I KNOW how it feels to be on the wrong end of a bad decision. My amateur career lost the golden sheen it might have had because of one.
So I feel for Juan Manuel Marquez, who had victory stolen from him by the judges in a close fight with Manny Pacquiao.
But this is not the story of a rotten sport. Conspiracy theories abound about the decision-making last Saturday night with plenty claiming the result reflected the desire to protect the proposed bout between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Advertisement >>
That may have been a subconscious factor but I?m not convinced it was a preordained attempt to pervert the outcome of the fight.
At ringside in Las Vegas, judges in championship fights are working under huge pressure. It is a ?cauldron of intensity and emotion.
Such circumstances can produce unusual outcomes. I prefer to think that Marquez was a victim of bad judging not bad apples. There is a world of difference.
To listen to some you would think the bad old days of mob involvement in ?40s America had returned.
I see a lot of bouts. I travel up and down the country week-in week-out. Yes there have been some howlers, but in the main officiating is sound.
The sport could not survive otherwise. The angry response to the Marquez injustice is the best kind of check and balance you could have.
And that is why I believe that any bias last week was unconscious and arguably resulted from the power and popularity of the Pacquiao brand. If there is a shred of doubt in close rounds, the benefit is going to go with him. Over 12 rounds tiny margins add up to big news but not in my mind anything underhand.
That is no consolation to Marquez. In May 1980 at the European Juniors I lost to world champion Yuri Gladischev in a fight even he thought I won.
And at the Olympics later that summer I beat Winfred Kabunda from Moscow to Manchester and back and did not get the decision. He then suffered something similar against the Russian who eventually won it.
That was my gold medal the judges were messing with. Those were two decisions fundamental to my amateur career and I was devastated by them.
On the other hand, I benefited at the Commonwealth Games in 1978 after being dropped in the final by a lad from Papua New Guinea.
I came back to get the decision but I remember Harry Carpenter, commentating on BBC TV, thought I had lost it and Des Lynam, on the radio, thought I had got it.
As long as human beings are in charge of the judging the system is, by definition, going to be ?imperfect.
Mistakes can be minimised by the pressure applied in the court of public opinion and by the various governing, licencing and sanctioning bodies.
If we scream our outrage and organisers demote referees and judges for consistently poor ?officiating, then the bad results will be reduced to a minimum.
I felt disappointment at what happened to Marquez, but a week down the line I do not share the dismay that some have expressed.
We are dealing with flaws here not the flagrant flaunting of rules.
