Anthony Crolla given immediate rematch against Darleys Perez for November 21st in Manchester

By Boxing News - 07/30/2015 - Comments

crolla2(Anthony Crolla seen here pulling down on Darleys Perez’s head in the 12th round as he throws a punch, which wound up being low and costing him a point) By Scott Gilfoid: #11 WBA contender Anthony Crolla (29-4-3, 11 KOs) will be getting an immediate rematch against WBA World lightweight champion Darleys Perez (32-1-1, 20 KOs) after Crolla’s promoter Eddie Hearn appealed the results of Crolla’s previous fight against Perez from July 18th, a fight which was scored as a 12 round draw.

Hearn is now planning on having the rematch staged in the same area in Manchester on November 21st. Perez likely isn’t two excited about having to go back to the same place where he was arguably robbed of a victory the last time out.

All he can really hope for is he’s given fair treatment and he doesn’t have to see a referee take control over the fight in the championship rounds to start taking off points over and over again like we saw last time out.

Crolla should have lost the fight, but the referee Howard Foster took control over the fight in the crucial 11th and 12th rounds, taking points off twice from Perez, the visiting fighter, for throwing low blows. On one of the point deductions, Crolla actually grabbed Perez by the head with both arms and pulled him to a bent over position while he was in the process of throwing a punch. One only knows how the referee could have not seen this.

Normally referees don’t deduct points from a fighter when he’s being pulled forward the way Perez was. The referee’s job is to warn the other fighter not to pull down on his opponent’s heads while they’re throwing shots. In this case, the British referee Foster didn’t warn Crolla, the home fighter, for pulling down on Perez’s head. Instead, Foster took a point off from Perez. That point resulted in Crolla getting a draw out of the fight instead of a loss. You can make an argument that Perez’s team dropped the ball in not appealing the blown call by Foster, because with him making the right call and not taking a point away in the 12th, Crolla would have lost the fight.

Foster was a real life safer for Crolla in this fight, because without Foster taking away two points in the crucial 11th and 12th rounds, Crolla would have lost the fight. The final scores of the judges were 113-113, 113-113, and 116-111 for Crolla. But if Foster hadn’t blown the call in the 12th round by taking a point away from Perez while he went pulled to a lowercase ‘r’ position by Crolla while throwing a shot, Perez would have won the fight by the scores of 114-113, 114-113 for Perez, and 115-112 for Crolla.

“Rather than thinking about what could have been, now it’s about channeling your frustration and desire on a new camp and we’re already in negotiations with Darleys Perez about the date and right now we are looking at a potential date of November 21st, back at the same arena [in Manchester],” Hearn said via skysports.com.

Once again, Hearn is able to get an immediate rematch for one of his fighters when they’ve failed to do the job. We saw how Hearn was able to get a rematch for his fighter Paul Smith when he was beaten by WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham last year. There was no reason for a rematch because Smith clearly lost the fight to Abraham, yet Hearn was able to get a rematch for his fighter.

I just wonder if Hearn will be able to get another rematch for Crolla if he fails to do the job again. At some point, the World Boxing Association has to say enough is enough and tell Hearn and Crolla to move along. If they can’t get the job done, and that was clearly the case in the first Perez-Crolla fight, then they need to go back to the end of the line and wait for a second chance in two or three years once Crolla has become the No.1 mandatory challenger for the WBA title. But for Crolla to get a rematch for a fight that he would have lost had the referee not taken control of the fight in the championship round and blown a call in the 12th, it just seems pretty sad.



Comments are closed.