Arum hopeful Nevada commission chooses good referee & judges for Mayweather-Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 04/06/2015 - Comments

pac00234(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Allan Fox: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is hoping that a good referee and set of judges is selected by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the May 2nd mega fight between Arum’s Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Arum, who promotes Pacquiao, says that the Filipino star hasn’t put much attention on who the judges and referee will be. Pacquiao is too busy training for his fight with Mayweather.

Other than his first fight against Tim Bradley, Pacquiao hasn’t been on the receiving end of controversial decisions. In three cases, Pacquiao was the beneficiary of two controversial wins and a controversial draw against Juan Manuel Marquez in their first three fights.

Those were bouts that many boxing fans felt Marquez won, but Pacquiao was given the benefit of the doubt by the judges.

“He doesn’t give any attention to it because his main priority is to train,” Arum said about Pacquiao via the Manilatimes.net. “But I’m hopeful they will choose the best of the best referee and judges to officiate the fight. I still don’t know who the judges are and who the referee is. We will know it two weeks from now.”

It’s hard to imagine that the judges will mess up the scoring for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. There will be so much attention in the scoring of this fight. The judges are going to make sure they get the scores correct because the last thing they need is to have a lot of attention put on them by them giving wacky scores like some of the ones we saw in the first three Pacquiao vs. Marquez fights.

What’s interesting about Marquez is he thinks that Pacquiao will need to score a knockout in order to get a win over Mayweather. It’s strange because Mayweather hasn’t had any controversial wins during his career other than his first fight against Jose Luis Castillo back in 2002. But even in that fight, it was clear that Mayweather won the fight based on the clean shots that he landed.

“He needs to go for the knockout,” Marquez said via Golpe y Golbe. “In Vegas, the judges are going to favor Mayweather if a fight goes to a decision.”

I think the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is going to be a clear cut situation that will wind up judge-proof. I think it’s going to be a decisive enough fight to where even a blind judge will be able to get the fight scored correctly.

If Mayweather goes out and out-boxes Pacquiao for 12 rounds, then there’s little chance that the judges will be able to mess that up. By the same token, if Pacquiao goes out and is able to unload on Mayweather with every shot, the judges aren’t going to be able to miss something like that. They’ll likely be able to score the fight correctly under those circumstances.

It’s silly to think that the judges are going to score the fight to Mayweather simply because he’s an American. If Mayweather wins on May 2nd, it’s going to be due to him being the better man than Pacquiao rather than him being gifted a decision.



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