By Paul Sims
Manny Pacquiao many considers the
greatest boxer in the modern day era, draped with eight world titles, and being
coined as the Peoples champ lately savoured his first defeat since 2005 via
split decision against the undefeated Timothy Bradley. The fight was something agitating and stimulating
where both fighters pitting toe to toe with speed pace; flurry of punches were
being thrown albeit there were several times both fighters had been indeed
sluggish.
Bradley was being dominated eight
rounds or more that he apparently hanging on his dear life on the latter rounds.
Hence, the fight turned out to be a one sided in favour of Pacquiao. However, it was not the way the judges witnessed
as two of them scored 115-113 in favour of Bradley. That started the crowd in
attendance or watching pay per views at home the outraged. Experts, scribes, or casual fans thought it
was absurd and crooked that could lead the sport all the way on the verge of
its death where in fact made the hashtag RIP Boxing as the number one trending for
some social networking sites.
The question remains is who
should be blamed?
Many deemed Bob Arum was the
major piece behind this conspiracy, on the reason that of all people that could
benefit with this festival will be no better than him. The rematch could generate way more figures
probably doubles the original one because it created vast controversy and for
so very long time Pacquiao will be introduced by Buffer as the challenger. Secondly,
both are in house fighters all under Top Rank promotion; in other words all
decision has to be made by Bob Arum, all money will be generated by Bob arum,
and both fighters’ revenues will pouched inside Top Rank aka Bob Arum. Third, he had already found or shall I say
effortless spawned a new prizefighter named Timothy Bradley. Lastly, everyone is all aware the beef between
Arum and Mayweather, their good term status ended when Mayweather left the
promotion and since it has gone through rants, sourgraping, not to mention
taunting fighters to leave Top Rank in order to get a fight with him. This Bradley
scenario could prevent the much anticipated superfight.
I personally or the 99.9% whom
follows the sport believed it was the judges liability that created so many
controversies and obvious manipulation in terms of judging. Few may have known all judges were being
selected by no other than the Nevada State Athletic Commission or NSAC. These judges may have gone way far digging
themselves deep down in replace for Business now boils down to an overwhelming
protest. But who are we to judge a
person that judges a fighter for a living?
In recent months we have
witnessed various obvious erroneous judging which many believed an intentional
one. A good example is the 2011 event Erislandy Lara against a light
middleweight superstar Paul Williams. Lara
was dominating the fight and clearly heading his way of winning the fight for
the WBC title but the judges ruled on the other way around. Next victim was
Richard Abril against a rising superstar Brandon Rios. Many believed that fight was only slated for a
tune-up superfight against Juan Marquez which could generate pretty well
revenue. Although a win against Acosta could
elevate his portfolio, Abril stature and boxing skills isn’t the same leverage
as Rios. Everyone thought his style was
a tailor made for Rios relentless moving forward Margarito style, no brainer
that makes it a tune up fight. However,
the fight turned out on the contrary, Abril toyed Rios from the beginning until
end not just by exposing Rios weaknesses but showing off his boxing skills as
well. Sadly, the two judge’s decision was
in favour of Rios.
These decisions can’t be hardly understand
by a seven year old kid as the whole fight didn’t even require a full time
judge to know exactly who the victorious one was. By just looking at live or
rerun, it could be considered as conspiracy. The remaining question again is why?
Legislators must act fast, review
the NSAC system what are the process of selecting judges and reviewing their
credibility as well. The sport seemingly
requires a young, focused, and most of all ethical authority to preserve the
morality of the business.
Otherwise scrap the entire NSAC
to find a new one to build the sport not just by having the new judges but to
build a new Drug Testing Rules.
I don’t believe the Sport is
dying because there are so many enticing fights looming out in future apart
from Mayweather and Pacquiao. What
probably kills the sport is the morality and fairness inside that could prevent
our future superstars of entering the sport thinking of something else. This is
a very dangerous sport.
