Brick City Boxing

By: Leszek Dowgier

This past Saturday night, HBO broadcast an interesting and exciting triple header from Sunrise, Florida featuring Nate Campbell v. Ali Funeka, Sergio Martinez v. Kermit Cintron and Alfredo Angulo v. Cosme Rivera.

Despite the high level of talent on the card, the action in the ring was overshadowed by controversial decisions – both by the judges and referees. The decisions of the referees are the focus of this article.

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Early in the first fight between Angulo and Rivera, Angulo was cut rather badly over the eye as a result of what appeared to be an inadvertent head butt. However, the referee incorrectly observed that the cut was caused by a punch. Though the mistake was understandable since the referee didn’t have a great view and the cut occurred in a split second, it might’ve had a serious effect on the outcome of the fight. Since the ruling was that the cut was caused by a punch, if the fight had to be stopped anytime after the 4th round as a result of the cut, Rivera would automatically win by TKO. Though Angulo made sure that the cut wouldn’t become a factor by knocking out Rivera in the 5th round, as the fight progressed Rivera did appear to target that cut over Angulo’s eye, which kept getting worse and worse. If Angulo wasn’t the knockout artist that he is and the fight had progressed into the later rounds, who knows if the referee’s mistake wouldn’t have cost him the fight.

In the very next fight, which saw Sergio Martinez square off against Kermit Cintron, a very similar chain of events unfolded. Early in the fight, Martinez hit Cintron with a clean and crisp punch which opened up a cut over Cintron’s left eye. However, due to the positioning of the ref in the ring and the fact that the southpaw Martinez’s and orthodox Cintron’s heads came close together and appeared to clash, the ref, quite understandably, ruled that the cut was caused by a head butt. Therefore, if the fight had to be stopped anytime after the 4th round as a result of the cut, the outcome of the fight would be decided by the judges’ scorecards up to that point. If Martinez had started off slowly, it’s quite possible that he would’ve lost the fight had it gone to the scorecards early as a result of a stoppage caused by the cut.

When speaking about these incorrect decisions made by the referees, the three HBO commentators asked an interesting question; should there be instant replay in boxing? After all, instant replay is used on a regular basis in other major sports so why not in boxing? The HBO crew was almost instantly able to play back the two incidents in question and allow the commentators and the audience to clearly see what caused the cuts. How many fights have we all seen where a fight was stopped because of a cut? These are common events in boxing and they can all too often lead to unfair results due to incorrect calls by the referee. The technology would be likewise useful in other close and controversial decisions (such as Cintron’s knockdown in the very same fight). So the question remains, why not allow the referee access to such replays in between rounds?

I’m not sure if I’m totally convinced, but it is an interesting idea.