I think this is a good fight. Also Wardley-Vallily has been rescheduled for this show, and Savannah Marshall gets a 'world' title opportunity.
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Lewis Ritson vs Miguel Vazquez
dkos
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If the British Boxing Board of Control are a serious organization they would look into this one.
Expect nothing.
Expect nothing.
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Just caught up this morning.
Shocking scorecards. Total robbery. Vasquez won by a mile.
Ritson is nowhere near world level. He's a good British fighter, who could maybe claim a European against the right opponent.
Talking about Prograis or Taylor? Both would annihilate him.
O'connor has been a disgrace for years. How he can continue to work is beyond me.
He's either corrupt or mentally deficient, and if he's corrupt, then he's too mentally deficient to hide it.
Shocking scorecards. Total robbery. Vasquez won by a mile.
Ritson is nowhere near world level. He's a good British fighter, who could maybe claim a European against the right opponent.
Talking about Prograis or Taylor? Both would annihilate him.
O'connor has been a disgrace for years. How he can continue to work is beyond me.
He's either corrupt or mentally deficient, and if he's corrupt, then he's too mentally deficient to hide it.
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I never thought I'd say it but Im really preferring ufc over boxing now. During lockdown when there was no sport on i watched ufc and got into it, the best still fighting the best even with everything going on, and we rarely get that at the best of times. Judging always seemed fair whilst I've been watching.
British boxing came back in Eddie's front garden and I watched the first 3 shows and every one of them had really obvious poor decisions and It really put me off the sport. Then we have a show last night where not only were there several obvious bad decisions but one of the judges is sat looking at his phone. Bad decisions have gone of for years, we all know the judges responsible for them, but nothing has been Done about it and nothing will be done about it in the future
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Smith may have backflipped because images have shown O'Connor using his phone during the fight.
Robert Smith has declared that they will be launching an investigation into the performance of Terry O'Connor and admits he is disappointed.
He said: 'This has to be looked at and investigated and it will be. I am so frustrated that this seems to have happened. After all the hard work we do behind the scenes we have something like this emerging. Personally, I am so disappointed. I can't say anything more on it at this point.'
Hearn and many others in that article voicing their disapproval of O'Connor.
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The other judge at least had it close at 115-113. Which it wasn't. BUT O'Connor had it 117-111 for Ritson!
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Disgrace
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Watch the video thats how the British Board operates. Their policy is to Protect and defend the officials no matter how absurd it is to do so.
Only backflip here is because of the public blacklash. His original statement is his real one and he was aware of the facts before his secondary statement. Once all this dies down they will issue a statement declaring the judge a person of integrity and claiming scoring is subjective.
This is akin to the police investigating themselves and then declaring themselves innocent. Of any misconduct.
The press investigating themselves and declaring themselves innocent. Or rather Rupert Murdoch making sure the guy incharge of the Press Complaints Commission. Is his man rejecting all complaints.
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"In a year littered with horrible scorecards, Terry O'Connor managed to stand out from the pack. "
:rofl :rofl
:rofl :rofl
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Many things to be considered here.
One thing I do not understand in this matter is that the betting brokers accept this. Some decisions have to cost them quite a lot of money? Or, as the British tend to bet (more) on the home fighter, it is "ok" that the judges are corrupt as long as it is the home fighter that wins it, because that pattern of judging and betting is predictable (as expected) for the betting brokers? In other words, the real scandal here would have been if someone bet a big sum on Vazquez and (right or wrong decision) British judges scored against the home fighter?
What is obvious though is that the BBBofC does not care about its integrity versus foreign boxers as well as the public that watches the sport. I.e. it is more business than sports, and it expects to get away with it.
Poor integrity and no trust in their organisation is not criminal, but even there I suppose there has to be a line somewhere. Has it ever happened that the British police has investigated British boxing's corruption?
What about British sports authorities? Are there not rules that the BBBofC need to follow to be allowed to organise professional boxing in Britain? When could the authorities or sports authorities intervene and threaten to stop the BBBofC to organise professional boxing, and say, have another organisation take over the responsibility of organising professional boxing in Britain?
What about the WBA? Happy with this result as long as they received their sanctioning fees for the WBA inter-continental title? Happy because they know Hearn will continue paying the fees until Ritson could get a title shot, such as the WBA gold or WBA interim/regular title? Ritson is ranked #2 now, so he is very close to landing a title shot. A loss to Vazquez would have ruined this possibility for a title fight. Hearn must have invested a lot of money in him, he sells tickets, WBA is happy to work with Hearn, and everyone involved know that if Vazquez won it, all that career building would have gone out the window. Moreover, the WBA would probably have been very reluctant to rank Vazquez in the top 5 after defeating Ritson. What promoter would pay any fees to keep Vazquez highly ranked? What promoter would be willing to arrange a title match with Vazquez as the challenger? Had Ritson outboxed Vazquez, but Vazquez getting the W with a landslide, I'm sure the WBA would have taken action. Now, as things actually worked out, I assume they are just silent and will remain so. Personally, I think this is the main reason here; Ritson is close to land a big bag as a WBA title challenger, and the script had to be followed, even if it is obvious that he is not talented enough to fight above the European level, or even above the British level. If correct, Hearn's messages is nothing but a smoke screen, making the judge TOC a scapegoat.
Finally, what's the mob's involvement in this? It was significant some decades ago, and I guess that if not the police or any other authorities care, the mob would, should they lose a significant amount of money. Whitewashing money on a safe bet was pretty common, so no surprises there if they assumed Vazquez did not have the power to hurt Ritson, and Ritson could land just something every round. However, I guess these times are long gone, as no one would use such methods anymore to whitewash (relatively small amounts of) money, and that the real crooks running the show these days are the promoters and the sanctioning bodies. And perhaps the tv networks, that need the hyped up fighters to deliver the scripted results. If not, no money for anyone else either in the boxing business.
