2014 biggest boxing robberies

By Gavin Duthie - 12/18/2014 - Comments

herrera688By Gav Duthie: After witnessing another couple of horrendous decisions on Saturday night many high profile boxing figures including Teddy Atlas and Bob Arum have spoken out in protest. Controversial decisions are as old as the sport itself but it is increasingly affecting the fighters who are trying to make a living out of it.

Mauricio Herrera might have been a contender for fighter of the year for 2014 after his performances against Danny Garcia and Jose Benavidez. Is only win ironically came in probably his closest fight against Johan Perez.

In reality he has lost twice and will probably never get a world title shot. More often than not the underdog who may not have the same future revenue potential don’t get the wins they deserve. This article takes a look at the 5 most controversial decisions of the year and the consequences as well as what, if anything, can be done about this. 

(5) Mickey Bey (W12) v Miguel Vasquez

In fairness the judges in this contest likely fell asleep during the fight hence forgot to score it. Only 170 punches were landed in the fight in total. Neither fighter came out of this one with his head held high but it was one of the worst performances in winning a title I can think of. The expression “You’ve got to take the title from him” certainly dud not apply. Bey landed one more jab but was down 51/42 in power punches. When you take a look at the scoring of the rounds they seemed to use very strange logic. 

Vasquez was for the first time fighting on a major card and a win could have given him a Terence Crawford unification bout but a combination of his poor performance and questionable judgement leaves him behind. 

(4) Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (W12) v Erislandy Lara

Again this was quite a difficult bout to watch. It can certainly be argued that Lara did not do enough to win but he did out-land Canelo 107-97 punches in total despite throwing a lot less. At least in Canelo’s victory over Trout he landed a large percentage of power shots and knocked him down despite Trout landing more. Conversely in the Lara bout he never hurt the Cuban at all. 73 out of Canelo’s 88 power punches landed were body shots. He couldn’t catch Lara to the head at all and only landed 9 jabs the whole fight. 

If Lara had won the bout his earning potential would have rocketed and he would be one of he top 3 contenders for a fight with Floyd Mayweather. Despite calling him out after his victory over Ishe Smith it is unlikely Floyd would go near him now.  

(3) Vyachslav Glazkov (W10) v Derric Rossy

Most organizations have Glazkov in the top ten but the Ukrainian is extremely lucky to still be undefeated at this stage of his career. He was fortunate to grab a draw with American Malik Scott in 2013 but was even more fortunate to bag a majority decision against Derric Rossy. Rossy is a high class journeyman and usually used as a stepping stone fighter. The likes of Alexander Dimitrenko, Kubrat Pulev, Eddie Chambers and Audley Harrison have all beaten Rossy so this should have been simple. Rossy out-landed Glazkov 184/159 but threw almost twice as many shots. He was busy, aggressive and strong. 

Glazkov will be exposed soon much like Dennis Boytsov did recently so giving him gifts will only help for so long.   

(2) Danny Garcia (W12) v Mauricio Herrera

This was supposed to be easy. This was not considered a legitimate title defence by Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia despite Herrera’s win over Ruslan Provodnikov. The idea was that seeing as Garcia has as much personality as a paper cup they would appeal to the Puerto Rican fanbase by staging a fight there. Garcia is American born but his outspoken father and his mother are from Puerto Rico. If Garcia could get an easy win, possibly knockout then this would help. Herrera hadn’t read the script. His constant movement and jabs caused lots of problems. He out-landed Garcia by amos 3/1 for jabs landing 139 to 54 by Garcia although Danny landed 150 power punches to Herrera’s  82. Sometimes punch stats can only tell you so much this bout was more about watching a lost Garcia trying to figure out Herrera’s lateral movement and failing. 

As aforementioned Herrera would have likely been fighter of the year without those two robberies but now Garcia having dodged this bullet can look forward to huge paydays against the likes of Lamont Peterson, Adrien Broner, an Amir Khan rematch or even Maywether and Pacquaio. 

(1) Tim Bradley (D12) v Diego Chavez

This decision completely bucked the trend and theory that only underdogs get a raw deal. A win was important for Bradley after the Pacquaio rematch defeat but in fairness he also wanted to put on a performance. He stayed in the pocket for large periods against a dangerous rugged Chavez and out-landed the Mexican 225/152 and 146/108 in power punches. He did fade in the final four rounds but should have done enough to win. 

Bradley was desperate to win to set up a big 2015 fight. He may now be looking to Cotto or Lara at 154lbs but may need to fight Chavez again first. 

Solutions

Perhaps we need 5 judges for championship fights. Maybe we should use ex-pros as judges. It shocked me that Bob Arum said there weren’t enough judges in Nevada. I’m sure lots would give their right arm to be paid to watch and judge some of the worlds greatest fights. Its likely nothing will happen and we will see more robberies and ruined careers in 2015 also. 



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