This is just about a guarantee that any kind of close fight will end up in the hometown boys favor: both refs and all judges are from New Jersey, USA for the Sugar Shimoda vs Rico Ramos WBA SBW world title fight and the Erislandy Lara vs. Paul Williams nontitle LMW showdown. That's infuriating. Can you imagine Felix Sturm having an all-German, Lucian Bute an all-Canadian or Kessler having an all-Danish official crew, refs, judges, everyone? Terrible news. Let's just hope there will be clear winners whoever they might be, the local boys or the islanders. Good luck.
People place too much emphasis on the nationality of judges. What matters is if they are crooked. They aren't biased because of a fighters nationality. They are biased because they are paid off by the promoter. Almost all the time, the judges with crazy scoring aren't from the home country. I'd have a bigger issue with judges with a history of dodgy scoring and blatant shenanigans. Like the Danish judge that scored it 118-110 for Sylvester against Geale.
Of course it's worse if the judges are inept or even crooked, but there's no denying this is sending out a clear and undeniable message. History has shown time and time again that home advantage is very, very imortant if it comes to judging. Add a home ref and 3 home judges to it and it's clear that every remotely close fight will go to the home favorite. I'm absolutely certain that if for instance Lara wins 7 rounds to 5 on most boxfans scorecards the fight will go to Williams in this case... :deal
all the judges had shimoda comfortably ahead of ramos by like 4 or 5 rounds, where was the dodgy scoring there?
I still stand by this. The judges were paid off. The didn't rob Lara because he they were rooting for the American (how childish is that). These are adults, they are bias because their pockets are being lined.
