The World Boxing Association (WBA), through its Officials Committee, will evaluate the performance of judge Carlos Sucre during last Saturday’s bout between Juan Francisco “Gallo” Estrada and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. The president of the pioneer organization, Gilberto Jesus Mendoza, made the request to the Committee while Sucre will remain temporarily suspended.
After twelve fierce rounds, the judges’ scores were: Jesse Reyes 115-113 (Gonzalez), David Sutherland 115-113 (Estrada), and Carlos Sucre 117-111 (Estrada). Sucre’s wide scoring has been widely criticized. The WBA officials’ evaluation will be done thoroughly and Sucre will be given the opportunity to explain himself in order to make a definitive decision on this case.
“I asked the Officials Committee to evaluate the fight although I think it is not necessary. It was a great fight, very close. We have to respect “Gallo” Estrada, who made a great effort. In this case, the judges favored him, however, I sent a temporary suspension while Sucre is heard, because big shows and fights like this one do not deserve the kind of score he gave. His decision was misguided yesterday,” said Mendoza.
The WBA will inform in due time about the process that has just started and what the decision will be.
Ah, the WBA, fountain of all that is ethical. How many “champions” does Mendoza have in each division? I count four in some. Get your own house in order first.
How come Adelaide Byrd and all the other crooked and incompetent judges, like most of them, never got suspended?
Absolutely agree. I think the 117-111 was off base but at least Estrada threw over 100 punches a round. What about the 2 judges giving a round to Broner when he landed zero punches?! This was a very hard fight to score. I had it a draw. I’ve seen way worse in boxing.
117-111 was could have been a bit “generous” but why isn’t anyone complaining about the split decision judge who went the other way?!….
Excellent statement and great point!!!!!
Great point, at least this is a start…
Because in my opinion this “suspension” is nothing more than a sham. Adeaide Bird doesn’t work for the WBA. She was assigned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Was why wasn’t David Southerland (who was one of the other judges) suspended? Because he’s a WBC official!. The real question should be is why wasn’t the 3rd official who created the “Split Decision” suspended? Because he doesn’t work directly for the WBA either!…..
Exactly what my thoughts are. This score was a little wide, but it’s only changing one or two rounds from a very passable score. This guy sounds like a scapegoat.
“The WBA officials’ evaluation will be done thoroughly and Sucre will be given the opportunity to explain himself in order to make a definitive decision on this case.”
Oh the irony….When will somebody evaluate the WBA’s ratings practices, and make them answer why guys like Bermane Stiverne are fighting for their titles.
This is overreaching and singling out this one judge. There were many swing rounds and a winner needed to be picked. Fans think because the fight is close that the scores should be close. But most fans done know sh^t about Boxing!
Yes, at last! It is important and about time the sanctioning bodies and boxing commisions call out bad judging and refereeing. Incompetence, corruption, bad night? It all matters.
he’ll answer and his excuse will be accepted nothing unusual here.
The hearing for this “judge” will be televised by the WBA live on the Comedy Central network.
I was not able to see the fight. Was there a lot of razor close/swing rounds?
There were a few solid ones for Estada, but Gonzalez had at least 5 clear rounds in my etes. There were 4 rounds, if you gave it to either guy, nobody would be crying robbery. Had it 115-113 for Gonzalez, but could have lived with 116-112 or 114-114. 115-113 for Estrada was giving him EVERY swing round. 117-111 was absolutely corrupt.
Really? 5 clear rounds?! I leaned toward Gonzalez 7 to 5, but I don’t think you could say even 3 rounds were clear between these two warriors.
Everyone, should step back and consider that if your card was 7 to 5 for Estrada and two more were pick em rounds, 9 to 3 isn’t outrageous.
Watching on TV is so different than live. We get all the angles at home, whereas, live is from only 1 spot. For me, the difference in the close rounds was I thought Chocolattito rolled and made Estrada miss more than his opponent. Sitting ringside, rolling might appear to be a clean punch.
This was not a robbery. However, maybe, reviewing the judges will happen more often, because of this move. I’m all for that! As mentioned above, there have been plenty of travesties over the years and corruption had to be the reason.
