stopped.
When the clock was finally stopped, it read 2 seconds....thus its officially announced as 2:58 of round 12.

......but make no mistake....count off 6 seconds.....more than enough time for Chavez to land a final and maybe fatal blow on a fighter who seconds earlier had no response what so ever to Steele's count or his question of "are you ok."

.....and in any regards, Steele had no way of knowing how many seconds were on the clock.

 

6 sec are more than enough to land something big that's for sure.
But it was more like 4 sec when Steele stopped the fight Actually. Which means at best 2 sec left for Chavez to come out and land a punch.
Even if he could do it, Meldrick wasn't dead enough to let him punch him, he would have at least put his hands up for the little time left.

Damn, I had to look at the Legendary Nights - The Tale of Chavez-Taylor (for the better quality image) and it gets me back to sadness ...

 

Taylor was up at the count of five in a bout he was winning handily and when the fight was stopped everyone was either shocked or in the case of Chavez's faithful, relieved, knowing he had dodged a bullet.

If Steele was really concerned with the way Taylor looked, why not stop it before he got knocked down?

If he was genuinely interested in his response, why not give him a chance to respond to his question before stopping it?

To me, Taylor deserved a chance to continue. As soon as Steele waved it off, you could see the look of "WHAT!!!!!!!???" on Taylor's face. He was mentally alert and aware of what was going on.

What do you make of Chavez's manager being on the commission that decided to overturn the DQ the next day? You don't see anything wrong with that?

I've never seen a non-Chavez fan think that was anything but a robbery and that Chavez was behind on the cards going into the stoppage. They're not ALL Chavez haters.

I didn't see the fight so I can't really say.

Perhaps the head clash really was bad and dazed Chavez. It's hard to swallow though from a fighter known for being so tough and having an extraordinarily thick skull.

As for the cut to Chavez's eye, it was bad enough for Homansky to stop the fight - because Chavez wanted him to :good

I'm happy for people to watch the fight and judge for themselves. The rest of your comments on this thread should be put in context and analysed through people watching that visual. If you're willing to suggest that Chavez wasn't intentionally butting Randall and that Randall actually led with his head and butted Chavez, it shows the lengths you'd go to delude yourself and apologise any action of Chavez's.

There is NO doubt that Chavez was trying to headbutt Randall (even Julio's Showtime cheer squad were harping on it) and that Chavez was the one that leaned into Randall when the butt occurred. Seriously, what you are suggesting is just embarrassing.

 

The master scoresheet showed Hassett's score of 115-115, but with 6-5-1 in terms of rounds. As such, the fight SHOULD have been declared a SD win for Gonzalez.

I don't think Sulaiman or Lamozon noticed the error in the tally until after Abrams and Houston pointed it out after the decision was read. When Sulaiman was alerted to it, he merely said the WBC has never before reversed a decision and that it was not an easy thing to do. Any question of a decision reversal would have to go before the WBC's board of governors. "I am the president - I am not the World Boxing Council", Sulaiman said.

Three days later Sulaiman releases a statement saying the 115-115 was the correct score, and the error came in scoring the 6th round 10-6 for Gonzalez instead of what it should have been 10-10.

Now Abrams claims that he saw Hassett's original card as well, and that it tallied 115-115 but with 6-5-1 in terms of rounds, meaning Hassett had incorrectly added up the figures.

Can we believe him? I don't know. But I'd trust him before i'd trust Sulaiman, that's all I'm saying.

 

If I'm not mistaken Scientist, and I'm fairly certain this is the case, Hasset turns in a card after every round with the score just for that particular round.
In a 12 round fight, he turns in 12 such cards, 1 after each round.

Somebody that is not a judge in that particular fight, from either the commision or boxing orginization is a hired man thats in charge of recieving each of those cards, and writing their scores in a master scoresheet.
From what I'm led to believe, the judges in a fight are not in charge of tallying up their own scores....(this actually makes sense to me, as it leaves out the temptation for a judge to change the score on one of his rounds he's already scored.)
So I think your assumption that Hasset added up his score incorrectly is wrong. Hasset is not responsible in tallying up his own cards.

What I believe may be true is that Abrams looked at the Master scoresheet, and found that the numbers did'nt add up.......then he probably took it to Sulaiman and let him know.

Its possible that the master scorecard keeper added one of the judges cards incorrectly, and after Abrams pointed it out to Sulaiman....Sulaiman was not willing to change the outcome already announced.
Its also possible that the Master scorer inputed the wrong score in a round and put a 10-9 instead of a 10-10, but had the right final tally if he was tallying the scores coming in after every round on a seperate sheet of paper.
God knows how these scorers keep it organized.....

What I'm fairly certain did'nt happen, is that Abrams was privelaged to see all 12 written original cards turned in by each judge at the end of each round.
Why in hell would anybody from the WBC show Abrams these cards?
Why was he prevy to have seen Hassets individual card for round 6?
All these individual cards turned in by the judges at the end of each round are kept secret, until the scores are read.....and even after the scores are read, they're not for public display.

If Abrams wrote in that article Scientist that he saw Hassets original cards......I'm just about certain he's lying through his teeth.
When the MAB-Rocky Juarez master scoresheet was printed on F-news with various boxes crossed out, 10's crossed out to 9's and 9's crossed out to 10's, why did'nt anyone investigate and ask to see the individual cards turned in by each judge after every round?
I think I know that answer.....nobody but the head of the boxing organization is prevy to see such cards.....and if somebody from the media does ask to see them.....if indeed there was something not on the up and up with a particular individual card, Sulaiman would have changed the score to his liking before letting Abrams eyes look at the cards.
Abrams being prevy to see Hassets individual cards just does'nt make sense......and so I got to believe Abrams is lieing, or you Scientist misunderstood the article on how he arrived at his conclusions.

