Rocky Juarez left the ring inside Staples Center in Los Angeles on Saturday night thinking he had earned a draw against Marco Antonio Barrera in a battle for ‘The Baby Faced Assassin’s WBC junior lightweight title.
But when he got to his dressing room, he and his representatives were informed that because of an error in tabulating the scorecards by the California State Athletic Commission, he had actually lost a split decision.
Geez, if there’s any doubt that our school systems out here are struggling, this should leave no doubt. We can’t even add up simple scorecards correctly. (But I’ll leave that problem up to our ‘Governator’ Arnold Schwarzenegger and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa).
Juarez, who came in as a prohibitive underdog to the Mexican legend, may have left Southern California without the decision or a championship belt, but he showed on this night that he was a Rocky who was actually worthy of a sequel in 2006.
It was a tale of two fights. The first half was won by Barrera as Juarez didn’t seem to apply the pressure he needed to, but Juarez closed strong throughout the second half of the contest, and in the late rounds Barrera was like that football team with a small lead who was just content to sit on the ball and run out the clock. To a certain degree, it looked like he aged during the course of this bout with the help of Juarez, who employed a sneaky counter right cross and effective left hooks to slow Barrera.
Duane Ford (who had Juarez winning the last five out of six rounds) had the native of Houston on top 115-114, but was overruled by colleagues Ken Morita (115-114 for Barrera) and Anek Hongtongkam (115-113).
And before anyone starts the cries of ‘robbery’, stop. It was a close, competitive bout, one that I call a ‘seven-fiver’, a bout that most ringsiders have seven rounds to five, one way or another, or somewhere in between. But this being boxing, it was marred in controversy because of the mis-tabulation of the scores.
Now, a lot of theories and accusations can be made (but quite frankly, I don’t need any lawsuits – I don’t have the time or money) so I’ll give the benefit of the doubt (being the trusting Pollyanna that I am) – and say that it was just an honest mistake.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I did,” said Armando Garcia, Executive Officer of the CSAC, to Maxboxing at the post-fight presser, “I checked immediately after the scoring was announced, I recognized the error, I immediately went to HBO – they were still on the air – to tell them. I immediately collected the scorecards and went into both dressing rooms, particularly Mr. Juarez’s and sat down with them and showed every scorecard for every round for every judge and they were completely satisfied that it was simply a mathematical error.”
After every major fight, the media is given a copy of the master scoresheet that shows the round-by-round scoring of the three judges – they are not however, the official scorecards that are filled out by the arbiters during the fight.
“You can clearly see the mathematical additions there,” said Garcia, “but I have the real scorecards, and I absolutely assure you they’ve never been altered or anything. They never left my sight till right now. It is what it is – a mathematical error.”
OK, with that being said – and I have no reason not to believe Garcia – it’s a bit dubious that two of the three judges somehow scored the 12th round (one that most observers had Juarez winning) scored ’10-10′. In a fight of that caliber, in that circumstance, Ford and Morita (the offending parties here), have an obligation to make a call, take a side, and not be Switzerland.
This was utter gutlessness.
Its one thing to call an early round even when both boxers are just circling the ring and not much is happening. But it’s entirely another to call a round even when so much is on the line and the fight comes down to the last three minutes. (Again, being the guy I am, I’m not gonna cast aspersions on anyone, but just what are the odds of two judges scoring the same round even?) Hongtongkam scored the final frame for Juarez.
And this is another column for another day, but why did California, a state with a strong roster of judges, feel the need to import three, outside, WBC officials?
When Juarez and his team arrived to the press conference, his manager Shelly Finkel was unusually charged. Finkel once said of himself that while he may seem milquetoast, that he’s not. Well, on this occasion it was the non-milquetoast Finkel on display.
“Armando may be correct, I’m not going to dispute it, but it also shows lack of people adding correctly when they announced it,” Finkel said forcefully. “When it was announced, two of the judges were 10-9 for Rocky (in round 12). I’m not saying they weren’t 10-10 as he says, I am saying they don’t know how to add and later it was corrected after on national TV they said it was draw.”
(Shelly, I blame the budget cuts to our educational systems, I really do.)
“And what I believe, everyone who saw the fight knows what happened,” continued Finkel, who had a problem with the way referee Raul Caiz Sr. handled things. “There was no warning for the mouthpiece coming out, there was no stop in the action when the mouthpiece was taken out the second time, there was no calling for low blows. We’re not complaining, all we want is a rematch.”
Main Events, V.P. Carl Moretti would state: “Sometimes you lose the battle but you win the war. I think we clearly won the war. But we’re adults, we’re big boys, what happened, happened. We just want a rematch. We hope we can get it. If not, there may not be a belt around Rocky’s waist but we consider him a champion.”
When asked about the scoring of the 12th round, Moretti would huff, “No comment.”
But the unusually feisty Finkel added, “If you look at the scorecards there’s not one other round, any judge gave a 10-10. The last round, when it was read, everyone gave Rocky the last round. Then, they found out they added incorrectly and they corrected it and two of the three judges gave 10-10. I’m not accusing anyone, it’s just strange.”
When Barrera was asked if he felt he won, he didn’t exactly give himself the strongest endorsement, stating, “As far as the decision goes, boxing is a game of appreciation; everybody sees it different. The most important thing is that you, the fans, the media are happy with a tremendous fight.” He then added, “My heart is happy that all the people left very happy – and that’s what’s important.”
