10 Even More Unspeakable Scorecard Decisions Than Pacquiao vs. Bradley

When the scorecards were read in Las Vegas on June 9 and Timothy Bradley was awarded a split-decision victory over Manny Pacquiao the boxing world reacted with collective shock. It was a fight that most writers and fans had Pacquiao winning easily and even the 115-113 card in his favor seemed ridiculously close.

HBO's primary scorer, Harold Lederman, had Pacquiao winning 11 of 12 rounds. Comcast's Ryan Maquinana compiled a list of 51 journalists and broadcasters, 48 of whom scored the fight for Pacquaio, almost all by wide margins.  

Of the three who scored for Bradley, one of them, Brian Kenny, was calling the fight as a Top Rank employee. 

The next day I watched journalist Michael Katz preface his Hall-of-Fame induction speech by calling this fight "the worst decision since Dred Scott."

But the sad truth is, boxing history is filled with horrible decisions. As bad as I think this one was, I'm not sure I would even call it the worst decision this year. 

Joe Louis Beats Jersey Joe Walcott by Split Decision: December 5, 1947

When the 33-year-old Louis faced Walcott in December of 1947 he was at the height of his popularity, a living icon of national triumph following the life-or-death struggles of World War II. He was the guy who had beaten the Nazi's fighter, Max Schmelling (who was never actually a member of the party), in a kind of ritualistic prelim before the war itself. 

Jersey Joe was a respectable challenger, but with 11 losses already on his resume, pretty much nobody gave him a chance against the legendary Brown Bomber.

But he knocked down Louis twice and appeared to dominate the fight. Referee Ruby Goldstein had the challenger from Camden winning the fight and title seven rounds to six with two even (the referees' were official scorers in this era). 

The two judges, Frank Forbes and Marty Monroe, disagreed, awarding the fight to the champ. They were in a distinct minority. 

In his seminal work The Heavyweight Championship, boxing historian and The Ring founding editor Nat Fleisher wrote:

"

The booing and hissing following the announcement of the winner, the thousands of telegrams and telephone calls that flooded the Boxing Commission, the Garden, the governor's mansion in Albany, the box office, testified to the belief that the richest prize in pugilism belonged to the bald-headed Jersey Joe. Only the Dempsey-Tunney "long count" in Chicago had provoked greater controversy. Louis himself believed he had lost when the final bell clanged, and for the first time in his career he left the ring with the fans against him. 

"

Joe Louis enjoyed a level of popularity and public affection in 1947 that doesn't even exist in boxing anymore, that probably doesn't even exist in sports at all. That this kind of public outcry could have risen up against him indicates that the decision truly must have been rancid. 

Louis did KO Walcott six months later in the rematch. The always game Walcott eventually did capture the heavyweight crown by stopping Ezzard Charles in 1951. At the time he was the oldest man to ever win the heavyweight crown. 

Ceferino Garcia Draws with Henry Armstrong: March 1, 1940

I have seen this referred to as a robbery many times over the years, often on Internet chat boards by people I suspect haven't even actually seen the fight.

I have not been able to locate any truly definitive contemporary sources like the Nat Fleisher quote I gave in the previous slide. Without giving any particular source, Boxrec.com notes that most ringside observers felt Armstrong should have won.  

You can watch the entire fight on YouTube, sort of. The newsreel footage is edited down to the point that the rounds are incomplete and therefore impossible to actually score. Of course, that has not stopped many people from confidently asserting their "scores" in the comment section.  

What you can tell from watching the footage that starts with the link here is that this was one hard-fought battle between two rugged, fearless in-fighters. Almost the entire match is contested chest to chest, forehead to forehead (guys like Evander Holyfield or Timothy Bradley would have excelled in this era).

Neither of these guys were pretty fighters, but they were both outstanding. Armstrong did beat Garcia by a tight unanimous decision in a previous encounter. 

