Worst all time fight decisions

Roy Jr was the worst robbery I’ve ever witnessed. There’s not a span of 10 consecutive seconds he lost.

As or worst boxing decision ever, I’d go with the time I decided to watch a Johnny Nelson fight.

(Honestly I shouldn’t do that … I met Johnny and Brendan Ingle on my one trip to the UK in the early 1990s at a show and they couldn’t have been nicer.)

 

Mate Parlov v John Conteh.

Not a vintage Conteh performance but John still won it by three rounds in my book.

 

Then address the issue at hand, the one scorecard. To say Hagler had his title stolen because one judge had it wide for Leonard (which was out of line admittedly) makes one question what your argument really is. If Jo Jo Guerra messed up, then take issue with that specifically. The other two scores were more in line, and at the end of the day most agree the right guy got the decision.

You may disagree, and think Hagler deserved it, but I'd hope you at least think it was a very close fight. In a fight that close, one can hardly scream robbery. That is the point of my comment.

 

Joe Louis vs Jersey Joe Walcott I

 

Conteh-Parlov has been mentioned, and I agree Conteh definitely won that one before getting hosed by the judges. But not too long after that John himself was the beneficiary of an absolutely absurd verdict when he was awarded a horrendously undeserved draw against Jesse Burnett. I'd find it hard to give him three rounds out of ten as it was, but when you factor in he was also decked twice it just makes the verdict all the more laughable.

It's amazing that he was able to give Saad such a strong argument (first time out, anyway) after that, given how shot to bits and nigh-on drunk he looked against Burnett.

 

Azumah Nelson v Jeff Fenech I. Miguel Donate's 116-112 Nelson card is unfathomable.

 

It must be very demoralizing for fighters, knowing that they could get a decision that doesn't reflect what happened in teh ring.

 

I wrote this some time back, but I find it relevant for this subject matter. What I was referencing was what constituted a robbery by way of point disparity by the individual scorer. Here we go:

I apologize if this has been done before, but I have noticed we all bandy about the term robbery very liberally (myself included). So what constitutes a robbery? Of course, it comes down to a personal way one scores, but if I was to break it down to point disparity I would do something like this.

1 point - for an example I would say the Ismael Laguna v Vicente Saldivar 10 rounder which i scored 5-4-1 for Laguna. I heard Laguna was robbed blind until I watched the bout. This bout was damn close and although I had Laguna up a point, a one point margin is a close fight that could go either way.

2 points - I recently scored Patterson v Ellis 8-6-1 for Floyd. 2 points I would call a questionable decision.

3 points - I scored Dwight Qawi's fight with Ossie Ocasio 6-3-1 for Qawi in a fight where Pacheco scored it 10-0 for Qawi only for Ocasio to get the fight (there was a lot of politics involved in this one in order to get Ocasio a title fight). Anyways, at 3 points I would call it controversial.

4 points - I had Curtis Parker up 4 points on Mustafa Hamsho in their first fight, Lockridge over Gomez, Vito over Minter in their first fight. Graham over Gavilan in their 3rd fight, Pac over Bradley in their first fight and Everett over Escalera. At 4 points I would call these robberies.

Going beyond that I had Fenech over Nelson by 5 points in their first fight, Antonio Amaya over Hiroshi Kobayashi by 5 points, Lennox over Evander in their first fight and Luis Rodriguez over Griffith in their 4th fight both by 6 points. At this point I would be screaming for the officials to be reassessed and their point totals scrutinized because I'm storming around the place yelling bloody murder.

Of course these are personal scores and others may not agree with me, but would you agree on the points disparity I threw out there before we yell robbery?

 

When the recipient of the gift doesn't even think he won, you know it was a bad decision.

Or how about the BS disqualification of Evander Holyfield in the Olympics? Another gold medal robbed from American boxers. The way Holyfield was going there, he'd probably have won gold by knocking out every opponent. Would have gone down as one of the most dominant olympic LHW performances in history -- he was on absolute fire there. And then that ref pulled that bs and fled the arena.

 

Bernard Paul vs. Felix Bwalya 1997 Commonwealth light-welter belt

Britains Bernard Paul was a solid fighter with a big right hand. Zambia´s Bwalya was undefeated in 11 but had fought absolutely no one. He was not really expected to even last the limit yet he outpunched Paul throughout yet after 12 torrid rounds Paul´s arm was raised. Scandalous decision, felt gutted for Bwalya. First time I realised that Britain was no longer as fair as it had once was to foreign fighters.

In his next fight he took on the classy Paul Burke (he´d outpoint Bernard Paul for the title) in his home town. Never saw the bout but by all accounts Felix started fast again but Burke (1st man to floor and outpoint the great Pat Barrett) came on strong to floor him in the tenth and eleventh rounds and 66 seconds of the last he had his man down again when the bell rang! Felix was given the decision but unfortunately a few days later he fell into a coma and died. Real shame.

 

Guerra was the judge the Hagler's team wanted to replace Harry Gibbs with. Gibbs ended up scoring the fight 7 rounds to 5 for Hagler. How boxing history would of changed if Gibbs was the judge. Hagler would of had his 13th title defense and SRL would not of had the four greatest wins of all-time. Anyway I thought it was a close fight and could of gone either

 

Good call on the Lockridge Gomez fight, I watched it live and the decision drew shock, awe then laughter through the room .
Gomez took some punishment in that one

 

Hagler/Leonard wasn't a robbery I scored it a draw you can't give away almost all of the early rounds then complain about a robbery.

Neither was Hagler/Antuofermo I don't think a draw was that bad of result, Hagler faded down the stretch and Antuofermo came on strong late.

 

I actually thought Parlov won the fight I can give you my scorecard when I get home. But as I remember it Conteh lost most of the early rounds and left it a bit too late, I also seem to remember a point deduction making a difference aswell.