Thursday, July 26, 2007

Indon Judge in Pinoy Champ’s Bout to Face Probe

The former president of the Australian National Boxing Federation (ANBF) who is now active referee and judge in various international world boxing bodies has announced that he will ask the International Boxing Federation (IBF) head as president by Marian Muha-mmad to investigate Muhammad Rios, the Indonesian judge who scored a lopsided 117-113 (errors have been reportedly discovered in the scorecards of the judges) for dethroned IBF mini flyweight kingpin Mohammad Rachman recently in Jakarta, Indonesia.
“It’s just unacceptable,” rued Brad Vocale who is here as referee in the OPBF fight between champion Taesie Marumoto and challenger Rev Santillan on July 14. “How can Rios submit a lopsided scorecard when there were two knockdowns scored by (Florante) Condes?”
Vocale, 53, said the first thing he did when he went back to Australia on July 15 was talked to IBF vice president Ray Wheatly to convince him to investigate Rios’ “mind-boggling” scorecard.
“It’s so sickening if we have judges who are either cheats or plain incompetents. I am not saying that Rios is guilty of any malpractice but I think an investigation should be held in order to protect the integrity of boxing as a sport,” said Vocale.
As this developed, it was reported that errors have been discovered in the scorecards of two of the three judges in the IBF minimum weight title fight between newly crowned champion Florante Condes and Muhammad Rachman of Indonesia .
It was reported that the errors were discovered and promptly corrected by IBF fight supervisor Lindsey Tucker who is also chairman of the IBF Ratings Committee. Tucker found an error in the addition on the score card of Indonesian judge Muhammad Rios who had been criticized for his 117-113 score in favor of his countryman Rachman and according to Condes’ manager Aljoe Jaro was even booed by the Indonesian fans.
Report added that the revision resulted in Rios’ scorecard reading 114-112 for Rachman. Rios was quoted by boxing writer Jeffrey Pamungkas as saying he scored four rounds for Condes including the two 10-8 scores when Rachman was dropped in rounds three and ten. Tucker confirmed that Rios gave Condes rounds one, three, ten and twelve. “Even the scorecard of Filipino judge Salven Lagumbay who described the fight as a “classic” was revised. Instead of the original two point spread which he said he gave Condes it turned out to be four points 115-111. The only judge whose scorecard was correct was Thailand’s Montol Suriyach and which was 114-112,” added the report. /MP

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