That’s the point I’m making. The fight was so far from clear in so many rounds that this suspension is bizarre. I mean it’s like knowing you have 30 employees who have embezzled major sums of money and suspending the guy who accidentally took a pen.
Colby, I don’t mind the temporary suspension, but hope they review it quickly. I seriously doubt this score was corrupt.
I think a good idea would to have the judges wear cameras to show the fans their angle/perspective. I think that would help on some of these wider scores and maybe weed out some of the corruption (perceived or otherwise).
Scott, I really like your thinking about the difference between judging a fight from home and judging it from ringside. I won’t bail out poor judging, but the two places create different experiences. Two big things about being close to the action is that you will probably have a better idea of how hard a punch is thrown/received and how well the punches actually connects. Sometimes I will keep replaying a part of a fight because my scoring dictates on if the boxer’s head moved because of the punch or because he was avoiding the punch. The judges wearing a camera would be a good idea to give people a idea of what they see. I have always lobbied for judges to write simple notes per round. Ex: Round to Fighter A, per accuracy. I could be more binding and it may even protect the judge in situation where people would like their instant justification by looking at the score card.
If not written down, exact details of why you did something becomes harder. I would not be surprised if this judge that is being suspended will drop his exact recollection of what he was thinking at the time and focus on re watching the tape to find support for Estrada for each round that he scored for him.
I want to expound on the hard punching part. People don’t understand judging criteria, generally. You score first and foremost on who is doing the clean effective punching. If that’s clear the other criteria are essentially inconsequential (this is why Harold would always say “with a strong emphasis on clean, effective punching”). That is something that can be easily missed by someone at home and the ringside commentators because A they haven’t been through judge’s training and B they are often so distracted because they are commentating. You’ll often see that ringside commentators call the wrong knockout punch and get the scores wrong. Generally speaking, there is not a massive judging problem in boxing. They almost always get it right, even in close fights. The trouble is people are inherently biased to weigh losses more than gains and questionable cards get amplified. Even take Julie Lederman’s score in the loma lopez fight. If you look at compubox number (which she has no access to during the fight), her card most accurately represented power punches landed. Lopez didn’t have one round where he was outlanded in power shots. In that fight, in particular, the ringside guys were extremely biased toward Loma and were giving him rounds based on him simply doing better than the previous round (even if he lost said round). I was scoring that fight and I said to people I was watching it with… “This fight wasn’t close at all.” Of course they thought I was nuts, but again, I actually went through ABC training and passed. I’m not at all bragging about it, but it makes a huge difference as the criteria is better explained and conveyed. I don’t think commentators or fans have a great understanding of it. I will say though, since I’ve been through training, I find myself agreeing with judges a lot more (and I watch fights with the volume off). Knowing what to really look for makes a huge difference in a close fight, and maybe more importantly, how to break down a round effectively helps you better score. You almost always have to have a running “damage meter” in your mind and one good way to do that is to break down the rounds by minutes or half minutes and know who is winning and by how much at any given point. The way they explain it is “Close, Moderate, decisive, excessively decisive.” Barring a knockdown, if someone is winning a round by a moderate or decisive margin in the first minute or so, the losing fighter cannot simply turn the round around by winning the last thirty seconds unless they do so by an extreme margin. Most people are not breaking rounds down this analytically and every judge is.
Wow Colby, you know you judging criteria. When I was reading your comments, you made a point that I really didn’t see until you brought it up. Despite certain occasions, judging results are ovewhelmingly accurate. Its something that is worth mentioning now and again as you go through the internet and countless posts of seemingly inept judging that is fueled with emotion. Some strange scoring is completely bad. Some strange scoring is partially justifiable. Some strange scoring is completely justifiable. But boy is it hard for me to speak up when I am against the bandwagon a controversial decision. A question about judging to one that has done a bit of research that I have always wished to ask. Do you score shot land to the head and body in a clinch. Sometimes I see two fighters in a clinch, practically waiting to be broken up and someone puts in a few “taps” to the ribs or so. If those punches count, sometimes at least to me, its the defining action of determining who won the round.
