So, who was right and who was wrong in the scoring of Lewis Ritson’s victory over German Argentino Benitez for the vacant the WBA Inter-continental light-welterweight belt?
Ultimately, the judges from England, Italy and Poland had the only scores that mattered as they adjudged ‘The Sandman’ a unanimous points winner over a very tough 27-year-old from Argentina.
But everyone, everyone on social media at least, got into a tizzy over the scoring of the opening title bout on Matchroom’s spectacular at the Copper Box Arena. England’s Mark Lyson and Grzegorz Molenda, from Poland, saw its 98-92, while Italy’s Giuseppe Quartarone, who upset a lot of folk with his handling of the AJ-Joseph Parker world title bout last year had it 99-91.
The beauty about boxing is no-one is wrong because of how subjective it is, one observer could say ‘A’ won the round yet the person next door could judge it for ‘B’.
Your punch-lines reporter marked it 99-91 to Ritson, yet Matthew Macklin on Sky had it on a knife-edge. Now, the Sky pundit has forgotten more about boxing than I’ll ever know, I accept that, but like all ringside/ armchair fans we all chalk down our scores at the end of each round.
In my humble view, Benitez was terrific value, a proud fighting man who gave it his all, but accusations on Twitter of corruption and the three judges bring ‘B Hearn, E Hearn and A Smith’ are laughable.
What did Ritson’s coach, Neil Fannan, think?
“It was a good competitive fight, from the corner I scored it 98-92, the same as two of the judges, I thought the other one was a bit unkind in only giving him one round,” he told punch-lines.
“I thought Lewis was always in charge, but some of the rounds were competitive.
“In boxing you win the round 10-9 if the other bloke doesn’t do much or if it is competitive, it’s still 10-9.
“The wide final score was probably not a reflection on the fight but Lewis was winning the rounds.”
What of the fight overall, how did Fannan feel about the 25-yesr-old’s debut up a division?
“I could see an improvement but I knew it would be a hard fight, I’d watched Benitez and he was better than some people were making out,” said Fannan.
“I always had the lad down as a decent fighter and he’d come to win, he had a go, credit to him.
“It was an ideal fight, I was pleased, I thought Lewis was a bit frustrated , but those are the fights you learn from.
“Some people will be wondering if he has the power at 10 stone as he had at 9st 9lbs but that lad was very durable.
“I don’t think that many British fighters would have taken some of the solid shots the Argentinian took.”
Words: Roy Kelly Picture: Jennifer Charlton
