THE shock scorecard that had Canelo Alvarez winning the Gennady Golovkin fight and thus holding the middleweight champion to a controversial draw has thrown officiating in judging into the spotlight. There was an ugly confrontation at today’s press conference when Joseph Parker’s promoter ranted about the referee in his WBO heavyweight title fight against Hughie Fury.
Fury reflected, “Judges are judges but people like that [Adalaide Byrd] shouldn’t even be in boxing. They should be taken straight off and banned. Obviously they need a serious pair of glasses.”
“They must be blind as bats. It’s wrong because they are ruining people’s lives arent they? It’s devastating,” he continued. “The boxer puts in all this hard training and gets a bad result like that, get stitched up.”
He however isn’t overly concerned about the officiating when it comes to challenging Joseph Parker at the Manchester Arena on Saturday. “I don’t believe it’s going to go to the scorecards, I don’t feel like there will be any need for the judges because I believe I’m going to knock him out early,” Fury warned.
“The best thing to do is just knock them out and then you haven’t got to worry about judges at all.”
Today is actually Hughie’s 23rd birthday but he’s won’t celebrate until the fight is done. “I haven’t got a single present yet, the only present I want is that WBO belt,” he said. “I can’t wait now, I’m super confident and looking forward to it.”
