Columnist Dean Juipe: Foreigners indecisive at big fight

Dean Juipe

Monday, Feb. 15, 1999 | 10:28 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Boxing judges are like dialects: Every region in the world has its own, and each believes theirs is the best.

The views on both are always defensible, as familiarity leads to a comfort level that is sometimes mistaken for superiority. It's easy to tell an outsider who speaks differently and accentuates different words that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

In Las Vegas, where boxing is a business, a good deal of pride goes into selecting judges for the high-profile fights that are held here. And the Nevada State Athletic Commission has the finest stable of judges in the world, although that's a view occasionally contested by those who fail to hold a Nevada driver's license.

Sensitive to this criticism, the NSAC chose to remove itself from the line of fire for Saturday's fight at the Thomas & Mack Center between Oscar De La Hoya and Ike Quartey. Specifically because of criticism following De La Hoya's decision win over Pernell Whitaker two years ago, and because Whitaker and Quartey are East Coast-based fighters who share the same promotional firm, the NSAC rounded up three men from other continents to score the bout.

These were three men absolutely independent, yet when all was said and done it was obvious the NSAC should have picked three of its own for the task. The split-decision victory that was awarded to De La Hoya cast too many aspersions and showed the imported three to be indecisive if not somewhat inept.

The judges' collective weakness was a frequent inability to determine which fighter had won the round. As a result, two of them -- Larry O'Connell and John Keane, both of England -- scored two rounds even, while the third judge -- Ken Morita of Japan -- had one round even. (The trio couldn't even agree what rounds to score even, as O'Connell had the fourth and eighth, Keane the fifth and 11th, and Morita the sixth.)

Scoring rounds even in a fight of this magnitude is a no-no. Put it this way: Judges should be allowed no more than one even round per year.

"I believe every round has a winner," said NSAC executive director Marc Ratner after the fight. "Very infrequently should a round ever be scored as even."

He was not happy with O'Connell, Keane and Morita and he almost expected as much.

"I was worried about them," he said. "I predicted one round would be scored even on each card."

He added that "if I had (NSAC) judges scoring a round even two or three times in a fight, I wouldn't use them."

When they did manage the gumption to score a round for one man or the other, the trio did OK. Morita had De La Hoya winning by four (116-112), Keane by three (116-113) and O'Connell had Quartey ahead by one (115-114).

The Sun -- still saving its one even round for later in the year -- had De La Hoya up 114-113.

Afterward the Quartey camp fell back on its "you can't win a decision against De La Hoya in Las Vegas" spiel even though the judges had no connection to the city. Many of the comments were unflattering, if not vicious.

What the outbursts may have achieved is this: Henceforth, if the fight is in Las Vegas, the NSAC should be provincial and use Las Vegas judges. After all, we're the best.