LAS VEGAS – The outrage over the split-decision upset victory for Timothy Bradley against champion Manny Pacquiao reached a fever pitch Sunday, with many in the boxing world seeking reform in the judging system and promoter Bob Arum calling for an outside investigation.
Arum, the 80-year-old chairman of Top Rank Promotions, represents both fighters.
"This is an international kind of story. There are people all over the world looking to blame somebody for this," he said.
The decision resulted in boos raining down toward the ring, where HBO's Max Kellerman was trying to interview Pacquiao and Bradley.
Arum says "The conspiracy theory is that somehow
I arranged this to create a rematch, which would give me another big
fight until Floyd (Mayweather, who is serving an 87-day jail sentence)
is ready to fight."
Arum said he was getting
so much heat for this that, "On Monday, we're asking the attorney
general of Nevada to conduct an investigation of everybody, to see what
the facts are here.
"This is such an
incredible situation, something I've never seen in 47 years in boxing,
that it requires an investigation. And you can't rely on the (Nevada
Athletic Commission) to conduct an investigation, because they'll
whitewash it."
The commission's chief executive, Keith Kizer, did not return a phone message Sunday.
Bradley's
trainer, Cameron Dunkin, told USA TODAY Sports on Sunday: "I thought it
was very close and could've gone either way. And Tim got his hand
raised. I certainly don't think it was a travesty, a horrible, worst
decision I've ever seen.
"I saw Tim this
morning. He doesn't have a scratch on him, he didn't have a bloody nose,
cut lip, fat lip, swollen eye. If you get hit by Manny Pacquiao too
many times, believe me, you're going to bust up. He looked fresh as can
be. Not one mark on him. (Bradley) said, 'I don't judge the fights, I
just fight the fights.' I can't believe that (Arum has) gone crazy in
this, but he has."
But Arum isn't the only one calling for reform. HBO's Harold Lederman and promoter Lou DiBella also seek change.
Lederman scored it 119-109 for Pacquiao. Lederman said there was no excuse for how judges are picked for Las Vegas fights.
"They've
had controversies in Nevada, and it's about time they start bringing in
judges from outside for high-profile fights," he told USA TODAY Sports
by phone Sunday. "I could have given them 10 judges who would have
scored that fight correctly. The Nevada commission, which is the final
authority, needs to bring in the three best people they can get from
anywhere."
DiBella said it was as likely now to see an indefensible decision as it was to see a fair one.
DiBella
has railed on the politics of the sport for years — The ranking
organizations that are involved with judging, he says, and the judges
belong to ranking organizations.
"The
promoters, we pay the judges and the referees. So if we want to put a
guy in a much nicer hotel, and buy him a nice dinner, or let him fly his
wife in, there's no real safeguards against it. There's no checks and
balances on the judges.
"Everyone's so used to a bad decision in boxing, the next day there's a rematch declared and everyone forgets about it."
Arum represents both fighters. He was so angry shortly after the fight, he told reporters that the sport was killing itself.
By Sunday, he had moved beyond anger to despair.
"I'm
never going to get over last night," he said. "Look, this was
preposterous. And when things are preposterous and involve more than one
person, something may very well be wrong.
"I said to Kizer, 'Keith, how could you allow this to happen?' He just shrugged his shoulders."
Arum
says he's seen one judge turn in a bad scorecard on occasion, "but
three judges screwing up their scorecards is very suspicious."
Bill Caplan, a Hall of Fame publicist who was George Foreman's longtime aide and now works for Golden Boy Promotions,
said, "In all the fights I've ever worked and been to, and watched on
TV — for major fights, it's the worst decision I've ever seen.
"I
have nothing at stake except the reputation of boxing, and that's what
makes me so outraged, because it really hurt our sport."
Bradley,
who showed up at the postfight press conference in a wheelchair because
of what was confirmed Sunday as a fractured foot and a badly swollen
ankle, said, "My corner felt like I was winning the fight, I was
controlling the action. Manny fought in spurts, regardless of the punch
stats. He missed a lot of shots, and a lot of shots everyone thought he
was hitting me with. And he wasn't touching me. Look at my face. I'm
still pretty clean."
Former boxing trainer John Russell watched the fight on pay-per-view. He was incensed.
"I
thought it was one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in my life. . .
. I think Bradley won one round but I will give him the benefit of the
doubt and give him two. It was that bad.
"You
could take anybody in the world who didn't know a damn thing about
boxing - never saw a fight in their life - and if you asked them to
judge this fight, no one could have said that Pacquiao didn't win."
Even Roger Mayweather, the uncle and trainer of Floyd Mayweather,
questioned the decision, in a tweet: "Can't lie i hate Manny but he did
beat the (expletive) out of Bradley. But like i said it's no one to
blame but Bob Arum."
Arum knows he's a natural
scapegoat but swears he had no ulterior motive or any part in the
decision. And he's worried about the sport in which he's spent his life.
"When
the guys at the (Las Vegas) sportsbooks are talking about not betting
on boxing anymore, I take that very, very seriously," he says.
DiBella
said he thought Pacquiao did not look very good against Bradley, and
gives him no chance to beat Mayweather. "But he won. There was no
possible argument in my mind who won that fight."
DiBella said nothing surprises him in the sport anymore.
"Some people are tweeting that Dana White
must be laughing and this is a great day for UFC," he said. "No, this
is boxing hurting itself. The way boxing's been self-destructive for a
long time. It's very clear it's not going to get fixed from the inside.
"It's a cesspool, bro."
Contributing: Michael Hiestand, Jon Saraceno
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