One of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to announce.”
Ring Announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr.
“How this fight could be scored 116-110 on a judge’s scorecard is beyond comprehension. It’s one of the most egregious decisions I’ve ever seen.”
Showtime Analyst Al Bernstein
In retrospect, it was very appropriate that light heavyweight title challenger Gabriel Campillo raised his arms above his head at the conclusion of his fight on Saturday night.
To the live audience at the American Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the nationwide viewers of Showtime Championship Boxing, it appeared that Campillo was celebrating his dominant 12-round victory over IBF Champion Tavoris Cloud.
But after the incomprehensible decision rendered by two of the judges, the truth became apparent: Campillo had his hands up because he was being robbed!
Madrid, Spain’s rangy southpaw Gabriel Campillo (21-4-1, 8 KOs), came into his fight against Tavoris Cloud having already been the victim of several outrageous decisions, but what occurred last Saturday night may have been the worst of his collection.
After surviving a shaky first round in which he was down twice against the hard-punching champion, Campillo completely took over with his free-swinging combinations. Which makes the scores of judges David Robertson (116-110) and Joel Elizondo 114-112 crimes against not only Campillo, who worked hard and pulled off a perfect game plan against a dangerous champion, but also against the sport of boxing itself.
“The precedent set in the Paul Williams vs. Erislandy Lara fight needs to be followed here,” said Campillo’s angry promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz. “The two judges who scored the fight for Cloud need to be suspended indefinitely. I will be filing an official protest with the IBF today, but I think the Texas Commission needs to do the right thing for the sport and make sure these two judges don’t work again. What they did to my fighter should never happen again to another.”
The crowd of 4,599 in attendance agreed loudly, as they drowned out all other sounds with their long chorus of boos.
Though he tried hard, Cloud was effectively out of the fight after the first round. He was cut badly as early as the fourth and was even hanging on at certain parts of the fight, as the surging Campillo turned on the fireworks.
Campillo had previously lost his world title on a sad split decision against Beibut Shumenov and suffered an embarrassingly inept “draw” against opponent Karo Murat in his previous fight.
“This is not figure skating,” continued Lewkowicz. “You don’t just say get them next time when you get a bad decision in boxing. These men are risking their lives. They spend hundreds of hours preparing for a fight and when a fighter like Gabriel comes to a foreign country against a well-respected champion and puts on the kind of performance he did, he deserves to win fairly. These judges need to be removed so that they cannot ruin any more fights and tarnish boxing with their incompetence.”
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
