JOSH TAYLOR hopes he doesn’t have three American judges scoring his next fight.
The super-lightweight champion will leave for New York this week with his June 10 date at Madison Square Garden Theatre against Teofimo Lopez drawing ever closer.
Taylor has fought on a dozen occasions in contests scheduled for the 12-round distance. Judges score totals have been needed five times with Taylor 19-0 (13) getting the nod in each instance. In his last fight against Jack Catterall the Scot was lucky to walk away with a split decision win.
Prior to that there was an all-American scoring trio for his battle with Jose Carlos Ramirez. Despite having scored two knockdowns against Ramirez in May 2021 only two points separated the three scorecards on the night. Tim Cheatham, Dave Moretti and Steve Weisfeld arrived at the same total of 114-112 for Taylor.
“Obviously, I’ve requested to have three different judges, that there not be all American judges,” Taylor told Boxing Scene.
“So, hopefully they accept what we’ve requested and hopefully that’s the case. But I don’t let things like that bother me anyway. I believe in myself and I’m confident in my ability, that it’s gonna be that much of a dominant display, that the judges can’t deny me.”
Scoring in boxing has been thrust into the spotlight once again following last Saturday’s undisputed lightweight bout between Devin Haney and Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Judges Tim Cheatham and David Sutherland both awarded the fight to Haney 115-113. Dave Moretti had the American fighter further ahead 116-112.
Lomachenko’s manager Egis Klimas called it a “robbery” and has since wrote to IBF President Daryl Peoples asking for the Ukrainian to remain as their number one challenger. Klimas and his team are also preparing to appeal the decision.
“The crowd at the MGM and the boxing world reacted to condemn what it believes to be an unfair and unjust decision that denied Loma his rightful victory and his lifetime goal of being undisputed champion of the world,” he said in his letter.
Taylor watched the fight too and isn’t of the belief that Lomachenko had the fight snatched away from him.
“Having seen that fight, I don’t know what all the huge fuss is about, the Lomachenko fight. I think it was a fight that could’ve gone either way.”
His upcoming opponent Lopez also had three US judges for his championship fight against George Kambosos Jr in November 2021. The Australian got the nod with a split decision verdict. Glenn Feldman and Frank Lombardi scored it 115-112 and 115-111 for the away corner while Don Trella had it 114-113 for Lopez.
“I know what it is. I know how these people work,” Lopez said afterwards of the decision.
“The referee knew I won tonight. Everybody knew I won tonight and I’m just thankful. I don’t believe it was a close fight at all. At the end, I scored it 10-2.”
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