....My first question was if a heavy hammer would be dropped on judges Jerry Roth and Glenn Trowbridge, similar to the suspension New Jersey handed down for the judges involved in the horrible robbery of Erislandy Lara, who lost a majority decision to Paul Williams despite roundly dominating the fight.
"Personally, I didn't see anything wrong with the judging. I think a lot of the rounds were 'carbon copies' of one another so if you didn't appreciate the style of Abril, you were probably going to score the fight somewhat wide for Brandon Rios. If you did think Abril was doing enough, then you probably saw...saw it for Abril by a big margin" Kizer explained.
When asked to clarify if that meant no action for the judges involved, Kizer made it clear that there would be no action taken. "I can see scoring it wide either way. There won't be any action taken as I was there at the fight and don't have any problems with the way the fight was scored. Adalaide Byrd and Glenn Trowbridge (ed note: I didn't clarify with him but I assume he meant Jerry Roth) scored it wide each way. Byrd had nine rounds for Abril, Trowbridge had eight for Rios but they saw the majority of the rounds the same."
I also asked what protocol is in a situation where two judges score the fight so different and the fight is seen as so controversial by fans and media, are judges asked to explain the way they scored the fight so it lines up with judging guidelines? "We had a meeting after the fight with all the officials and went over the fight. I generally think it's a good idea with how easy it is to find fights now...on YouTube or somewhere online or by watching the pay-per-view replay and see the fight from all the different angles. That's good for the judges to do. And for the ref too."
[...]
There's no valid way, no matter how Kizer attempted to spin it when I talked to him, for a fight to be "correctly" scored 117-111 one way and 112-116 the other. There is a scoring criteria and, if it is being enforced, one would think the scores would be pretty close across the board, not that two of the judges saw nearly half the rounds differently. And that, yet again, the disputed judging just happened to favor the guy with the most money behind him.
It's not acceptable and it's getting impossible for me to think that these state athletic commissions are fit for the job. We see the NSAC drag Victor Ortiz in to take him to task for saying something stupid in an interview, where we all know that it's just a dog and pony show, but they never take any steps to make the public feel like the game is level. Because it's much more important to have a big fancy meeting where everyone looks tough than it is to protect the integrity of the sport and make the fans feel comfortable spending their money on the sport.
It's just too much at this point and, as Scott pointed out the night of Rios/Abril, there's no need to wonder where the boxing audience went when these situations just keep happening and no one does anything to stop them.
