Mayweather-Canelo judge C.J. Ross takes an indefinite leave of absence

By Boxing News - 09/18/2013 - Comments

canelo9995By Allan Fox: C.J. Ross, the judge that scored the Floyd Mayweather Jr-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight a 114-114 draw, has reportedly decided to take an indefinite leave of absence for her judging job, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. Ross, 64, has taken a ton of head about her scoring for the Mayweather vs. Canelo fight in addition go her scoring for the Tim Bradley vs. Manny Pacquiao fight last year in June. Ross scored that fight 115-113 for Bradley.

It’s unknown whether Ross will return to judging or not because she said that she would be in contact with Nevada State Athletic director Keith Kizer in the future. Ross’s judging license was set to expire at the end of the year, and she would have to be approved by the Commission for to return. Considering the heat that has brewed up about her scores for the Mayweather-Canelo and Pacquiao-Bradley fights, it’s questionable whether the Commission would approve her license when she attempts to renew. It’s possible but I wouldn’t bet on it happening.

The Commissions that are responsible for the judges need to have some way of evaluating their performances over time so that the bad judges that are coming up with wild scores that don’t make a lot of sense are quickly weeded out. Poor judging hurts the sport of boxing because it causes fans to lose faith when they see highly unpopular judges decisions.

The evaluation process needs to be quick for it to be effective because if it takes course of a period of years rather than 6-12 months, the harm from the poor judging can continue to hurt the sport for a long time. The judges need to be given a report card and if their scores don’t measure up then they need to be booted and quickly so that more boxing fans don’t drift away.

There are a lot of judges that are coming up with pretty unusual scores. One fight that recently stuck out was the September 7th fight between WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns and Raymundo Beltran in Glasgow, Scotland. Beltran had pretty well dominated most of the fight and proved that he was clearly the better fighter, yet the judges scored it a draw.

Judge Carlos Ortiz gave Burns the win 115-112 while another judge Richard James Davies had the fight a draw at 114-114. The Burns-Beltran fight was nearly as one-sided as the Mayweather-Canelo fight and it even had a knockdown with Beltran dropping Burns in the 8th, but two judges still has unusual scores that were out of whack from what took place in the ring in that fight.



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