A Note on the Refereeing in Agbeko-Mares…HAUSER

Published

14 years ago

August 15, 2011

SHOCHAMP_AGBEKO-MARES_FIGHT-1255 Anyone who cares about boxing has to be appalled by referee Russell Mora’s conduct of Saturday night’s fight between Joseph Agbeko and Abner Mares.

Agbeko was defending his IBF bantamweight title against Mares at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Agbeko is promoted by Don King Productions. Mares is promoted by Golden Boy.

Mora is thought of in some circles as a “Golden-Boy-friendly” referee. Alan Hopper (vice president of public relations for DKP) says that several days before the fight, King complained to Keith Kizer (executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission) about the choice of Mora as the referee. But King’s influence has waned in recent years. Mora remained in place.

Once the fight began, Mares went low from the opening bell. By any objective standard, Mora should have deducted a point for low blows as early as the second round. By this writer’s count (after watching a tape of the bout), Mares landed FIFTY-FIVE punches below the belt. And they weren’t pity-pat punches or borderline shots. Many of them were hard blatant flagrant fouls.

For those who think that legal body shots hurt, consider the debilitating effect of a low blow. When a fighter’s protective cup is jammed into his groin again and again, it takes a toll. Moreover, Agbeko was wearing his trunks low and his belly-button was fully exposed, which made the fouls even more flagrant. Yet absurdly, Mora kept warning Agbeko for pushing Mares’s head down (which he wasn’t doing) instead of insisting that Mares fight within the rules.

Mora also blew two knockdown calls. In round one, an off-balance Agbeko tumbled to the canvas when his left foot became entangled with Mares’s left foot. The referee called it a knockdown. That mistake was understandable. A referee’s eyes can’t be everywhere all the time.

The second knockdown was a different matter. Two minutes into round eleven, Mares landed yet another flagrant low blow. Agbeko crumpled to the canvas in pain. Mora was in perfect position to see the foul, yet he called the occurrence a knockdown.

Agbeko controlled round eleven apart from the “knockdown.” But as a consequence of the miscall, the stanza was scored 10-8 for Mares. If Mora had called the low blow and deducted a point from Mares (as he should have), it would have been a 10-8 round in favor of Agbeko (a four-point swing that would have changed the outcome of the fight).

As it was, C. J. Ross scored the bout even. She was overruled by Oren Shellenberger and Adalaide Byrd, each of whom favored Mares by a 115-111 margin.

Agbeko vs. Mares is now known as “Agbeko vs. Mares + Mora.”

“The referee is not supposed to decide the champion,” Agbeko said afterward. “The referee’s job is to make sure it is a fair fight, not steal the title for one fighter.”

Kudos to the Showtime announcing team for recognizing the problem early and calling it like it was throughout the fight.

Al Bernstein took the lead . . . “(round one) Another low blow by Mares. He better watch it. There’s a low blow again . . . (round two) Abner Mares has landed at least five low blows. There’s another one. Russell Mora’s got to take a point away pretty soon . . . (round three) Another low blow . . . (round four) Another low blow by Mares . . . (round five) You’ve got to take a point away at some point. I’m loath to criticize referees. I hate to do it. But in this instance, you have to take a point away. Mares again goes low. You better take a point away or he won’t keep [his punches] up . . . (round six) That’s low blow number twenty-eight in this fight by Abner Mares [actually, by this writer’s count, it was number thirty-three] . . . (round seven) Russell Mora is not even bothering to look anymore. I hate to do this; I hate criticizing officials. That was a left hand in the worst spot. How can you not take a point away? I’m sorry to be a broken record on this. But come on . . . (round eight) Again; he goes low . . . (round nine) There he goes again. I’m not trying to lean on Russell Mora. I’m not trying to be unfair. But when you don’t take a point away from a guy for landing twenty low blows, it doesn’t look good . . . (round ten) Oh, my. Oh my goodness. If he doesn’t take a point away. This is outrageous. It’s an outrage. Good God!”

Then came the second “knockdown.” Forgive the hyperbole; but Stevie Wonder could have seen that it was a low blow. And incredibly, Mora started counting.

“Oh, my God!” Bernstein proclaimed. “Russell Mora had a good look at that. He’s in perfect position. That’s so low; you can’t miss that. How could you not see that? This is the most disgraceful performance by a referee I’ve seen in the last fifteen years.”

Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator Gus Johnson chimed in from time to time: “Oh, man! Another low blow by Mares . . . The left hook continues to fall well below the beltline . . . Joseph Abeko has been hit low repeatedly, but the referee is refusing to take a point. If Abner Mares wins this fight, it will be a tainted win.”

And Antonio Tarver had his say: “That’s another low blow . . . He [Mora] is the man in charge in that ring. He should be seeing these low blows . . .That low blow is almost to the knee . . . He’s been getting hit with these low blows since round one . . . Those punches have to be taking a toll on Joseph Agbeko. All night long; it’s totally unfair . . . That was a low blow. This referee has failed in this fight totally . . .This referee has stolen a good fight from us because he’s not doing the job he was paid to do.”

After the fight, Jim Gray conducted an on-air interview with Mora. At that point, as Michael Woods later wrote, the referee’s “non-existent credibility went into the sewer from the gutter.”

“You just raised the arm of Abner Mares,” Gray began. “The question is, ‘Would he have won without your help?’”

“I don’t help the fighters,” Mora responded. “I enforce the rules. Those punches were on the beltline. They’re fair punches. I have to call them fair.”

Gray then showed Mora the knockdown on a television monitor and asked, “Tell us right now if you feel this is below the belt.”

Faced with clear unambiguous evidence of his wrongdoing, Mora offered an inane excuse: “It has a different viewpoint, looking at it here in slow-motion. When I saw it live, I saw it was a fair punch on the beltline.”

Fight fans might recall that Mora was also the referee who allowed Nonito Donaire vs. Fernando Montiel to continue after Donaire nearly decapitated Montiel in the second round of their fight in February. I often disagree with Jose Sulaiman. But in this instance, the WBC president is worth quoting.

“It was a criminal act,” Sulaiman said. “Montiel was in a poor state. And after telling him to walk and he does not, and after asking him to raise his arms and he does not; [the referee] still allows him to continue. We will object to this referee whenever we can.”

Donaire later added his thoughts to the dialogue, branding Mora “a horrible referee.”

Boxing has seen too many fights lately where the referee and ring judges seem to have their own agenda. Mora’s problem in Agbeko-Mares wasn’t one blown call. It was a consistent failure to enforce the most fundamental rules of boxing.

“Incompetence is usually the answer for most of the riddles in boxing,” Carlos Acevedo wrote of Mora’s conduct. “But Russell Mora was a quantum leap removed from mere ineptitude. Mora was clearly biased in favor of Mares and, worse than that, seemed to enter the ring with a predetermined notion of what he was going to do. Mares had carte blanche to whack Agbeko below the belt as often as he wanted.”

The boxing community will remember Mora’s performance in Agbeko-Mares for a long time. It should also look closely at how the Nevada State Athletic Commission handles the matter. The NSAC has a policy of refusing to acknowledge that its officials make mistakes. That policy breeds suspect officiating and is one of the reasons for what happened in Agbeko-Mares.

Meanwhile, if Russell Mora looks at a tape of Agbeko-Mares and still thinks that he did his job properly, he shouldn’t referee fights anymore.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book (Winks and Daggers: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) has just been published by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

Published

2 days ago

March 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old. Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

Published

2 days ago

March 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Price-Conquers-Jonas-on-an-All-Female-Card-at-Royal-Albert-Hall

Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 316: Art of the Deal in Boxing and More

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-316-Art-of-the-Deal-in-Boxing-and-More

So, they want to save boxing?

A group of guys with recent ties to the sport of boxing and bags of money suddenly believe they can save a sport that is older than any other sport since the dawn of mankind.

Boxing is the oldest sport.

When cavemen roamed the planet, you can believe one tribe bet another tribe their guy could whip the other guy. Thus began the sport of boxing. There was no baseball, soccer or horse racing.

Even the invention of the wheel was still a few generations away when men were duking it out with other men for sport.

Throughout history mentions of one man fighting another man without arms are written in the Tales of Ulysses and other literary references.

Boxing will never die. Period.

Here is the reason why.

Boxing requires only two men in their underwear with no weapons and no requirement of classes in jujitsu, kickboxing, wrestling or advance training facilities. You can prepare in your backyard with one heavy bag and a pair of boxing gloves. It’s simple.

MMA, on the other hand, requires money.

Boxing is for the poor. Any kid can walk into a gym and begin training. When they become adults, then they start paying to use the gym.

Don’t let people fool you and tell you “boxing is dying.”

People have been saying those same words since John L. Sullivan in the late 1800s. You can look it up.