For Main Events, this is very reminiscent of the Pernell Whitaker-Julio Cesar Chavez fiasco of 1993, which also just happened to be a WBC title fight involving a Mexican icon that had some controversial scoring. The Juarez camp seems to be resigned to the fact that all they can really do now is complain bitterly.
“I think we already did that,” said Finkel, laughing, afterwards.
“We all got experience in complaining bitterly. We’re the people who brought you Whitaker-Chavez,” chuckled Kathy Duva, who runs Main Events.
“Here’s what you do,” she added, in looking for a silver lining, “you pick up and move forward and you recognize you got a great fighter here who’s going to be a real force. He’s young, he’s strong, he learned a lot tonight and next time, if there is one, it’ll be really different.”
What shouldn’t be lost in all this is the performance of Juarez, who many had written off after his first professional blemish to Humberto Soto last summer. With this outing, he showed that he’s a player at the world-class scene.
“I rate myself a ‘B-‘ in this fight,” Juarez would tell Maxboxing. “If anything, I believe I could’ve stopped him. If they were to give me a rematch, definitely, I would stop him.” When asked about the verdict, he would say: “I don’t see how a fighter can win a fight jabbing and going back and not really doing nothing.”
Juarez and his trainer Ray Ontiveros had promised to fight at a quicker tempo, a la Manny Pacquiao against Barrera. But really, while the ‘Pac Man’ employed a full-court press, Juarez was more of a half-court trap. It seemed that while he was oftentimes steadier and more consistent than Barrera, he would give away rounds in the last seconds.
“I think what was stealing the rounds was the crowd,” he said of the pro-Barrera faction inside the Staples Center. “A few rounds he may have stole, two or three at the most, but I don’t believe he did enough to steal (that many). I was winning the majority of the round and for him to come back in 15 seconds and win the crowd, I don’t think that’s a way you can win a round.”
You knew Barrera was in a real fight when he started to get a bit chippy. In the past, when he’s been pressed in a fight or frustrated, he isn’t beyond stretching the Queensbury Rules.
“I’ve seen Barrera fight plenty of times and I’ve always known that he’s a dirty fighter when he has to be,” said Juarez. “Whether he does it intentionally or he does it on accident, I felt that the referee really didn’t do much on the part where he dropped his mouthpiece and the low blows and even hitting behind the head.
“It seemed like when I retaliated, when he hit me behind the head and I hit him back, the referee got on me more than he should’ve got on Barrera.”
The 26-year old Juarez, who saw his record fall to 25-2, could feel the 32-year old Barrera fade late in the proceedings.
“He was retreating, you could say, basically the whole fight, and that’s why I say, I don’t see how he could’ve won the fight, retreating,” he says. “Whether he was just throwing the jab and landing them. But you can’t win a fight like that and I think he was trying to survive and you see both our faces, he was always backpedaling and he never hurt me throughout the fight.”
Leading up to this event, Juarez had made it clear to anyone who would listen that while he had immense respect for Barrera, there was no awe or intimidation coming in.
“He is a great champion,” admitted Juarez, “but I’ve had tougher fights, let’s put it like that. I think (Humberto) Soto was tougher than he was, I’m just going to be honest with you. I’ve had tougher fights than Barrera. I think I should’ve won the fight.”
Barrera would state that before making any future plans, he would need some well-earned R-and-R. But you get the feeling that if he were to go through another experience like that, he would want to do so for bigger money against the likes of Pacquiao or arch-enemy Erik Morales.
Does Juarez think Barrera will grant him a return bout?
After contemplating the question for a few seconds, Juarez said, “I think so, I think he’s fought great fights with Morales, why not give me an opportunity? I think, why shouldn’t they? I think people would love to see it and if he felt in his gut he won the fight, he wouldn’t. But I don’t think he feels it, that he won. Standing in the ring with him, I had a sense or feeling that he knew he lost the fight.”
And Juarez showed that in losing, he may have won.
“Sometimes you do,” agreed Duva. “It reminds me of the night Evander Holyfield lost to Riddick Bowe.”
“People know the way the result should’ve been,” Juarez would say. “They know I should have the WBC (belt) and I think it’s going to open a lot of doors as far as HBO putting me back on and the major networks allowing me to perform and show my talent.”
What he did win, though, were believers.
“It’s difficult knowing that I was robbed, but I got a lot of fans out there and I think I gained a lot more fans with this performance and the people out here in California are behind me, where they might have never known who Rocky Juarez was. I think a lot of people in the nation, overall, are going to be big supporters of Rocky Juarez,” he would say.
He made one out of Oscar De La Hoya, whose company represents Barrera and promoted the event.
“I think both fighters won tonight. In my eyes,” said ‘the Golden Boy’. “I don’t see any losers here.”
There wasn’t, until they recounted the scorecards.
FINAL FLURRIES
Anyone notice who was sitting next to De La Hoya during the fight? None other than one Juan Manuel Marquez….I’ve been told for years that judges in Cali were told not to score even rounds. I guess the WBC never got that memo….NFL standout Willie McGinest (a big boxing fan) had Juarez winning, for what it’s worth. Hey, who am I to argue with him?…..WBA junior bantamweight king Martin Castillo will be making his next title defense in Japan in mid-July….Look out for Jorge Linares, the 20-year old Venezuelan who fights out of Japan. This super-featherweight is now 20-0, 12 KO’s and impresses everyone that sees him. “He’s the best prospect in boxing,” said trainer Freddie Roach, who’s had him in for sparring a few times….I’ll say this about the Staples Center, while it may not be as cozy as the Forum, it always seems to house some pretty good scraps… Hey, what is it with Duane Ford and those tricky 12th rounds?….
