You would think that previously undefeated Andre Berto learned some valuable lessons Saturday night in losing to supercharged underdog Vicious Victor Ortiz.
I know I learned at least one.
I wound up with a 114-112 tally in favor of Berto which went against the unanimous verdicts of judges Julie Lederman 114-111), Glen Feldman (114-112) and Clark Sammartino (115-110)–three better than average scorers who I’d never pass over even on Passover.
(Keep in mind that referee Mike Oretga (unfairly, I thought) took a penalty point from Vicious Victor for hitting behind the head.)
What’s more, had I scored double knockdown round six properly, meaning having it 10-9 Berto instead of my 10-10 marking, I’d have finished with Berto being ahead, 115-112, which is patently ridiculous.
(On a rounds basis, I did not show my slip as badly, having 6-5-1 in favor of Berto.)
Now Maxboxing’s erudite Steve “K9” Kim, no relation to IBF junior middleweight ruler Cornelius “K9” Bundrage unless they’re Seoul Brothers (and Corny is no relation, I believe, to r&b group, Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose, either) brought up some of the strange ringside press scoring.
Here’s Kim’s take from his couchsurfing view in LA:
“It?s funny but Dan Rafael of ESPN.com is getting a lot of derision for scoring the Ortiz-Berto fight in favor of Berto by a score of 113-112. Now, I can?t say I agree with this (watching this from “couchside,” I had “Vicious” winning this fight going away) but Rafael was not the only one who had Berto winning this fight. Ron Borges, Michael Marley and Peter Mooney (who covered this bout for our website) all had Berto on top. For whatever it?s worth, two of the official ringside judges had that fight awfully close. Julie Lederman scored it 114-111 for Ortiz and Glen Feldman had it 114-112 for the new champion, which means that if you take away the knockdowns, they basically had this fight even, for the most part…”
I sat directly behind young Mooney and close to Brothers Rafael and Borges and they can defend or not defend their scoring as they wish.
I know why I goofed.
I was too busy tapping short messages out on Twitter and Facebook when I should’ve kept my laser corrected vision focused only on the ring, not a computer screen.
Come May 7, for Mosley-Pacquiao, I will not be doing any social messaging other than before or after Sugar Shane and Manny have done their business.
I had doubts about this along the way and two or three rounds I know I hesitated marking Ortiz as the winner and awarded those rounds to Berto, 10-9. When you doubt your scoring while you’re scoring it’s never good which is, a Ms. Lederman pointed out to me, the reason why judges must hand in their tally immediately after each round. Advertisement
A second reason, I now realize, why I leaned backwards for Mr. Berto was my emotional prefight column in which I predicted a Vicious Victor Victory, writing bravely that the much maligned fighter would take a decision and even forecasting that both men would taste the canvas as they did in the four knockdown brawl.
I was selfishly “rooting” for my prediction to be right and I tried to balance it by being too fair to the guy I picked to lose, the 27-0 boxer who is now 27-1 although I’d hardly label this loss any blemish for Berto.
Kim also mentions location, location, location which is almost as important in judging bouts as it is in the real estate game.
Kim concludes:
“It just goes to show you, watching and judging a fight from ringside can be a completely different perspective than watching it on television (although it has to be noted that the HBO crew, which sits right on the ring apron, had Ortiz by a wide margin).
“I still remember the wide discrepancy in opinion between the HBO crew, the ringside media and the television audience over the rematch between Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya in 2003. While those watching on pay-per-view were screaming bloody murder- perhaps influenced by the HBO crew (which had their Golden pom-poms out that night)- the majority of the ringside press had Mosley winning and didn?t know what the fuss was all about.
“Hey, sometimes you just see a different fight.
“Other times, you just disagree on what you witnessed.
“Admittedly, once in awhile, you just have a bad night at the office.”
(Btw, I was at Oscar-Shane in 2003 and, from my ringside seat, De La Hoya was the winner.)
Mark Marley down as the usually good scorer who had a bad night at the office.
Steve Carell from “The Office” could’ve scored Ortiz-Berto better than I did.
But, hey, let’s not forget that spot on prediction, a brilliantine move followed by moronic scoring.
Take me to the woodshed if you must, I won’t repeat that lack of concentration mistake.
You got that, my tweeps?
I goofed, bigtime. I blew it.
Waterboarding may not be severe enough punishment for me, really.
