By Eric Thomas: In the absolutely worst decision I have ever seen in all my life, former light welterweight contender Ben Tackie (29-10-1, 17 KOs) lost a 10-round split decision to former light welterweight title challenger Henry Bruseles (27-3-1, 15 KOs) at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday night. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 96-94, for Bruseles, and 96-94 for Tackie. However, Tackie, 34, appeared to easily win rounds five though ten, while seeming to win the 4th round closely.
I had it six rounds to four, but it really should have been 7 rounds to 3 in favor of Tackie, who did all the fighting from the fourth round on. Indeed, all Bruseles, 27, did from the 4th until the 10th is clinch, run and attempt to dodge punches. He was throwing absolutely nothing back in his efforts to survive the fight without being knocked out by Tackie. No stranger to being given the shaft in terms of bad decisions, Tackie was also given a raw deal in his 10-round loss to Mexican Freddy Hernandez in June 2007.
That fight was almost as bad as this one, but not quite. Not sure what it is about Tackie that makes him get bad decisions, but he certainly deserves better than this for the kind of effort he put in against Bruseles.
In rounds one though three, Bruseles looked good, throwing mostly jabs and with a few left hands mixed in. However, you could see even then that Bruseles was uncomfortable with Tackies’ shots and his nonstop pressure. Bruseles was able to compensate during this time by using excellent ring movement to keep Tackie from cornering him against the ropes. However, by the the end of the third round, Bruseles was beginning to tire from his constant need to have to fend off the oncoming Tackie. Bruseles won both the 1st and 2nd rounds by a wide margin, but he struggled to win the 3rd round. The last minute of the 3rd round Tackie was landing his trademark heavy blows, seemingly punching through Bruseles each time he would land.
In rounds four and five, Tackie looked like a completely different fighter as he out-landed Bruseles by a ridiculously wide margin. It wasn’t even remotely close as Tackie stalked and landed big shots against the constantly running and clinching Bruseles. It was all that Bruseles could do, for he looked both terrified and tired from having to try and trade shots with the harder punching Tackie.
Nothing changed in rounds six, seven and right, as Tackie was the one doing all the punching while Bruseles was thinking only survival as he ran, clinched and dodged punches. He was able to dodge some of the shots, but Tackie hit him an awful lot without stop and made the rounds one-sided. There was no way you could give any of the rounds to Bruseles because he wasn’t punching at all, period.
In rounds nine and ten, it continued to be a one-sided bout, though Bruseles did land a handful of punches in both rounds. However, Tackie was hitting him 10 times per one of Bruseles’ weak shots, making it impossible for me to score either rounds in Bruseles’s favor. Plus, he was still clinching and running, trying to avoid fighting Tackie as he turned the fight into an ugly bore. In the end, I figured it was an easy decision win for Tackie. However, two of the judges saw it differently than me, and perhaps a lot of the fans, judging from all the boos that were chorused by the angry fans after the decision was announced.