I will say that based on the condensed version of the fight I watched, Armstrong won. Through all the in-close mauling, he maintains the better balance, avoids more punches and more consistently positions himself into advantageous angles to score from. 

But it's a close fight. The sole judge was referee George Blake. Boxrec.com quotes from Blake's 1952 obituary that this was the last fight he officiated, an intriguing detail. 

I guess I ultimately included it because of its historical importance. This was a fight for the middleweight title and Armstrong had already won the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight belts, all in the space of nine months; he held them all at the same time briefly.

This is one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of boxing. It was an era when there were only eight weight classes and only one champion in each division.

If Armstrong had managed to take the crown from Garcia he would have won half the world titles in boxing during the space of two-and-a-half years. I think the disappointment of the "what if" factor may have contributed to the negative reception of the decision.

Boxing has changed radically since that era, but controversial decisions seem destined to remain a constant forever.   

Willie Pastrano Beats Harold Johnson by Split Decision: June 1, 1963

This is another fight that is before my time, that I have always heard referred to as a famous robbery. The entire fight is on YouTube and to research this article I watched it and scored it. 

Watching this fight a couple of things stood out to me. First of all, both of these guys were brilliant technical boxers. 

Secondly, the HBO broadcast team could learn a thing or two from the commentator on this fight, who does not intrude at all upon the action in the ring.

Third and fourth: This fight was broadcast on live network television. Imagine it! And please note how clearly knowledgeable the fans of that era were, breaking into applause at times for the excellent displays of skill and craft these two fighters are demonstrating. 

If this fight were held today, I would be seriously concerned that some group of meatheads would break into impatient boos. 

But all that aside, was it a robbery?

Absolutely. I scored it 10-4-1 for Johnson.

Johnson was the the aggressor for the entire fight. His aggression was often rendered ineffective by Pastrano's defensive brilliance, but Pastrano did very little in the way of countering. Johnson's own defensive skills were more than enough to negate what little offense Pastrano attempted.

Johnson scored consistently to the body throughout the fight, and genuinely rocked Pastrano in the 13th.

The crowd's response to the decision make it clear how they felt. Johnson's manager, Pat Olivieri, called it a robbery immediately after the fight, implying that it had been an outright fix by noting that Pastrano had been a 5-1 underdog for betting purposes.  

Amazingly, considering how controversial this decision was, Johnson never got a rematch. 

Vito Antuofermo Draws with Marvin Hagler: November 30, 1979

Nothing came easy for Marvin Hagler, arguably the greatest middleweight champion in the sport's history. For years he waited for a title shot. When he finally got one he was robbed. 

Vito Antuofermo was a fan-friendly fighter, a rugged, brawling, come-ahead warrior. Hagler was every bit as sturdy and the far better technician. 

East Side Boxing has an excellent historical analysis and retrospective of the fight. Referee Mills Lane is reported to have told Hagler at the conclusion of the fight "Congratulations. Now stay facing this way until they announce the decision and I raise your arm."

Instead one judge scored for Hagler, one for Antuofermo and one scored it even. 

The judge who scored it for Hagler? Duane Ford, one of the two judges who notoriously scored 115-113 for Tim Bradley over Manny Pacquiao earlier this month. 

Boxing fans nostalgic for the good old days, go ahead and sigh with despair. This all-time classic was not only broadcast live on network television, during the afternoon no less, but it was the undercard bout to Sugar Ray Leonard challenging Wilfred Benitez for the welterweight crown. 

That's right: Four Hall of Fame champions, fighting on free television, well before bedtime.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that I belong to the last generation where you could become a boxing fan almost by accident, just by virtue of being a sports-crazed kid watching television on Saturday afternoon. 

Michael Spinks Beats Larry Holmes by Split Decision: April 19, 1986

Muhammad Ali was my first boxing hero. But he was pretty much all through by the time I was old enough to really follow the sport.

Larry Holmes was the heavyweight champion of my childhood. To this day when I see him on a panel or in a crowd at an event part of me still feels like a 12-year-old fan.

