Saturday?s pay-per-view card at the Staples Center in LA was exceptional in many respects, especially when compared to the mismatches to which we?ve grown accustomed. The main event delivered, beyond our wildest dreams, while the televised undercards were solid, even allowing for the questionable scores in the fight between Mario Barrios and Batyr Akhmedov for the vacant WBA World super lightweight title.
Others have questioned the judging in that fight, and none as eloquently as Wrigley Brogan, but they succeeded less in having the unanimous decision overturned than in distracting from the usually reliable Jack Reiss?s subpar performance in the main event, where he allowed the favorite, Errol Spence, to throw over a dozen low blows without penalty or so much as a warning.
Expecting a sanctioning body, however refreshing their Kool-Aid, to behave honorably may be asking too much, but the World Boxing Association Classifications Committee exceeded even the low expectations to which some of us still cling. In the wake of Barrios?s ?victory,? the WBA designated him their Boxer of the Month. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, as is the beast, and Akhmedov, who believes he was robbed, was planning to file an appeal requesting an immediate rematch.
But it looks like the WBA headed him off at the pass.
?I worked my whole life to become a world champion and when the opportunity came I clearly won the fight,? said Akhmedov. ?I dominated the fight from start to finish, re-watch the tape as I have and see how bad Barrios was hurt in every round. After the tenth round, he wanted to quit he was so badly beaten. I don?t even think the judges watched the fight.?
Favoritism and the blinders accompanying it won?t convince anyone of anything that hints at the possibility they might be mistaken. Not every fighter complains when he or she loses. Sometimes it?s a fair fight, not a foregone conclusion, and sometimes the final scores accurately reflect what just occurred. But boxing is boxing, when all is said and done. It?s much like electoral politics. Winning isn?t the most important thing, it?s the only thing.
?This is the height of incompetence,? said Vadim Kornilov, Akhmedov?s manager, ?these judges needed to be immediately held responsible to the full extent permitted. They stole the world title from Batyr.?
The judges won?t be held responsible. If anything, they?ll be given a bonus for a job well done.
?Look at the photos from the fight and after the fight, Barrios did not win that fight and his whole team didn?t even expect to get their hand raised. Barrios is suspended and cannot enter the ring for the next six months, how is he going to defend his championship? He cannot fight for medicals reasons due to injuries suffered in the fight and Batyr could fight next month if the opportunity was given.
?I am very positive that if Batyr lost a fight in a similar fashion, he would have given the belt over to the other guy, or would have been the one to request a rematch as he would not want to be a champion when millions all over the world saw that he did not win this fight and did not deserve the belt. We hope that Barrios being a real warrior that showed a lot of character and survived a very, very tough fight will support the rematch which I am sure the whole world will want to see.?
Kornilov?s optimism is admirable. Let?s hope reality contorts to his expectations.
?The rounds were easy to score, you saw who did the damage, and they got a number of critical rounds wrong. There were not that many close rounds and any other professional judge will confirm this, it?s on them now, they have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives. Batyr will just go on towards his dream of becoming a world champion, what they did here is just an obstacle to his goal.
?We will go ahead with filing an appeal with the World Boxing Association and requesting an immediate rematch. Batyr did what we expected he would do since this fight was ordered a year ago by the WBA for the mandatory position. If Batyr was getting beat up as bad as Barrios and had such a significant injury which looked like a cheekbone fracture which can cause damage to the eye socket, the fight would have been stopped.?
