As Mayweather produced one of the most impressive performances seen in the ring for some time, ringside judge CJ Ross, perhaps unwittingly, was writing her own controversial headlines for the Las Vegas encounter.
As with Timothy Bradley’s entertaining clash with Manny Pacquiao in the summer of 2012, which Ross scored for the American, all those involved with the sport are talking about a bad decision in the aftermath of what was an enthralling battle between to advocates of their craft.
Although the right result came at the end of Mayweather v Canelo, the sheer nature of the scoring from Ross has rocked boxing to its foundations, given the face that someone at the top of their professional could be so incompetent.
Ross has now come out with all guns blazing following some justified outrage from media and fans alike, but can really have no defence for what was probably the worst decision in a major fight for a number of years. .
“From where I sat there were a lot of close rounds and a lot of exchanges Canelo was able to able to land his punches effectively,” Ross boldly told Steve Carp of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“When you score 12 rounds of boxing, you’re scoring 12 separate fights. I have no problems with my scoring the fight the way I did.”
The Nevada-native amazingly handed Alvarez the first, third, eighth, ninth, 11th and 12th rounds, whereas I couldn’t give the Mexican one single round, with an investigation into how Ross came up with such a nonsensical card for the contest seemingly not forthcoming from executive director of the NSAC Keith Kizer.
“Just because a judge’s scorecard ends up even, doesn’t mean the judge necessarily thought the fight as a whole was even. It could be that a judge has six rounds for each fighter, but the six rounds she gave fighter A, she gave them to him easily and the six rounds she gave fighter B, they were really close rounds. That’s pretty much how it was last night,” Kizer pointed out to USA Today.
Kizer then turned his attention to the ten-point boxing scoring system, which may now come under further scrutiny once again, although Ross should bear the brunt of full scale questioning of how one trusted with overseeing a bout so big could get the outcome so wrong.
“I understand why there’s criticism, because people think of the entire fight and think Mayweather was certainly the better fighter, so how can you have a draw? The answer is the scoring system,” said Kizer.