Though in the long run no harm was done as the judges’ cards were not needed in the Tyson Fury-Dillian Whyte fight – this because Fury turned Whyte’s lights out and KO’d him with a sweet uppercut in round six of their Wembley battle – this does not excuse the “crazy” scoring two of the three judges managed to hand in after the five completed rounds.
Once again, the scoring officials are being criticised due to the fact that one judge somehow awarded Whyte TWO rounds on Saturday, with another giving the challenger one of the five completed rounds. To most observers, Fury was in utter and complete control of the fight, winning all five completed rounds in clear fashion. Yet it has been revealed how Mexican judge Juan Carlos Pelayo gave Whyte rounds two and three, and Italian judge Guido Cavalleri awarded the first round of the fight to Whyte. The third official, Robert Tapper of Canada, gave all five completed rounds to defending champion Fury.
So although a case can perhaps be made that Whyte deserved to win the opening round, or at least a share of it, there is no way Whyte won rounds two or three. What on earth was Pelayo watching? Dan Rafael has written how the Mexican’s scoring was “grotesque,” and it’s hard to disagree with Rafael. So again, although no harm was done here, harm could have been done. Had Fury not closed the show the way he did (and perhaps was always going to), who knows how Pelayo would have scored the coming rounds?
There were no UK judges working the fight, this due in large part to the simply unfathomable scoring of the recent Jack Catterall-Josh Taylor fight, yet in the end, one foreign judge (or two if you are offended over Cavalleri’s scoring of the first round) managed to hand in controversial numbers. Crazy is the only word for it, and controversial scoring of a boxing match seems to be something, indeed a trend, that is not going away any time soon.
