Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman came as close to saying the fix was in with the Mauricio Herrera-Jose Benavidez Jr. fight on Saturday night without actually saying it.
The HBO commentators were incensed by the judges who gave Benavidez a unanimous decision over Herrera despite Herrera appearing to win the fight. Benavidez was awarded the fight by scores of 117-11 and 116-112 (twice) according to the judges. They scored it that way despite Herrera landing 284 of 870 punches thrown compared to 250 of 647 for Benavidez.
“Come on, guys. Come on,” a disappointed Kellerman said after the decision was announced. “You want to tell me you had it 6-6? Okay. Maybe one judge on a bad night could have it 7-5. 8-4 twice and 9-3 once? Those are all bad cards. Those are bad cards.”
Lampley suggested that Benavidez’s association with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Boxing, which put on the entire card, led to the favorable decision.
“And under the circumstances. Given Benavidez’ promoter affiliation. Given the fact that that promoter is headquartered here in Las Vegas. Given the nature of the occasion and the fact that he is a rising prospect. This is the kind of thing that is not good for boxing’s public image,” Lampley said.
One could almost hear Kellerman shaking his head in disappointment over the decision.
“The fact is this: why is it 99 times out of 100, throughout the history of boxing, you know which guy is going to get the bad decision if there is a bad decision? Very rarely does it go in the non-money direction.”
Both ESPN’s Dan Rafael and Yahoo’s Kevin Iole scored the fight 117-111 (nine rounds to three) in favor of Herrera.
Herrera said after the fight he felt like the judges took it away from him.
“They must not count body shots in this division,” he said via Yahoo’s Iole. “Nothing new happens all the time, I win a fight and they take it away from me.”
Though the decision is disappointing, it should not come as a surprise. We’ve been calling out Arum (pictured) for being corrupt for years and suspected the original Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight was fixed by him.
Is it any surprise that through the Benavidez fight, all four Top Rank fighters on the card — which put on the show — won their bouts? Of course not. Just follow the money, like Kellerman said.
