WBA president Gilberto Mendoza has ordered a pair of rematches of WBA sanctioned fights that happened over the weekend. These fights are as a result of Ryota Murata somehow being robbed in Japan of a win over Hassan N’Dam and Rances Barthelemy winning an eliminator over Kyril Relkh in a fight in which broadcaster Showtime disagreed with the verdict.
First and foremost, Murata was without question a victim of terrible scoring in Japan. I use the label robbery as little as possible, but this was one. The fight should not have been close on the cards. I had it 117-110 Murata and I felt like I gave N’Dam every round I possibly could have. It is a little frustrating that this rematch needs to happen at all since Murata so clearly won the fight, but this is where we are at.
As for Rances Barthelemy over Kyril Relikh, this is a case of Showtime doing an exceptionally poor job of covering a fight. They treated Barthelemy’s win on air as a robbery, but it wasn’t anywhere close to that. I scored the fight for Rances Barthelemy. ESPN scored it a draw. BoxingScene scored it for Barthelemy. SB Nation’s boxing blog scored it for Barthelemy. No one but Showtime actually scored it for Relikh. Sure, the scores were too wide, but what matters is the correct result and we got it. Now, presumably thanks to Showtime’s misplaced outrage, we will get a rematch instead of Barthelemy getting the title shot he earned. At least it was a good fight and probably will be again.
Mendoza is also planning on testing a new judging model in regional title fights in which a fourth judge and the event supervisor both score the fight. The fourth judge will be used in case of a draw and the supervisor’s score will be used as a point of reference in controversial fights. I hate the idea of the fourth judge deciding a draw as one card should never determine a fight. I am also worried that supervisor’s scorecards will be used to justify outcomes the WBA wants to happen. Finally, I have no idea how either of those ideas would have helped either fight that is now likely to have a rematch.
