The W.B.C. super-welterweight title changed hands last night in Brooklyn, New York by a very questionable, unanimous decision. The judges scores of 116-112, 115-113, and 115-113, all for Tony Harrison over Jermell Charlo, were very suspect and indicative of the need for nationwide reform on professional boxing judging.
Although Harrison did good in some aspects, mainly footwork and general movement, he didn’t do nearly enough to win a decision. Harrison didn’t throw enough punches nor was he aggressive enough to win rounds and his strategy seemed to be merely to survive. He did land some jabs but they weren’t consistent and the jabs were more of a defensive or “Don’t hit me” jab than an effective, offensive jab.
Charlo threw more punches, landed more punches, landed the harder punches, and hurt Harrison on several occasions. Watching the bout live, Clutch City Boxing had Charlo winning by eight rounds to four over Harrison. The only rounds that we felt Harrison won outright were rounds four and six, with rounds one and ten being a maybe for the reluctant warrior.
Jermell Charlo did make some mistakes and his corner seemed to be ineffective for the most part, as far as helping him to make the correct adjustments. Charlo seemed to be too tense as well as being focused only on landing hard punches, rather than just boxing and letting the knockout come naturally. With Charlo being naturally emotional and excitable, he may be better served to have a more experienced and mature corner. His corner’s advice of “Put more pressure on him” just didn’t seem to be helpful or effective.
Even with Charlo just looking for hard punches and the knockout, he still did the better work and won at least eight out of the twelve rounds. Also, as mentioned by Hall of Famer Lennox Lewis, Charlo was solid defensively, easily blocking and/or avoiding most of the punches thrown at him last night, while still fighting aggressively and landing solid punches.
How the three judges who scored the fight could unanimously gift the bout to Harrison, for merely surviving twelve rounds is a mystery. The best Harrison could have hoped for was a draw, and even that would have been stretching it, but to give him a unanimous win was either a case of the judges being unqualified or corrupt, there are no other possibilities in this case.