One thing I do not understand in this matter is that the betting brokers accept this. Some decisions have to cost them quite a lot of money? Or, as the British tend to bet (more) on the home fighter, it is "ok" that the judges are corrupt as long as it is the home fighter that wins it, because that pattern of judging and betting is predictable (as expected) for the betting brokers? In other words, the real scandal here would have been if someone bet a big sum on Vazquez and (right or wrong decision) British judges scored against the home fighter?
What is obvious though is that the BBBofC does not care about its integrity versus foreign boxers as well as the public that watches the sport. I.e. it is more business than sports, and it expects to get away with it.
Poor integrity and no trust in their organisation is not criminal, but even there I suppose there has to be a line somewhere. Has it ever happened that the British police has investigated British boxing's corruption?
What about British sports authorities? Are there not rules that the BBBofC need to follow to be allowed to organise professional boxing in Britain? When could the authorities or sports authorities intervene and threaten to stop the BBBofC to organise professional boxing, and say, have another organisation take over the responsibility of organising professional boxing in Britain?
What about the WBA? Happy with this result as long as they received their sanctioning fees for the WBA inter-continental title? Happy because they know Hearn will continue paying the fees until Ritson could get a title shot, such as the WBA gold or WBA interim/regular title? Ritson is ranked #2 now, so he is very close to landing a title shot. A loss to Vazquez would have ruined this possibility for a title fight. Hearn must have invested a lot of money in him, he sells tickets, WBA is happy to work with Hearn, and everyone involved know that if Vazquez won it, all that career building would have gone out the window. Moreover, the WBA would probably have been very reluctant to rank Vazquez in the top 5 after defeating Ritson. What promoter would pay any fees to keep Vazquez highly ranked? What promoter would be willing to arrange a title match with Vazquez as the challenger? Had Ritson outboxed Vazquez, but Vazquez getting the W with a landslide, I'm sure the WBA would have taken action. Now, as things actually worked out, I assume they are just silent and will remain so. Personally, I think this is the main reason here; Ritson is close to land a big bag as a WBA title challenger, and the script had to be followed, even if it is obvious that he is not talented enough to fight above the European level, or even above the British level. If correct, Hearn's messages is nothing but a smoke screen, making the judge TOC a scapegoat.
Finally, what's the mob's involvement in this? It was significant some decades ago, and I guess that if not the police or any other authorities care, the mob would, should they lose a significant amount of money. Whitewashing money on a safe bet was pretty common, so no surprises there if they assumed Vazquez did not have the power to hurt Ritson, and Ritson could land just something every round. However, I guess these times are long gone, as no one would use such methods anymore to whitewash (relatively small amounts of) money, and that the real crooks running the show these days are the promoters and the sanctioning bodies. And perhaps the tv networks, that need the hyped up fighters to deliver the scripted results. If not, no money for anyone else either in the boxing business.
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Something stinks to high heaven and somebody needs to make it their business to find out where the smell originated from.
Perhaps start by checking if a fairly large amount of money has recently been deposited anywhere?
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As far as the Boxing Board goes of Control goes. It has been around close to a hundred years it does not operate under the sports authorities. Technically you could say it is answerable to its members people it licenses the promoters, managers, trainers, boxers and officials etc.
There is no law preventing a promoter from bypassing and using some other sanctioning organisation. For example when Chisora was banned by the British Board. Promoter Frank Warren bypassed them and used the Luxembourg Boxing Association. To sanction the event and provide the referees and Judges etc. For David Haye vs Derek Chisora.
Recently a new rival commission has been set up called the British and Irish Boxing Authority. Which is more corrupt and crooked then the original.
As far as gangster involvement the most notorious involvement was in the 1950's when Frankie Carbo effectively ran boxing. And the sport was one of their favourite arenas in laundering money. Modern mobsters by and large set-up legit looking businneses.
If the fix was in the Mobsters would know the result in advance. Cus they arranged the fix. No mobster is gonna launder money through boxing by betting without knowing the result in advance.
As far as everything else goes you have answered your own questions.
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In addition to the above the rumours of brown paper envelopes to officials judges and referees also the ranking and sanctioning bodies.. Have been circulating since before I been following this sport. Which is about 35 years.
Historically it was just to make sure the big ticket seller or the rising star wins. And the judges and the referee were on script. But promoters only handed out brown envelopes for certain fights.
The problem periodically comes to the fore when one promoter starts over playing their hand. And starts handing out envelopes for every event his promoting. And certain judges always seem to be the ones scoring bad decisions. The promoters cover their tracks by faking outrage when their is public backlash. And call the judging disgraceful. Fans usually fall for it,
" If he was responsible for the bad result why would he be condemning the judging.."
The people who should be holding the promoters and officials to account are the Journalists.
But they too have been historically corrupt. Until a couple of decades ago every newspaper in the UK and America had a full time Boxing Journalist. Plus there were also the full-time free lance boxing journalists.
These Journalists were allegedly looked after by the promoters in a different fashion. Promoters made sure they got allocated the best hotel rooms, and fully payed for meals at the best restaurants. Tickets to various events, members only clubs,strip joints, theatre productions, sporting events. And of course high class fully paid for female companionship or male depending on the journalists sexual preference.
In return they were expected to write favourable articles. Not raise any fuss. And the ones who played ball also got easy access and one to one interviews with the superstars of the sport.
So every strata of this sport has been crooked in one way or another. Thats why boxing is commonly referred to as the redlight district of sport. Maybe not so commonly anymore but thats what it was called until the very recent past.
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Claims it was O'Connor's score card in his hand, not his phone.
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