Junior welterweight contender Steve Spark is furious with a last minute decision to switch two of the judges for last Saturday’s fight with hometown boxer Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela at Akron Stadium in Mexico.
The fight took place on the undercard to Canelo Alvarez’s super middleweight title defense against John Ryder.
After ten rounds, Valenzuela was handed a split decision win with scores of 96-93, 94-95, 95-94.
It was a furious fight where Spark seemed to have the edge, but was knocked down in the sixth round – which became the difference in the outome.
According to Ben Damon of Fox Sports, both sides agreed to have three neutral officials but at the last minute two of them were changed for two locals — and they awarded Valenzuela the victory.
“We were meant to have the same judges as Canelo vs Ryder,” Spark explained to Fox Sports.
“We found out after we got out of the ring, they switched out two of the judges to the local commission. Both of those judges are from Guadalajara and they’re the ones that gave it to him.
“It was all in writing who was actually going to be judging and officiating the event. They tried to switch the referee, and we found out after that they switched the judges last minute, two local judges.
“(Matchroom) told us they’re going to look into the judge switching. You’re messing with people’s lives. Incompetent, corrupt whatever it may be, you change someone’s life. You’d like to see these people held accountable. I was a bit upset for about an hour, but you have to just pull yourself together and go again. I should have got him (Valenzuela) out of there, but I’ll come again. This won’t affect my career.”
Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom was equally outraged over the judging snafu.
He felt Spark won the fight and has no idea why the officials were switched.
“I thought he (Spark) won the fight,” Hearn said. “I’m not actually happy because the officials were changed for that fight. They were supposed to be neutral officials and before the fight somehow they ended up being local officials and I’m not particularly happy about it.”
There was more controversy on the night of the fight. During the co-feature, WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez appeared to drop Ronal Batista. The knockdown was ruled off as a slip by the referee, but later it appeared that World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman got involved and had the ruling overturned to a knockdown.
Veteran observers, and the DAZN broadcast team, became alarmed with the president of a sanctioning body, which is based in Mexico, having the authority to influence such a ruling.