Ward-Kovalev II - All of the Officials are American!

[verlichte]

We know for certain that Sergey Kovalev has previously engaged in at least TWENTY TWO bouts on US shores where solely American judges scored each contest, which equates to 69% of the fights listed on his resume... and his promoter, Main Events, has never once officially complained about this fact.

We now know that every single one of the officials for the Ward-Kovalev rematch are American:
• Referee = Tony Weeks (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
• Judges = Dave Moretti (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA), Steve Weisfeld (River Vale, New Jersey, USA) & Glenn Feldman (Avon, Connecticut, USA)

The venue for the bout is obviously in America (Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, Events Center, Las Vegas, Nevada), the vast majority of the audience watching the fight from ringside and on the TV will be American, the event will televised by the American HBO TV network, using a commentary team predominantly from American shores.

Thoughts?

[Freedom2013]

Once again, the deck is stacked against Kovalev.

[Ossyrules]

There'll be no problems if the fight is scored fairly and there's a decisive decision

[SaadOffTheDeck]

It makes no difference where the officials are from.

[ValMar]

Ward by decision or Kovalev by KO/TKO.

[world ranked]

Once again, the deck is stacked against Kovalev.

Now its not just Knock Ward out like he promised in the first fight

[jockpunk]

Kovalev lives in America. I doubt he has any problems with the judges that were selected.

[greg]

...are those two fighting for an international or US - title? If an international title is at stake, the officiating should be international, simple as that..The organisers should have the decency and common sense to recognise it..If they don't, they shouldn't be surprised there'll be a huge outcry in case of a close fight and decision in favour of the local boxer and rightly so..

[SaadOffTheDeck]

...are those two fighting for an international or US - title? If an international title is at stake, the officiating should be international, simple as that..The organisers should have the decency and common sense to recognise it..If they don't, they should be surprised there'll be a huge outcry in case of a close fight and decision in favour of the local boxer and rightly so..

I bet it would be pretty hard to do that for every title fight in the states. How much do Judges make for a fight? $500? Less? Whatever it is I doubt there is a high percentage of judges registered from outside the US and do they pay to bring them in? Is it on their own dime to get to the venue? Admittedly I don't know any of those answers, but I bet you could bride a judge from peru as easily as you could one from Denver. A poor decision like fight 1 was more incompetence imo. That and the ridiculously bad views judges have at fights.

[greg]

...are those two fighting for an international or US - title? If an international title is at stake, the officiating should be international, simple as that..The organisers should have the decency and common sense to recognise it..If they don't, they should be surprised there'll be a huge outcry in case of a close fight and decision in favour of the local boxer and rightly so..

I bet it would be pretty hard to do that for every title fight in the states. How much do Judges make for a fight? $500? Less? Whatever it is I doubt there is a high percentage of judges registered from outside the US and do they pay to bring them in? Is it on their own dime to get to the venue? Admittedly I don't know any of those answers, but I bet you could bride a judge from peru as easily as you could one from Denver. A poor decision like fight 1 was more incompetence imo. That and the ridiculously bad views judges have at fights.

..Saad, I've no idea how much they get paid either, I believe though that as an option they might save some money on Michael Buffer and pay more to the judges..I'm not necessarily accusing judges of accepting bribes, I don't exclude their incompetence and I can certainly relate to the local judges being influenced (sub)conciously by the cheering of the local crowd... Why not just take this factor out of the equation and make sure the organisers have done their best to provide a fair refereeing..

[SaadOffTheDeck]

...are those two fighting for an international or US - title? If an international title is at stake, the officiating should be international, simple as that..The organisers should have the decency and common sense to recognise it..If they don't, they should be surprised there'll be a huge outcry in case of a close fight and decision in favour of the local boxer and rightly so..

I bet it would be pretty hard to do that for every title fight in the states. How much do Judges make for a fight? $500? Less? Whatever it is I doubt there is a high percentage of judges registered from outside the US and do they pay to bring them in? Is it on their own dime to get to the venue? Admittedly I don't know any of those answers, but I bet you could bride a judge from peru as easily as you could one from Denver. A poor decision like fight 1 was more incompetence imo. That and the ridiculously bad views judges have at fights.

..Saad, I've no idea how much they get paid either, I believe though that as an option they might save some money on Michael Buffer and pay more to the judges..I'm not necessarily accusing judges of accepting bribes, I don't exclude their incompetence and I can certainly relate to the local judges being influenced (sub)conciously by the cheering of the local crowd... Why not just take this factor out of the equation and make sure the organisers have done their best to provide a fair refereeing..

I don't disagree, just going through the logistics in my head and I know they have to pay licensing fees to the state commission they wish to work in. So the travel and all that is a pretty big question. I absolutely think judges get paid bribes, Don King put Richard Steele's children through College! I think if they gave them a better chance to be good it might be easier to spot.

I just had a flight cancelled Monday and had a 4 hour wait so I actually bought a Ring magazine for the first time in God knows how long. I enjoyed it, but they had a thing on great Mexican rivalries. I remembered the Pintor/Zarate decision being a bad one, but I didn't remember the exact scores. 142-141 x2 for Pintor and 145-133 for Zarate. That really made me LOL.