When he lost to Michael Spinks in September of 1985 I was a freshman in high school and it felt like he had been the champ forever. His dominance of the era had been matter-of-fact, and with the exception of his bout with Gerry Cooney, lacking in any of the type of epic showdowns that had defined the previous era of Ali-Frazier-Foreman-Norton.

For this reason, Holmes never really caught the public imagination the way many of his predecessors did. By the time he met Spinks the first time, he was nearly 36 and I believe a lot of the sport's money people wanted to push him aside for new blood.

Mike Tyson was already an emerging phenom by this point; he had his first Sports Illustrated cover later that winter. Michael Spinks was among the most dominant light heavyweight champions of all time, the younger brother of former champion Leon Spinks and a gold medal winner on the legendary 1976 Olympic team.

I think Holmes won the first fight with Spinks, a unanimous decision loss. 

This fight, a split decision, I would rank as one of the most suspicious smelling fights of my lifetime. Spinks deserves credit for keeping it close enough for the judges to steal. 

Park Si-Hun Beats Roy Jones Jr. by Split Decision: October 2, 1988

If I had to pick the worst boxing decision of all time this would probably be it. To me, the iconic image here is the moment Si-Hun's hand is raised, when he turns his head and looks every bit as surprised as everybody else to find out he has been awarded the victory. 

The Ring has a great write-up of this travesty as part of an Olympic preview in their most recent issue. They quote Jones: "Worst experience of my life. A tragic day for the sport, even more so than it was for myself."

He's not exaggerating. In 1988, Olympic boxing was still huge and had been for more than a generation. Many of the sport's biggest stars from the '60's into the '90's had stellar Olympic pedigrees: Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pernell Whittaker and Evander Holyfied are just some of the bigger names who launched their pro careers with Olympic glory.

After the clearly corrupt decision for Si-Hun in front of his home crowd, in an attempt to ensure impartiality, amateur boxing adopted a scoring system that relied purely on computer tallies. This had the effect of turning amateur boxing into something that seems almost closer to Taekwando point sparring than the professional game.

As a result, the ensuing generations of boxing prospects have mostly had little interest in putting their careers on hold in order to fight in the Olympics.

The same article referenced above quotes Oscar De La Hoya, a 1992 gold medalist and the last U.S. boxing superstar to really benefit from an Olympic pedigree, as saying that if he were a young fighter today, he would just go pro.

This drop in prestige for Olympic boxing has hurt the entire sport, in my opinion. Twenty years ago a stellar showing in the Olympic Games gave a fighter instant mainstream recognition and a clear path to stardom.

Julio Cesar Chavez Draws with Pernell Whitaker: September 10, 1993

For all the hype over the past few years that has surrounded a potential Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao superfight, to my middle-aged mind it could never be as huge as this one was.

I am just a bit too young to remember the Ali-Frazier series. So I consider this fight the biggest showdown of my life that didn't include anybody named Hearns, Hagler, Duran or Leonard. 

Julio Cesar Chavez was the most crowd-pleasing fighter of that era who wasn't named Mike Tyson. He entered this bout with an 87-0 record. All through the late '80's and early '90's, boxing fans were tantalized by the prospect that J.C. Superstar might push his record all the way to 100-0.

His perfect resume had been saved by a thrilling, literally last second, stoppage of Whitaker's Olympic teammate Meldrick Taylor in 1990.

Olympic gold medalist Whitaker was the former undisputed lightweight champion and had been every bit as dominant since moving up to welterweight. In 1993 he was at the height of his powers. This was a battle for the welterweight crown and pound-for-pound honors.

Whitaker put on the fight of his career and when the final bell rang, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that he had won.

Well, no doubt in anybody's mind aside from judges Mickey Vann and Franz Marti, who scored it 115-115, making it a majority draw. In my opinion, even Jack Woodruff, who scored the fight 115-113 for Whitaker, cheated Sweet Pea out of about two rounds. 

