The Taylor-Catterall Brouhaha is Mindful of Another ‘Injustice’

On Feb. 26, unified 140-pound world champion Josh Taylor retained all of his belts with a split decision over Jack Catterall before a sellout crowd at the OVO Hydro arena in Glasgow, Scotland. As bad decisions go, this was hardly one of the worst of all time — not even close – but it ranks among the worst of all time in terms of the backlash. One would have to go back 30 years to find a decision that caused such a big stink.

On Feb. 8, 1992, James “Lights Out” Toney successfully defended his IBF world middleweight title with a split decision over David Tiberi at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. One of the judges had Tiberi winning by a 117-111 score, but he was out-voted by his colleagues who both had it 115-112 for Toney. There were no knockdowns but the referee took a point away from Tiberi in round six for a low blow.

The verdict sparked a federal investigation. The spearhead, as one might have guessed, was a politician from Tiberi’s own district, namely Sen. William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware. Roth, who watched the fight on television, decried the decision as “outrageous” on the Senate floor while setting the wheels in motion for an investigation that he hoped would lead to the establishment of a federal boxing commission.

Sen. Roth re-appeared this week in the form of Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a parliamentarian from the Borough of Chorley in the County of Lancashire which happens to be Jack Catterall’s home district. “I have to question why the judges got it so wrong,” said MP Hoyle who is the Speaker of the House of Commons. “I have already sent a letter to the police.”

The Toney-Tiberi and Taylor-Catterall incidents had a lot in common. In both cases, the stakes were high. In both cases, there was drama as there always is when a Cinderella story is brewing and those that came to vicariously identify with the underdog as the fight progressed were denied the satisfaction of a storybook ending. And it mattered greatly that both fights were televised at an hour when a lot of people would be watching. (Toney-Tiberi aired on ABC at 5 pm ET on a Saturday.)

Josh Taylor won no new fans with his comments after the bout. “I don’t think there is any need for a rematch,” he said. “I won the second half of the fight. I took over and bossed him.” But the brunt of the fallout was born by judge Ian John-Lewis. His scorecard, 114-111 for the Tartan Tornado, tilted the heaviest toward the victor.

John-Lewis gave Taylor eight of the 12 rounds which included his 9-9 tally in Round 11 when Taylor was penalized one point for hitting Catterall a split second after the bell, a “make-up call” by referee Marcus McDonnell to atone for his questionable call in round nine when he took a point away from Catterall for excessive holding.

Ian John-Lewis won’t be judging another internationally important prizefight for quite some time. The British Boxing Board of Control, which classifies ring officials into tiers, has demoted him.

John-Lewis, a former pro boxer of no great distinction, is primarily known as a referee. He’s been doing it (judging and refereeing) since 1993 and has had some choice assignments. He’s been the third man in the ring for such notables as Ricky Hatton, Bernard Hopkins, Adonis Stevenson, and Vitali Klitschko, to name just four.

The title of Ian John-Lewis’s 2014 book, “I am the Referee,” details how he overcame his tough upbringing to become the first black man in Great Britain to become a world class referee. (It’s a curious book, full of self-serving testimonials, written in the first person yet credited to “author” John Heffernan who apparently did nothing more than turn on the tape recorder.)

So, the decision by the BBBofC is a double-whammy for poor Mr. John-Lewis, who won’t be getting any coveted assignments as a judge in the immediate future and will undoubtedly have a harder time peddling his book. But having said that, one could argue that he has been scapegoated, served up as a sacrificial lamb to appease the wolves.

When the final bell rang, signaling that the 12-round bout was going to the scorecards, history was solidly against Jack Catterall.

Years ago, there was a general feeling that a title ought not change hands on a close fight. The thinking was that the challenger had to “earn” it by winning convincingly, demonstrating his mastery, so to speak. Although Catterall scored the bout’s lone knockdown, he didn’t do that. The overwhelming consensus on social media is that he was robbed, but the feeling wasn’t unanimous. It was a messy fight and many of the rounds were close.

Catterall was up against it fighting a Scotsman in Glasgow. In no other sport does the home field advantage weigh so heavily in the handicapping equation. A world-weary fight manager at New York’s fabled Stillman’s Gym was overheard asking this question while talking on the pay phone to an out-of-town promoter: “If we win, can we get a draw?”

Catterall didn’t win, but he earned a lot of respect and his next fight will likely bring him the largest purse of his career. David Tiberi reportedly got $26,000 for his match with James Toney and was offered $140,000 for the rematch. (He spurned it and never fought again.)

True, whatever Catterall earns will be less than what he would have earned had he won the titles. And that is why it is so important that the judges get it right. Thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in future earnings, life-changing money, can evaporate when a boxer is the victim of a rank decision.

Scribes who have used the word scandalous while referencing the Taylor-Catterall decision are over-stating matters. However, there was a recent scandalous event involving a boxing judge.

WBA judge Gloria Martinez Rizzo’s dumbfounding scorecard for the Aug. 7, 2021 fight in Minneapolis between Gabriel Maestre and Mykal Fox was truly an outrage and it appeared that we had seen the last of her when she was revealed to be an unabashed racist. But no, there she was back in action on Feb. 11, working five of seven bouts on a card in Miami.

WBA president Gilberto Mendoza had no recourse but to suspend her once her racist tweets surfaced. He said the suspension would be indefinite. As we have seen, that was a very liberal interpretation of “indefinite.”

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