I think that brings a lot of unintended negative consequences because a judge only gets to see it once. People will be reviewing over and over again and applying the same level of scrutiny to a judge who sees it once. Plus a camera won’t really give you an idea of how they see it unless it’s somehow implanted in them. We have to understand too that judging in boxing is almost always accurate. There are exceptions, but people have a well-studied bias to blow up losses and downplay gains. If you actually look, statistically, at how often judges get scores right, it’s going to be well over 90% of the time. The trouble is people often blow it totally out of proportion. Also as someone who has successfully passed ABC training, I can tell you that, based on the proper criteria, networks are far more often wrong than judges are. The networks tend to have bad judges that even further bias people. Simply adding more judges could solve the small error that exists, but it’s not debatable that the error is small. It’s very much provable statistically.
Gonzales had Estrada reeling in the last part of the final round, yet the incompetant judge in question, had it for Estrada..
there is only a two round differential in the score. I will like to see the round by round scores as the master score sheet does not reflect the round by round scores.
Yes it does. Count from top to bottom
This doesn’t make any sense?! This judge was still in the MAJORITY!….Why aren’t they looking at the other judge on the split decision.
The whole thing makes no sense at all. Maybe it was slightly wide, but it was a fight that went back and forth. It’s only changing a round or two from a passable card. Of all the people to suspend, this one seems the least deserving.
You are correct, Judge Sucre was the odd man out on only 2 Rds. Judge Reyes was also the odd man out on 2 Rds.
He should be suspended as well, Right?
The 3rd judge was only the odd man out on 1out of 12 Rds.
A few years back in Japan, the WBA suspended both Judge that had awarded the French Fighter a S/D victory over Murrata, and not the odd Judge that had it the other way. Go Figure!
The following protocols should be implemented immediately.
1. A comprehensive eye exam.
2. A drug urine screen.
3. A psychological mental exam.
4. Judge a play station mock match.
5. Investigate ties to organized crime/Vegas payoffs.
This guy sounds like some kind of scapegoat, or the WBA is just managed in an extremely horrible way. This score is a bit wide, but it’s only changing one or two rounds from a passable score. There have been far worse who haven’t been penalized. This is a bizarre enforcement of whatever rule they made up.
I will say one thing. This whole scapegoating thing could be just a show for literally no penalty at all. They may have chosen to review something simply to justify their existence.
About time someone took the right decicion. Until justice is done for gonzalez me and all my family are not ordering any pay per view event. And we are cancelling dazn . espn sports and all of the above . shame for the sport of boxing. And shame for all those mexican fans who really thought estrada won when he clearly got beaten on national tv and the rest of the world saw it. It remains me of the old jose zuleman”s roberry agints pernell Whitaker when he fought the over rated julio cesar chavez. A real shame for the sport.
They really need to follow the money.Boxing is becoming a rogue sport again.
It makes more sense financiallly for the Mexican fighter to get the win than the fighter from the small country of Nicaragua. Estrada would create a lot more revenue because the large number of Mexican and Mexican American population in the US, Mexico, and throughtout the whole world. Also, need to into account the beting odds. It’s about the bottom line, baby…. $$$.
Investigate the judges in the canelo tripple g. First fight big black eye om boxing
Robbery and i was favoring Estrada in this rematch because i tought Chocolatito was past his prime and not the same anymore since the beating he took in the rematch with Sor Rungvisai. Boy was i wrong ! Chocolatito might be the greatest ever in those small weight classes..
Adelaide Byrd should still be in jail for her crimes.
The only reason this is a big deal is because you over hype Chocolatito just like Lomachenko! I saw the fight I can see it being 116-112 all day everyday. So what he saw 1rd different then me and 2rds different then some shut the F up your over hyping assholes
Why wasn’t the lady judge in the first Canelo- Golovkin fight suspended for her obvious crooked scoring?? she should have been suspended and never allowed to judge another fight, however, she probably was well paid and cared less if she judged a future fight.