 

You are correct, they use different scoresheets for each round.

That would be WBC supervisor Eduardo Lamozon.

I think you're right again. The individual scoresheets are used to discourage judges tallying up scores.

Both Houston and Abrams independently saw the miscalculation on the master scoresheet.

Yes, that is possible, and that's the line th WBC ran in the conference they held 3 days after the fight.

Well, to give the obvious answer: to show that there wasn't any corruption. Abrams claims he saw Hassett's individual card and round 6 was scored as it was on the master scoresheet: 10-9 Gonzalez.

ORRRRRRRRRRRRR, Sulaiman cooked the books. You just overlooked the elephant in the room.

 

If he does'nt explain in his article why and how he got to see Hassett's individual scorecards, then imo his claims have no validity.

If Abrams or Houston cant and dont explain in their article why and how they got to see individual scorecards from a judge that normally no other person gets to see, and which I believe is essential for their story to have validity, then I have'nt overlooked anything!

 

Even if there is no explanation from Abrams (not sure if there is or isn't as I haven't seen his article on the matter - Houston doesn't explain how Abrams got to see it) the very fact that the master scoresheet had the rounds scored in Gonzalez's favour is controversy enough.

To me, if Sulaiman didn't reveal the individual round by round cards of Hasset right there and then after the fight and waited 3 days before making a statement on it, that too, is controversial. Why the delay?

I'll endeavour to get a hold of Abrams' take on this fight, which should have appeared in Boxing News sometime during 1998.

Either Abrams (or Houston) is lying or Sulaiman pulled a shifty for Chavez.

BTW, just out of interest, Houston had the fight scored a draw: 114-114, thinking that Gonzalez would have done him had the bout been scheduled for 15. Personally I think Chavez would have been ok to go 15 just through his caginess. Gonzalez fought at a pace which Chavez could have adapted to and fought well defensively enough in the last three rounds to stay in the fight, even with a low work rate.

 

Its a pity that things like this happen in boxing.
We can only speculate that something dishonest may have happened in the case of the scorecard handling of the Chavez-Gonzalez fight, but there just is'nt any concrete evidence.
If there was some dishonesty as you claim may have happened Scientist. From the way you're depiciting the events took place, it looks like to me that Sulaiman and Lamozon, did'nt intend for it to happen......but after it was discovered that there was a mistake in the addition of one of the judges scores, they may have felt the pressure not to overturn the draw for the reason that it would have gone against the most popular fighter ever in Mexico, and also the pressure that the majority of the Latin based media had scored for Chavez anyways.

.......We'll never know the truth to the matter, but I do know that there should be a better way for boxing orginizations to handle the scorecards during a fight.

I dont like it one bit that there is soley one guy like Lamozon who is in
charge of recieving and adding up the scores for each judge.

I'm baffled as to why a judge would'nt turn in his individual scorecard after each round, but have his own scoresheet where he writes down what he scored for each round.

....I mean, for Gods sake, Hasset did'nt remember how he scored a particular round the next day???
I dont like it one bit that there is soley one guy like Lamozon, who is in charge at the very end of adding everything.
.....who's to stop a guy like Lamozon from changing the score himself of one of the rounds, before they announce the decision winner?

I would propose that the system stays just as it is now, but with one change......and thats to have each judge also score all 12 rounds on their own scoresheet, and have that scoresheet turned over to someone other than a boxing organization at the very end of the last round........maybe that states athletic commision, or even someone from press row....
......the purpose being so that if there is some controversy like the one you pointed out, or the MAB-Rocky Juarez controversy I pointed out earlier....someone other than a boxing organization like the WBC (who many point to being corrupt anyways), also has the scores.

As it is now, whenever there is a scorecard controversy, we just have to eat it up and take whatever heads of organizations like Jose Sulaiman say.

There are certainly preventive measures boxing can take so that it does'nt come down to trusting the word or someone with a history like Jose Sulaiman!

Dammit Scientist, now you got me all upset!


.....and on your interest point Scientist, the Gonzalez fight made me think that Chavez just was'nt taking boxing seriously any longer, as this was a big fight in Mexico and clearly he was'nt in shape to fight 12 hard rounds.
I thought there were alot of close rounds.....but what was clear to me is that Chavez made Gonazalez fight at his pace. He was the ring general in there, and the difference in class showed anytime Chavez put the pressure on, which was usually to close rounds.

I dont keep my scorecards like you do Scientist, but I had Chavez ahead, probably in the 2 or 3 point margin.

 

Your proposal is good one mate, but I'm not sure that we'll ever truly be able to determine whether an outcome is impartial. The problem of corruption is really insiduous.

 

No he wasn't. Watch the post fight interview done by Larry MErchant in the ring with Taylor right after the fight. Taylor swears that Steele stopped the fight without ever giving him a count or asking him if he's ok.

That's being not mentally aware. That's being in la-la land and acting out of instinct.

I tend not to take sides on this issue, because there's no wholly good side to be on, but the Taylor proponents have a major case of overlooking anything they don't want to see.

 

Maybe, or maybe it's just Taylor trying to paint a picture more unjust than it actually was.

Do we conclude from Chavez being shown footage at the end of the first Randall fight where he hit Randall right in the balls and him denying that it was a low blow that he wasn't mentally aware?