The phrase “boxing is dying,” is said by people who want you to pay them money to save it. Kind of sounds like the guy currently sitting in the White House who is going to save America by firing Americans from their jobs and allowing Russia to take over Ukraine.

Don’t believe these people.

Boxing does not need saving.

Why would Dana White, who has stated for decades that MMA is bigger than boxing, though no MMA fighter can equal the purses of a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Tyson Fury, why is he involved in boxing?

There is big money to be made in boxing, especially with internet gambling sites being allowed all over the world. And boxing is popular worldwide. MMA is not.

More people know who Canelo is than UFC’s Alex Pereira.

I respect the UFC fighters. They put in hard work and battle injuries throughout their careers. But MMA is simply not as big as boxing. The purses of MMA fighters at the top level don’t come close to boxing’s top money earners.

Why did Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz and others quickly switch to boxing when called?

The money in boxing is much bigger.

Follow the money.

NYC

A rumble is planned for Times Square in New York City.

Vatos from Southern California are fighting dudes from Nevada and Brooklyn. Sounds like a script from the Gangs of New York.

Where is Leonardo DiCaprio when you need him?

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) will meet Rollie Romero (16-2, 13 KOs) in a welterweight match set for May 2, on Times Square in mid-Manhattan. This is one of three marquee bouts planned to be streamed on DAZN.

Others matched will be Arnold Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) versus super lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs), and Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) against Jose Carlos Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in a welterweight contest.

This is the proposed match by The Ring magazine backed by Turki Alalshikh who, along with Golden Boy Promotions and Matchroom Boxing, is sponsoring this fight card.

It was also announced that Alalshikh, TKO Group Holdings, and Sela are forming a promotion company.

TKO owns UFC and WWE.

SoCal Fights

Southern California will be busy with boxing cards this weekend.

This Thursday, March 6, is Golden Boy Promotions with a boxing card featuring Manny Flores (19-1, 15 KOs) versus Jorge Leyva (18-3, 13 KOs) in a super bantamweight match at Fantasy Springs Casino. DAZN will stream the boxing card from Indio, California.

On Saturday, March 8, the Fox Theater in Pomona, California hosts a boxing card featuring super middleweights Ruben Cazales (10-0) vs Adam Diu Abdulhamid (18-16). Also, super featherweights Michael Bracamontes (10-2-1) meets Eugene Lagos (16-9-3) at the historic venue promoted by House of Pain Boxing.

On Saturday March 8, Elite Boxing hosts a boxing card at Salesian High in East Los Angeles featuring East L.A. native Merari Vivar (8-0) against Sarah Click (2-8-1) and several other fights.

On Saturday, March 8, an event hosted by House of Champions features top contenders Joet Gonzalez (26-4) vs Arnold Khegai (22-1-1) in a featherweight main event at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, Calif.

A Big All-Female Card in London

On Friday, March 7, the historic Royal Albert Hall in the Kensington borough of London will host an all-female card with two world title fights including a unification fight in the welterweight division.

Natasha Jonas (16-2-1) and Lauren Price (8-0) meet 10 rounds for the IBF, WBC, and WBA belts.

Jonas, 40, the current WBC and IBF titlist, recently defeated Ivana Habazin and before that edged past Mikaela Mayer in a win that could have gone the other way very easily. She will be facing Price, an Olympic gold medalist and current WBA and IBO titlist.

Price, 30, hails from Wales and has an aggressive pressure style that saw her win a battle between punchers with a third-round knockout of Colombia’s Bexcy Mateus this past December in Liverpool. Before that she defeated the always tough Jessica McCaskill.

In the co-main event, lightweights Caroline Dubois (10-0-1) and Bo Mi Re Shin (18-2-3) meet for the WBC world title.

Me Re Shin, 30, fights out of South Korea and has knockout power. She was one of only two fighters to stop Venezuela’s Ana Maria Lozano who has 38 pro fights. That says something. She lost a split decision to Delfine Persoon in Belgium. That really says something.

Dubois had two competitive fights, first, against Jessica Camara that ended in a technical draw due to a clash of heads. Before that she defeated Maira Moneo. Dubois has very good talent and is still young at 24. Is she ready for Mi Re Shin?

Times Square photo credit: JP Yim

Fights to watch:

Thurs., March 6: DAZN, Manny Flores (19-1) vs. Jorge Leyva (18-3)

Fri., March 7: free on DAZN, Lucas Bahdi (18-0) vs. Ryan James Racaza (15-0)

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