[Covfefe]

Michael Buffer is paid by the promoters, the judges aren't. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

[greg]

Michael Buffer is paid by the promoters, the judges aren't. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

..stand corrected..anyway, are you aware of any other boxing match of this magnitude held in Europe/Asia where the organisers would have appointed local judges and a local referee? Can anyone imagine Mayweaher/Ward and Co. leave the safe h(e)aven and travel to Europe agreeing in advance to these preconditions? I don't think so...

[greg]

I just had a flight cancelled Monday and had a 4 hour wait so I actually bought a Ring magazine for the first time in God knows how long. I enjoyed it, but they had a thing on great Mexican rivalries. I remembered the Pintor/Zarate decision being a bad one, but I didn't remember the exact scores. 142-141 x2 for Pintor and 145-133 for Zarate. That really made me LOL.

..I guess it's about time I bought me one..

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I just had a flight cancelled Monday and had a 4 hour wait so I actually bought a Ring magazine for the first time in God knows how long. I enjoyed it, but they had a thing on great Mexican rivalries. I remembered the Pintor/Zarate decision being a bad one, but I didn't remember the exact scores. 142-141 x2 for Pintor and 145-133 for Zarate. That really made me LOL.

..I guess it's about time I bought me one..

It was a HOF edition, loads of Holyfield & MAB stuff. I left it at the airport in the rare chance that a fight fan would come across it. Downside was it was a Canelo/Peter Pan preview, couldn't read a word of that.

[boxing_rocks]

Kovalev lives in America. I doubt he has any problems with the judges that were selected.

Except that the previous set of American judges robbed him.

[boxing_rocks]

Michael Buffer is paid by the promoters, the judges aren't. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

Promoters have ways to influence judges.

[Covfefe]

Michael Buffer is paid by the promoters, the judges aren't. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

Promoters have ways to influence judges.

What does that have to do with wha I said?

[Kalan]

Kovalev lives in America. I doubt he has any problems with the judges that were selected.

Except that the previous set of American judges robbed him.

He does... He voiced objections last time and he laughed at he decision... Every member of the HBO crew had Kovalev winning including Roy Jones... He landed more punches, better punches, and scored the only knockdown... There's no way you get a Ward win out of that. His previous Title Defense was in Russia.. The Russian commission appointed 3 neutral boxing judges and a neutral referee.

[Freedom2013]

He does... He voiced objections last time and he laughed at he decision... Every member of the HBO crew had Kovalev winning including Roy Jones... He landed more punches, better punches, and scored the only knockdown... There's no way you get a Ward win out of that. His previous Title Defense was in Russia.. The Russian commission appointed 3 neutral boxing judges and a neutral referee.

True, so there's no excuse for it.

The American referee will permit Andre Ward to use illegal tactics, and the three American judges will once again award him the decision even if Kovalev dominates every round.

[Tanzio]

He does... He voiced objections last time and he laughed at he decision... Every member of the HBO crew had Kovalev winning including Roy Jones... He landed more punches, better punches, and scored the only knockdown... There's no way you get a Ward win out of that. His previous Title Defense was in Russia.. The Russian commission appointed 3 neutral boxing judges and a neutral referee.

True, so there's no excuse for it.

The American referee will permit Andre Ward to use illegal tactics, and the three American judges will once again award him the decision even if Kovalev dominates every round.

Would you mind describing in detail what it is like to whine for an entire lifetime?

[Kalan]

They're 2 kinds of people... People who put the spotlight on evil and try to eradicate it ... and those who embrace it.

[asdfjkl]

Kovalev lives in America. I doubt he has any problems with the judges that were selected.

Kovalev asked for independant judges before, but Ward said no, because if Ward said yes, the fight would be fair andas we all know, Americans don't like fair fights, they want the American to win.

[verlichte]

Kovalev lives in America. I doubt he has any problems with the judges that were selected.

Kovalev asked for independant judges before, but Ward said no, because if Ward said yes, the fight would be fair andas we all know, Americans don't like fair fights, they want the American to win.

Sergey Kovalev's own promoter ran the entire event for the first Andre Ward fight (as the A-side) and Main Events didn't request so-called "neutral" judges.

In fact, Main Events have not only used predominantly American judges for every single fight that Kovalev has fought on US soil, but they've also done the same for their other Eastern European and Communist fighters also.

To make matters worse, they continued using American judges for all of their other fighters since Kovalev lost the first bout to Andre Ward.

So Kathy Duva's request is highly-hypocritical, but it does make for an interesting discussion point, since many fight fans are outraged about Ward exercising his contractual right (as the new A-side), whilst refusing to fact-check the actions of Main Events.

[greg]

Sergey Kovalev's own promoter ran the entire event for the first Andre Ward fight (as the A-side) and Main Events didn't request so-called "neutral" judges.

In fact, Main Events have not only used predominantly American judges for every single fight that Kovalev has fought on US soil, but they've also done the same for their other Eastern European and Communist fighters also.

To make matters worse, they continued using American judges for all of their other fighters since Kovalev lost the first bout to Andre Ward.

So Kathy Duva's request is highly-hypocritical, but it does make for an interesting discussion point, since many fight fans are outraged about Ward exercising his contractual right (as the new A-side), whilst refusing to fact-check the actions of Main Events.

...just because something was done wrong in the past doesn't necessarily mean that doing it over and over again makes it right, period..the World title at stake is the WORLD title (in fact 2 or 3 of them, I believe), unless, of course, you are willing to change it to Las Vegas title. The organisers just set the time bomb either not realising it or not giving a damn..