COLUMN: NSAC SHOULD PUT MORE ATTENTION TO DETAILS
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 20 Jun 2017
As the fans and media folks sat waiting for the weight-in to begin last Friday afternoon for the Ward-Kovalev fight card inside the cavernous Mandalay Bay Events Center media folks from the photo groups that came in early to reserve a spot kept themselves busy doing variety of things.
Some kept busy taking shots of the crowd that came to witness the event but that was not too interesting to emulate as there was a very small crowd and on top of that they seemed subdued.
A handful, particularly those who don?t routinely come to these events are shooting the two Corona Girls on the stage that incessantly kept smiling for them.
A few kept busy checking their phone messages.
Others were full of bustle talking about the biggest circus in town that will be coming on August 26th ? the FMJ vs. McGregor. Many of the comments we overheard are not even worth putting up in this article.
In an attempt to keep busy myself, I started fanning the crowd from my seat with my 300mm lens trying to find an interesting subject to shoot. But to do that I needed to take some sample shots to set the right camera settings. So I focused on what I thought to be the best thing to shoot- the manual scale in the center of the stage particularly a white piece of paper that was attached to the scale.
When I enlarged the image it to see if the focus was correct, I was shocked at what I saw.
The piece of paper is a document that indicated the calibration date of the scale.
The darn thing was last calibrated in June 23, 2015 and was due to be calibrated June 20, 2016. It was obvious the calibration was not updated.
For all intends and purposes, that scale should not have been used as its calibration date is 2 years past its due date and the accuracy therefore, is a suspect.
It is a shame that the NSAC particularly the Commissioner that did the weigh in missed that; much less even bother to check it. The card was right in front of him no less than a foot away from where he stood!
There was absolutely no excuse to miss it!
If he was focused on his job, he should have read that. On the other hand, he might have seen it but elected to ignore it hoping no nosy photographer will catch an image of it.
Missing such details tells us what else the NSAC may have missed in doing their job, intentional or accidental!
The Governor that appointed them to such a sensitive and important position should perhaps call their attention now that we have ?let the cat out of the bag?.
It?s the least he can do to assure the public and the boxers that everything is on the level in the State of Nevada.
I wonder, why the NSAC does not use a high tech more accurate digital scale for the weigh in and focus a camera on it with the image shown on the large screen overhead for everyone to see? I am sure the HBO camera guys will have no problem getting a shot of the scale.
In doing so transparency is assured and incidents like the true weight of Floyd Mayweather Jr when he fought Juan Manuel Marquez should have been open for the public to know. It is them that pay to assure success of the fights, so they have a right to know.
The press likewise deserves to know the details as they use that information when they make their reports.
Using a manual scale with one person (a commissioner) determining the actual reading of the weigh of the boxer standing on the scale platform by sliding the counterweight and visually determining where it falls is far from accurate.
And its open to corruption!
I am not one to question the eyes of the Commissioner but he is the only one seeing the actual reading. It would help if a camera were focused on the scale.
But even better, they should be using a digital scale and focus a camera on it so people will see the accuracy of the weights being announced on a large screen.
This also assures accuracy and eliminates the need of an actual person to determine the weight therefore there will be less chances of a mistake, or perhaps even corruption.
This is especially helpful when there are issues about weight.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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