This is from livefight's forum: The Italian ringside ref Massimo Barrovecchio has been swapped with American Tom Kaczmarek after complaints from Kesslers promoter, Mogens Palle. You can not have an Italian ringside referee when one of the fighters is pratically Italian. Frank Warren turned in a protest against the decision made by WBC. I wonder how Warren would feel if one of the judges was Swedish or Norwegian.
Italians are notourious for nepotism and favouritism. Some of the fights you see in Italy are terrible.
i agree. to much chance of bias. all the aussie italians i have met consider themselves more italian than aussie. even though they are 3rd generation! atsch gotta have judges from neutral countries. one thing is for sure... if calzaghe wins, he is the italian stallion. if he loses he is the welsh dragon :rofl
Didn't Palle also complain about there being an American or Mexican referee and 2 American judges when Kessler fought Andrade? That turned out to be a non issue.
And Tom Kaczmarek is known for stupidity and blindness. Either situation isn't the best possible one.
tom kaczmarek is the 178 year old judge who said that fans favourite ODLH beat mayweather 115-113 when they met. so he obvioulsy likes flurries rather than straight punches . palle has been very clever with this change
As long as the ref in the ring isn't from the UK I'm good. I swear I've never seen a decent ref whenever I watch a fight from the UK.
hey pecks, im a huge kessler fan as well... but im also a calzaghe fan too because i think he's a great fighter. now i think we both agree calzaghe is way better than andrade. so to assume kessler will handle calzaghe with ease like he did the mexican is wishful thinking. i want kessler to win for the good of the division since he will hang around for a while. but i also want joe to win for his own legacy. but having to pick one, out of my favourites, i decided to go with the underdog, and also the fighter who has to prove himself. of course the smoothness of transaction by passing the torch instead of leaving a fractured division behind when joe leaves is also a reason why i sided with kessler here. so to get to the point, picking the best judges and ref for the occassion IS important. joe is no pushover, and if it goes to the scorecards even if kessler won by a narrow margin, you can bet your house if the judges are biased to a certain fighter or style, they will go with the home town fighter because the crowd will roar at every flurry even if half dont hit. and will remain silent while kessler hits joe with less punches but far more accurate and damaging shots. this could mean a lost for kessler. however i still believe kessler will up his game a gear for this bout. and will surprise the aging calzaghe.
that's harsh, especially as plenty of big UK fights use foreign refs... you're probably referring to the two big name main culprits in the bad uk ref field, Dave Parris and Mickey 'i love ricky' vann
