The farcical side of boxing rears its ugly head.
I just want to get this out of the way immediately. I am often dismissive of robbery claims, but Tyson Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) was robbed in Los Angeles tonight on Showtime PPV. I scored this fight 10 rounds to 2 in his favor, only giving Deontay Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) the two frames in which he scored his knockdowns. He just didn’t land punches.
From the opening round to the ninth, the slippery Gypsy King used his exemplary upper body movement to avoid essentially all incoming damage from the wild American power puncher. Fury didn’t do a ton of damage of his own in each in every round, but he always did at least some and he was not getting hit in return. Every single round was like that. Deontay Wilder did not win any of them until the ninth.
That was the round in which Fury’s upper body movement started to fade a bit. Wilder was able to time it with a clipping shot borderline behind his head that deposited the lineal champion to the canvas. Tyson wasn’t hurt badly and rose with ease though. He even won the rest of the round after the knockdown and went on cruising again in the fight until the astonishing twelfth round.
In the final frame Deontay Wilder knocked Tyson Fury out. He did. A massive right hand with an exclamation point of a left hook on the way down had Fury on his back and out. Fury was motionless and his eyes were not there. Had Jack Reiss elected to wave the fight off immediately, no one would have complained. Instead Reis did an excellent job in giving Fury a count thankfully instead. Tyson not only got up against all odds, but he quickly landed a massive right hand that bothered Wilder and backed him off until the final bell.
That was a second 10-8 round for Wilder, but also only the second round he won in the entire fight. I scored this one 116-110 for Tyson Fury. Consensus across the board is that Fury clearly won. Yet official judges came back with 114-110 Fury, 115-111 Wilder, and a 113-113 draw. Judge Alejandro Rochin should straight up be ejected from the sport for his absolutely absurd scorecard in Wilder’s favor. How the hell do you find seven rounds for him to have won? I am not even sure he landed a punch in seven rounds of this fight.
What a disgrace.
Boxing is cruel to all parties involved sometimes. The bogus draw scored tonight saved Deontay Wilder’s undefeated record, but bad decision wins always hurt a fighter’s image in the long run. Tyson Fury was robbed of a very important win and that fact will out shadow his great performance for ten of the twelve rounds in the mega heavyweight fight. Fans were robbed of a sense of satisfaction and the sport of boxing itself was robbed of any sense of integrity. I love this sport. I do. I just swear that sometimes it doesn’t want me to.
