Kambosos vs Hughes official scorecard: Was it a robbery?
George Kambosos Jr may believe he “won the fight by many rounds,” but most observers just didn’t feel that was, as he won a majority decision tonight over Maxi Hughes.
Not only do many believe that Kambosos
Here’s how the judges scored the fight:
There will be plenty of arguments that David Sutherland’s 114-114 is bad enough, that Gerald Ritter’s 115-113 Kambosos card is even worse, but then there is Josef Mason’s 117-111 Kambosos card, which should frankly get him indefinitely suspended, if this were a real sport with real oversight that actually cared about things like this, which boxing is not.
To score nine rounds of this fight to Kambosos (21-2, 10 KO) is asinine. It’s absurd. It’s indefensible. And if Ritter, to jump to him for a moment, hadn’t somewhat questionably scored the 12th round for Hughes, his 116-112 would be getting almost as much stick right now.
We did discuss earlier this week that Kambosos fights tend to have some fluctuation in scoring, but usually in those cases, it’s him winning, and then a third judge not giving him the fight, resulting in Kambosos split decision wins.
He won a split decision over Mickey Bey in 2019 on scores of 96-93 and 97-92 in his favor, then a 95-94 Bey card. He beat Lee Selby by split decision in 2020, scores were 116-112 and 118-110, and then a third card of 115-114 for Selby. Even his win over Teofimo Lopez had a 114-113 Lopez card from Don Trella, overruled by 115-111 and 115-112 cards from Frank Lombardi and Glenn Feldman, and those are all veteran judges.
Kambosos fights in a style, even in victory that feels more “deserved” than this one, that doesn’t always separate himself from his opponents in the eyes of a judge. And now we have this, which is a different sort of situation, where one judge felt he’d so separated himself that this is what feels wrong.
By years worked, Josef Mason is a veteran judge. But as far as judging high-level fights, he’s got very little history over many years, working mainly in his native Colorado, which is not exactly a hotbed for the sport.
Hughes (26-6-2, 5 KO) had a chance to gain something close to the sort of career trajectory-changing win that Kambosos himself got when he beat Lopez in 2020. Instead, he goes back to England with the belief that he really won the fight, but officially, he didn’t, and officially, George Kambosos won an IBF eliminator, and will be right in line to fight for a belt, vacant or not.
And once again, boxing is left looking like the absolute mess it is. At least that part’s honest.
Source: Bad Left Hook
