The Glazkov vs. Rossy debate: How did you score it?

By Boxing News - 08/13/2014 - Comments

rossy(Photo Credit: Rich Graessle/Main Events) By Ian Aldous: Last Saturday night, another weekend passed and as sure as the sun goes down at night – we saw another baffling decision that put yet another black mark against the sport. Derric Rossy (29-9) went into the fight as a huge underdog, but gave No. 2 ranked IBF contender, Vyacheslav Glazkov (18-0-1) the toughest fight of his fledgling career. A couple of days ago I spoke with Derric’s promoter, Sal Musumeci, to reflect on the events of the weekend.

A couple of weeks before the fight, I spoke at length with Derric about his career and his thoughts on the impending bout with Glazkov. Afterwards, I felt that I’d spoken to a man who wouldn’t simply be picking up his money and getting out of the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem as soon as he could. I sensed a man who had quit his ‘real’ job to concentrate on doing everything in his power to fully realize his in-ring potential. After taking up boxing at a much later age than many professionals – it would be logical to speculate that his prime will arrive later than most.

So, going into fight night, few gave Rossy a shot of getting the job done and defeating the undefeated Ukrainian. As the fight developed, it was apparent to see that Glazkov was off the pace and Rossy exploited this with a jab that landed repeatedly as well as scoring some notable uppercuts. By the halfway point, Judge Benoist had unfathomably given Glazkov at least three of those rounds.

At the end of the fight, I thought Rossy earned the win and I’m not alone in thinking that way. Knowing that he was not the ‘house’ fighter – I expected to see three very tight cards because he was not going to be getting any favours from the judges – unfortunately we all know that is how boxing works. So, with that being said, the 95-95 from John Poturaj and 96-94 for Glazkov from Ron McNair are understandable regardless of how we as individuals scored it. The scorecard of 98-92 from Pierre Benoist is painful and embarrassing to comprehend. I’d very much like to hear how he can justify the way he judged the fight as I’d predict that it would be virtually impossible, Sal agreed with me “There’s no way you can explain that.”

In his post-fight interview, Derric was incredibly humble and simply asked for more “accountability” for bad decisions. He refused to rant on national TV and start a witch-hunt. To see him act this way – made me feel even more disappointed for him than I already did. Also on the NBC broadcast, BJ Flores, Steve Cunningham and Larry Hazzard all sided with Rossy to finish the night victorious.

“The guy (Rossy) won it legitimately.” Sal Musumeci told me. “It wasn’t like you had to side with him because he’s an American, just judge it fairly and the American gets the win, beats the No.2 guy and is in line to fight for a world title and have a shot at bringing the title back to the U.S.” It’s quite ironic that the American suffers a ‘hometown’ decision against him on American soil.

Sal brought up an interesting point concerning the defeat that Rossy suffered against Joey Dawejko in January. “I was the house promoter in Atlantic City. That was a split decision and the first judge called it even and I’m saying to myself ‘I really don’t think he (Rossy) deserves it and if we get a draw – we’re lucky.’ When they announce Joey Dawejko a winner by split decision, I said to Rossy ‘You didn’t do enough, you didn’t deserve it.’ So, Rossy beats this guy (Glazkov) and they go entirely against him.” He continued “I accept that the winner should win whether he’s the promoter’s fighter or not because it’s hurting boxing.”

We all know that boxing is an incredibly subjective sport when it comes to deciding a winner and we’ve all disagreed strongly with a decision in the past. For me, it just happens far too often and something needs to be done. As Derric put it so eloquently after the fight, more “accountability” needs to be implemented against judges who provide scorecards that are completely unjustified. I think Sal put it best when he said “Boxing is hurting boxing.”

Recently, UFC president Dana White used his power to effectively ‘overturn’ an unjust decision that went against Ross Pearson. Despite being adjudged to have lost the fight, White awarded him his win bonus and said it would be reflected in the UFC’s ranking system.

If this had been a fight between two lesser known fighters in a neutral location with neutral judges – we’d have undoubtedly had a different outcome. I believe the very least that Rossy deserves is a rematch but that seems unlikely.

#GLAZKOVROSSY2

So, how did you guys score it???



Comments are closed.