By Sean Jones: George Kambosos Jr. believes he deserved his twelve round majority decision win over IBO lightweight champion Maxi Hughes last Saturday night, saying on Twitter today, “A close fight is not a robbery.”
The fundamental problem is that the boxing public didn’t view it as a close fight, as many saw it as a lopsided 10-2 or 9-3 win for Hughes (26-6-2, 5 KOs), who schooled Kambosos from start to finish, making him look like a fighter with rudimentary skills. The judges scored it 114-114, 117-111, and 115-113.
The faces of ‘Emperor’ Kambosos’ coaches showed that even they thought he lost, as they looked like they were attending a funeral. They all had a gloomy look on their gobs that told the whole story.
The little ‘Emperor’ had been gifted a decision in a fight that he only appeared to win one clear round.
Kambosos looked far worse against Hughes than he did in his two fights with Devin Haney, but the difference is he didn’t have the same three judges on duty for his two defeats last year.
With those judges working the two Haney fights, it’s possible that Kambosos would have won because they seem to have a different way of scoring.
Given how Kambosos was missing with his shots all night against Hughes, the judges scored the rounds based on his aggression rather than on punches landed. They had to have filtered out all the left hands that Hughes was landing and focused entirely on Kambosos pressing the action.
A close fight is not a robbery 🤦🏻♂️ With that being said, full respect to Maxie, we knew he would come to fight & how dangerous he was. A true top 10 lightweight for my return! We give him the utmost respect, it was an honour to share the ring with another warrior & family man. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/kDpwQcdIUU
— George "Ferocious" Kambosos Jr (@georgekambosos) July 23, 2023
ESPN crew criticizes Kambosos win
Mark Kriegel: “I spoke with Maxi about this before the fight. The A-side was Kambosos, all the heat was on Kambosos, and a terrible decision was given, gifted to George Kambosos,” said Mark Kriegel of ESPN last Saturday night.
Tim Bradley: “This cannot continue to happen. You have to understand how it took this young man to get to where he’s at today, have his belt, come here to the United States, he’s 33-years-old, fight his behind off, he doesn’t get the decision, and now he has three, four, six fights to maybe get back to back to the level he’s at. He doesn’t have the energy to do that, man.
“He stayed disciplined throughout these years. Five losses. This is a guy with five losses, think about that and he loses this match. What’s protecting the fighters? There’s nothing protecting the fighters. That’s a problem in boxing.
“Fighters need a union or something. We need something to protect us because stuff like this can’t continue to happen. It’s wrong. These judges need to be sought out. Something needs to happen.
“Somebody needs to protect these fighters because trust me. We go through too much in training to get to this position, and then it gets taken away like that, stolen from a fighter like that. It’s unbelievable. I’m sick to my stomach.”
Joe Tessitore: “Tim, in the twelve rounds, only five of them were unanimous, meaning only five of the rounds the judges agreed. So there are ways you can get around this. You can have forums; you can brainstorm.”
Bradley: “I’m just saying the judges need to be accountable for this. Something needs to happen. They need to be suspended; they need to be fined. We need to find out why did they judge the fight that way. There’s no protection for the fighter.”
Bernardo Osuna: “It would be great if we could talk to the judges immediately after the fight, but they’re all protected. We have no access to them.
“The commission will not allow that because these guys [fighters] have to talk to me, no matter what hell they’ve been through, and the guys that put them through it because they don’t judge what’s happening in the ring. They have no accountability.
“They walk out of here, go have dinner and do whatever they’re going to do and go home to their family. They have nothing. They don’t have the tears in their eyes. He doesn’t have to go back to his family to his kids without that belt that he promised. It’s just unjust to see this.
“That’s why Shakur said is exactly right in the sense that there has to be accountability. This cannot keep happening, and why do we allow it to continue to occur?”
