Arum wants state to probe Bradley-Pacquiao scoring
The firestorm continued Monday over the controversial split-decision victory by Timothy Bradley over Manny Pacquiao on Saturday, with Top Rank chairman Bob Arum demanding the state attorney general’s office investigate the circumstances surrounding the outcome.
A letter was sent by Top Rank to Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto asking that she look into the scoring by judges Duane Ford and CJ Ross that had Bradley winning the 12-round fight by scores of 115-113. The third, Jerry Roth, had Pacquaio winning, 115-113.
“I want to believe there was no impropriety,” Arum said. “That’s why I want the attorney general to investigate so we can be sure.”
Nevada Athletic Commission chairman Skip Avansino said he had not heard from the attorney general’s office but would “cooperate fully.” He also said he would be glad to sit down with Arum and discuss any aspect of Saturday’s result.
“If Mr. Arum wants to talk to me, I’ll be glad to meet with him,” Avansino said.
While Arum remains infuriated with the judging, Ross defended her scorecard Monday, saying she thought Bradley did more than Pacquiao, particularly in the fight’s latter stages.
“I went back and forth quite a bit,” Ross said. “I saw Manny Pacquiao took the last two rounds off and that’s why I think he lost the fight.”
Ross, 63, has been judging fights in Nevada since the late 1980s and worked Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s successful defense of his WBC junior middleweight title against Shane Mosley at the Grand Garden on May 5.
Ross said Pacquiao-Bradley was a very close fight.
“I believe some of the rounds could have gone either way,” she said. “But in my opinion, Pacquiao had the aggression but he didn’t have the execution.”
Like Ford and Roth, Ross was not aware of the final CompuBox punch stats in which Pacquiao held a clear edge in percentage of punches, jabs and power punches landed. Nor did she have an issue over the nearly one-hour delay in the fighters getting to the ring.
“I wasn’t concerned about the delay and Keith (Kizer, NAC executive director) never said anything to me prior to the fight,” Ross said. “Once the fight begins, I judge it on all three minutes and every round is its own fight. So if it goes 12 rounds, that’s 12 separate fights.”
Kizer said Monday he will meet this week with Ross, Ford and Roth individually and review the fight, round by round.
“I want to sit down with them and watch it again and tell me what they saw,” Kizer said. “I don’t have a problem with the way they scored it. It wasn’t like one of the cards was 11-1. They were all within a round of each other.”
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.