The judges who sat ringside and watched rising Cuban boxing star Erislandy Lara throttle Paul “The Punisher” Williams for 12 rounds should all be called into a meeting room, sat down, and be forced to explain their decision. Each judge, Al Bennett, Hilton Whitaker, and Donald Givens, should be sat down in front a television monitor with the boxing commission behind them, and be forced to explain this travesty.
We have a young man in Erislanda Lara, a survivor of communist Cuba who made it to this country to get ahead in life. Last night he fought the fight of his life. The beat down was so convincing that the HBO commentators, Max Kellerman and Roy Jones Jr were pleading their case that the fight should be stopped in order to save Williams from lifelong injury.
These kinds of decisions by judges have to be stopped. Is it incompetency? Is the fix in? Are judges still paid off in boxing? Whatever the reason behind such horrific decisions, they must be stopped in order to preserve what little sanctity the sport of boxing has left.
Judges that come to such ridiculous decisions need to be held accountable. Judges should be penalized with the possibility of having their judging licenses revoked or suspended for a period of time decided by the boxing commission. Judges should be penalized and mandated back to judging 4 round fights when it is deemed that they are incapable of judging fairly at the 10 and 12 round level.
Fighters such as Lara, and many others who have been robbed by incompetent judges, work too hard and put too much at risk only to have their victories yanked away from them.
The UFC just took another leap forward and boxing just took another step back. Each time a group of judges blackens the eye of boxing such as they did last night, the UFC and MMA as a whole gains more fans, and boxing loses more fans.
8CountNews would like to congratulate Erislandy Lara on a brilliant victory over Paul Williams. 8CN will recognize Lara as the winner of this fight. Paul Williams will only be recognized as the winner on paper.