Sports Illustrated summed up the collective feeling of the sports' world when they put Whitaker on the cover of their next issue, with the one word headline "Robbed." 

Whitaker may have suffered more from unfair decisions than any superstar fighter of recent years. His first professional loss was by split decision to Jose Louis Ramirez in March of 1988, a decision that was probably at least as outrageous as this draw to Chavez. 

I personally thought he deserved the victory against Oscar De La Hoya in April of 1997. But I would certainly not call that a robbery.

The so-called draw with Chavez I have probably watched as many times as any fight not involving Ali and Frazier or any of the previously mentioned four kings. I've scored it again and again and have no doubt whatsoever that it ranks among the biggest injustices to occur in boxing in the past 20 years.

I expect that this choice might generate the most disagreement of any of my picks in the comment section. I consider that a result of how beloved Chavez is as a fighter.

Listen, I love him, too. Every boxing fan does.

But Sweet Pea gave him a boxing lesson in 1993.  

Evander Holyfield Draws with Lennox Lewis: March 13, 1999

I'll tell you how bad this decision was: Evander Holyfield is probably the most popular American heavyweight since George Foreman and yet in the over 13 years since it happened, I have never read or heard anybody say this decision was anything but an absurd travesty.

If you give Holyfield all of the close rounds, I still don't see how you get it closer that 8-4 Lewis. And that's stretching it.

Holyfield lost the rematch that November, but then won the vacant WBC strap in August of 2000 when he beat John Ruiz in the first of their three consecutive fights. Amazingly, he still soldiers on over a decade later, as he pushes 50.

Holyfield is one of the most celebrated champs in the history of the sport. But pretty much nobody denies that he got one of the biggest gifts of all time in this first fight with Lewis. 

Tavoris Cloud Beats Gabriel Campillo by Split Decision: February 18, 2012

Tavoris Cloud is the undefeated, IBF light heavyweight champion. He is an explosive puncher, having stopped 19 of his 24 opponents. In August he meets former WBC champion Jean Pascal in Montreal and I can't wait to see it. 

But last February he got a big-time gift against Gabriel Campillo of Spain. 

That the year is only half over and this is only one of three possible contenders for worst decision of the year tells you all you need to know about the current state of judging in boxing.

At the same time, this was a terrific fight. Cloud made it close, at least on the cards, by knocking Campillo down twice in the first to jump out to a commanding 10-7 lead.

But the story the rest of the way was all about Campillo's lateral movement and superior use of angles. I ended up with 114-112 for Campillo, giving Cloud a very close fourth round during which he received a bad cut.

Brandon Rios Beats Richard Abril by Split Decision: April 14, 2012

Like Tavoris Cloud, Brandon Rios is an exciting, undefeated champion. And like Tavoris Cloud, he benefited from a travesty of a decision earlier this year. 

Everybody will remember the Bradley-Pacquiao decision as one of the worst of all time. But this one was probably even more putrid. 

To be fair to Rios, Abril was a fairly late substitution for Yuri Gamboa, in what was supposed to be one of the year's best matchups between two undefeated champions. It's possible Rios took Abril lightly and didn't properly prepare. 

There's no excuse for that. If Bam Bam wants to be a true all-time great, he had better make sure he never again comes to the ring less than 100 percent prepared. 

Only 26 years old, Rios has already compiled an impressive highlight reel of knockouts. His TKO of John Murray on the Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito undercard last December was a thrilling, toe-to-toe war. 

You can't be a boxing fan and not appreciate the kid. Like his stable-mate, Margarito, he always looks genuinely happy to be involved in a brawl. 

Against Abril, a product of the elite Cuban amateur boxing program and a skilled technician, Rios showed that he still has holes in his game that need to be tightened up. Based on what I saw from him last April, I believe Gamboa would stop him inside of eight.

As it stands, he will move forward and Top Rank will continue to try to develop him into a main event attraction. But anybody objective who watched that Abril fight will know, at this point, he is only undefeated on paper.