Judge Stephen Blea acknowledges his bad Oscar Valdez v Robson Conceicao scorecard!
On September 10, Oscar Valdez and Robson Conceicao waged battle for Valdez’s WBC junior lightweight title. After the conclusion of twelve hard-fought rounds, the scorecards announced Oscar Valdez as the victor. The result was to the dismay of fans and pundits. The outraged stemmed from two things. First was the fact that Valdez retained his title after appearing to clearly lose the fight. On top of that, there was the 117-110 scorecard from judge Stephen Blea. His counterparts, Omar Mintun and Chris Tellez, turned in 115-112, which were much more respectable scorecards.
OUT OF LINE
His scorecard stuck out like a sore thumb. There was no way he watched the same fight as the fans in attendance and everyone watching at home. This was a close fight that Conceicao was excelling in, and arguably winning. That was thrown to the wayside by Blea inexplicably scoring the fight the way he did for Valdez. Again, it’s not to say Valdez didn’t do enough to retain his title. However, to score the fight for him by that large a margin is simply ridiculous and unacceptable.
Well, Stephen Blea would surprisingly release a statement admitting to his errors. In his statement, he would take full responsibility for his inept scorecard.
While bad scorecards aren’t anything new in the sport, it’s become way too normal for judges to turn in cards that are not indicative of the action taking place in the ring. Maybe this latest mishap will finally get the powers that be to look into having judges take classes on how to properly score a fight going forward. These fighters put way too much on the line and spend months at a time training in preparation for these fights. To have that undermined by a judge’s head-scratching scorecard is unacceptable.
By: Jerrell Fletcher
