One of the three judges in Sunday?s featherweight title fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao that ended in a draw admitted to making a mistake in scoring the first round?where Pacquiao sent the Mexican champion to the canvas thrice.
Burt Clements, the Nevada-based judge, scored round one 10-7, instead of the mandatory 10-6 score for a round where a fighter falls thrice.
Had Clements scored it 10-6, his 12-round total would have been 113-112 and that meant Pacquiao would have stripped the Mexican titleholder of both the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation belts.
In an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, Clements said: ?Clearly, it wasn?t non-awareness that there were three knockdowns. I just screwed up. I feel badly because I dropped the ball, plainly and simply.
