Just recently, we saw a controversy in Australia, this when three scoring judges who are all Australian were initially assigned to the Tim Tszyu-Joey Spencer fight. Spencer and his team were understandably angry, having been told there would be neutral judges for the fight in Oz. In the end, the controversy was resolved and the fight went on (with Tsyzu winning by stoppage, so no judges were needed after all).

Now, going into Saturday night’s welterweight unification clash between Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantos Stanionis, it has been reported by The Ring that three US judges will work the fight, along with a US referee.

Now, no-body is suggesting anything funny has gone on here – and it should be pointed out that Stanionis’ promoter, Tom Brown, has okayed the chosen officials – but it does seem odd that there isn’t at least one neutral official working the fight.

Instead, we have three American scorers, and as a result, if the fight goes the distance and the decision goes to Boots but is considered debatable, well, there could be some screaming from Staninonis fans. Again, nobody is suggesting any funny business here, and it may well be that Ennis takes the fight out of the judges hands by scoring a KO or stoppage.

But to repeat, if the fight IS close, or is perceived to be close in the opinion of the watching fans and yet it goes to Boots by a wide margin on the three cards, there will likely be some controversy. The same way there would be if there were three Lithuanian judges scoring the fight and Stanionis won a decision that plenty of folks felt he was undeserving of.

What do you guys think – should Saturday’s fight have X3 US judges, this when a US fighter is facing a man from another country?

As of right now, Boots, 33-0(29) is listed as a 6/1 favourite over the 15-0(9) Stanionis. For what it’s worth, I do see a close and very competitive fight, one that does go all the way.