America At Large: The Nevada State Athletic Commission will convene today to review last Saturday's disgraceful activities at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Centre. Since the fight is already over, the board's options would appear to be limited.
The commissioners could, if they had the stones, disqualify the winner, Floyd Mayweather jnr, and for that matter they could probably retroactively disqualify the loser as well. They could declare the International Boxing Federation championship fight "No Contest", although that would seem particularly harsh, since the title would presumably revert to Zab Judah, who didn't deserve it in the first place.
Or they could, and probably will, allow the original decision to stand, concomitantly fining and suspending several of the non-participants who insinuated themselves into proceedings in the 10th round, precipitating a full-scale melee.
In the interest of full disclosure, not only did I not attend the bout in question, but considered the outcome such a foregone conclusion that I didn't even buy the pay-per-view telecast, so I didn't view the tape until afterward.
On the other hand, knowing what was about to happen didn't make the episode any less distasteful. It only left us wondering what, if anything, referee Richard Steele was thinking.
When Judah, then the undisputed welterweight champion, got himself whipped before his hometown fans back in January, the proposed match-up against Mayweather was widely believed to have been scuttled. So listless was Zab in losing round after round to an Argentinian journeyman named Carlos Baldomir that Mayweather's promoter, Bob Arum, initially deemed the match-up a dead issue.
"Nobody cares," said Arum that night.
But it transpired Baldomir had thought so little of his own chances he had only paid the sanctioning fees to the World Boxing Council, which was supervising the bout. The WBA, which had listed Judah as its "super-champion", allowed its title to revert to Luis Collazo. The IBF, in total defiance of tradition, continued to recognise Judah as champion, thus allowing a belt to be on the line last Saturday night.
Arguably the world's top pound-for-pound boxer, Mayweather was well in control of the fight in the 10th when Judah opted to abrogate the Marquis of Queensberry rules in favour of Brooklyn street tactics. The combination in this case was a hard left hook to the scrotum, followed, as Mayweather swooned in pain, by a solid right hand to the back of the neck.
Steele (who said he saw the low blow but not the rabbit punch) immediately called "time" and directed both participants to the neutral corners. Under boxing rules, Mayweather would be allowed five minutes to recover, but he got a lot more than that, because before the referee even got a chance to indicate whether he was penalising Judah by deducting a point, Roger Mayweather, Floyd's uncle and trainer, came charging out of his corner, shoved Steele aside, and grabbed Judah in a choke-hold.
The sight of Roger throttling his son brought the swift intervention of Zab's own trainer - his father, Yoel, who began pummelling the elder Mayweather as all hell broke loose in the ring.
It seems obvious that somebody should have been disqualified, probably Mayweather. When manager Vinnie Vecchione stepped into the ring to rescue Peter McNeeley from Mike Tyson back in 1995, referee Mills Lane immediately disqualified The Hurricane. (And immediately after trainer Victor Valle similarly intervened on behalf of Gerry Cooney against Larry Holmes almost a quarter-century ago, Lane told me he had disqualified Cooney - although that result somehow crept into the record books as a TKO.)
Since Roger Mayweather was ejected from the arena and faces almost certain suspension, it seems reasonable to suppose his nephew might have been disqualified on the spot had Yoel Judah managed to restrain himself, but since both corners had participated in the free-for-all the bout was allowed to continue once the constabulary managed to restore order.
Mayweather won comfortably on all three scorecards to remain undefeated at 36-0.
Today's conclave will be presided over by the commission's lame-duck executive director, Marc Ratner, who is about to depart for the greener pastures of "Ultimate Fighting" - a sport that probably would have condoned all this nonsense.
With both boxers' purses withheld pending the result of today's investigation, the meeting shapes up instead as a battle of promoters.
Don King, who represents Judah, said Roger Mayweather "done disqualified the fight".
"The world witnessed it," King told the Boston Globe. "Irrespective of who the winner should or should not be, when Roger Mayweather went into the ring, he disqualified his fighter. He challenged the referee, and someone from Mayweather's camp was choking my fighter. The integrity of the Nevada Athletic Commission is at stake. Whatever they do, I'll live with, but it's a sad commentary."
On the other hand, Arum, is domiciled in Las Vegas and has considerable juice there. Moreover, reversing the decision might have a deleterious effect at the sports books, where Mayweather was a 5 to 1 favourite.
Larry Hazzard, Ratner's counterpart with the New Jersey commission, told New York's Newsday that if the fight had been in Atlantic City instead of Las Vegas, Mayweather would have been disqualified.
"He may have been winning the fight but what his uncle did was against the rules," said Hazzard. "We can't only enforce the rules when they suit us."
"DQ the fighter and let him whip his ass again," suggested King. "The boy (Mayweather) is a great fighter."
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