Brandon Rios Vs Richard Abril - SPOILERS inside

Maravilla33

By now I'm sure you've all seen or read about this fight and its ridiculous outcome. Unfortunately, not for the first time an unheralded outsider fought the fight of his life out boxing the clear favourite and promoter's darling only to be shafted by the judges. There are close fights, gift decisions and pure robberies and this was definitely the latter.

Abril controlled the fight basically from start to finish using his jab and slick defence to keep Rios at bay and even winning the exchanges when Rios did make it inside. Most struggled to give Rios 3 rounds at best let alone the SD he received. It really was as clear cut a decision as you could hope to see. Except 2 of the 3 most important spectators couldn't see what everyone else could. Its another black eye for a sport that hardly needs another stick to beat it with..

Yet again, Arum gets what he wanted and Rios will likely move up to LWW and face Marquez who should easily have his number but must be wary having been on the end of a few debatable decisions himself. Abril will be left in the wilderness having been robbed of his big chance.

Anyway there's a petition online to show your discontent at this decision and others like it. I'm not sure it will do anything or go anywhere to be honest but no harm signing it all the same.

https://www.change.org/petitions/a-petition-to-eliminate-bias-in-boxing-make-boxing-fair

Henno30

Disgraceful stuff alright. Glenn Trowbridge should be the centre of attention here. A complete and utter crook who also distinguished himself with a ridiculous scorecard in the Pacquiao-Marquez fight last year. Whole thing makes a mockery of the sport.

RiseToTheTop

I watched the fight up until the 10th round, then hit the sack. I didn't give Rios a single round, I might give him round 3 at a push, but that is all.

This wasn't just bad decisioning, it was an out and out fix. The judges had been bribed. With Trowbridge and Pacquiao-Marquez III, this is another level entirely.

Maravilla33

Arums such a scumbag. He says he scored the fight for Rios. Well of course he did they were his scorecards those two judges handed in. Plus he then criticises the referee for not doing his job right..

Henno30

Is this the sort of thing that would have been an outright cash payment, or is it more a case of the judges 'understanding' what the 'right' thing to do is?

Maravilla33

Henno30 wrote: »

Is this the sort of thing that would have been an outright cash payment, or is it more a case of the judges 'understanding' what the 'right' thing to do is?

I'd assume there was some kind of reward. It was such a bad decision and so blatant that I'm sure they would be reimbursed in some way. Especially seeing as their reputations are gonna take a hit. Truth is I don't really know.

It looks like theres going to be no action taken against them though. Read an article quoting Keith Kizer, Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director. Pretty worried by his take on it.

"Personally, I didn't see anything wrong with the judging. I think a lot of the rounds were 'carbon copies' of one another so if you didn't appreciate the style of Abril, you were probably going to score the fight somewhat wide for Brandon Rios. If you did think Abril was doing enough, then you probably saw...saw it for Abril by a big margin" Kizer explained.
When asked to clarify if that meant no action for the judges involved, Kizer made it clear that there would be no action taken. "I can see scoring it wide either way. There won't be any action taken as I was there at the fight and don't have any problems with the way the fight was scored. Adalaide Byrd and Glenn Trowbridge (ed note: I didn't clarify with him but I assume he meant Jerry Roth) scored it wide each way. Byrd had nine rounds for Abril, Trowbridge had eight for Rios but they saw the majority of the rounds the same."

Henno30

Pisses me off when people hide behind the 'subjectivity' of the sport.

Yes, there's an element of subjectivity but unless there are some objective standards it isn't really a sport at all. If judges of championship fights were forced to submit the rationale for their scoring in writing it would cut a lot of this stuff out. The likes of Trowbridge and Roth could never, ever make a persuasive argument for their interpretation of the fight the other night, and they would have to publicly present themselves as incompetent in order to do it.

Maravilla33

Its mental that nothing will be done even though it was so bad. If it wasn't out and out corruption then it was complete incompetence so either way they should be suspended. The judges in the Williams Vs Lara were suspended indefinitely and will have to receive further training on their return. Not sure if that was followed up on but at least they realised the incompetence of the judging in that fight.