Judge Glenn Feldman gave a cagey response when confronted about his controversial scorecard for the Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua rematch in Saudi Arabia. Feldman was ridiculed after scoring the fight 115-113 in favour of AJ despite many believing that Usyk had clearly won the contest.
The other two judges – Steve Gray of Great Britain and Ukraine’s Viktor Fesechko – had Usyk ahead by two and four rounds leading to The Cat being awarded a split decision victory at the King Abdullah Sport City Arena. But Feldman’s scorecard left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths.
Legendary boxing trainer Teddy Atlas tweeted: “Split decision???? Please take away that judge’s license, and never allow him near a score card again!! #UsykJoshua2 #boxing.”
Before promoter, Lou Diabella added: “Big day for #boxing. Also a big day for very questionable scorecards. Again a big day to lament how a great sport impugns its credibility with regularity, virtually no shame, and zero consequences. Which is the case WAY TOO OFTEN on big days for boxing.”
His supervisor then continued: “I saw it as a very close fight, understand boxing is scored round by round not by the fight as a whole and those rounds were razor close and it depends on your perspective, how you evaluated the impact and the effectiveness of the punch. The key thing is they scored it as they saw it and that’s why we have three judges.”
After defending his WBA (super), IBF, and WBO titles, Usyk is now expected to face WBC champion, Tyson Fury, in the first heavyweight undisputed unification bout of the four-belt era. Both men called for the contest post-fight with the Ukrainian claiming that he will retire if he is not given Fury next.
Joshua, on the other hand, will look to rebuild and wants to return to the ring around November-December time.
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