Do the Oddsters Know Something We Don't?
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 22 Mar 2025
It's really surprising and puzzling that oddsmakers in Japan have installed former titlist Yudai Shigeoka a slight 10-8 favorite over Filipino defending WBC minimumweight champion Melvin Jerusalem in their title rematch this March 30, 2025 in Aichi, Japan.
Do they know something we don't? Of course, Yudai has the advantage of fighting at home and before home crowd.
Reminds me of the scene in the movie "A Bridge Too Far" when almost the same question was asked by British airborne commanding general (played by actor Sean Connery) of his aide upon landing over Arnhem when a group of lunatics that escaped from a bombed up sanitarium met them with mysterious laughs and giggles. Of course those lunatics were just being themselves and didn't know that a full Nazi Panzer Division was at Arnhem on R&R instead of opposing "low quality" German conscripts as the lightly-armed airborne force were told by the top brass.
As WW2 history has it, Operation Market Garden as the bold military move was called ended in a disaster.
I am not saying that Jerusalem is facing in Shigeoka an opposition as formidable as a German armored force or that Melvin is not adequately prepared and armed.
Melvin had faced and defeated the same Yudai Shigeoka March last year scoring two knockdowns on the way to a split decision win for the WBC crown. But even at that time, one was tempted to ask, "Jerusalem decked Yudai twice and outboxed him but had to settle for just a split decision, meaning to say a judge even had Yudai the winner?"
Judging in world title bouts in Japan has improved a lot especially with the use of neutral panel of judges.
Still, it is not assuring when a fighter like Melvin who had scored two knockdowns and the better of the exchanges had to literally walk the wire in securing a split decision.
And certainly when just recently, the referee raised the arms of the clear loser, Shokichi Iwata, almost clueless of the fight he had just officiated and in almost in total disregard of the official announcement that Puerto Rican challenger Rene Santiago was the winner by unanimous decision!
There are two ways that ring officials regardless of being so called neutrals can affect a world title fight in favor of the hometown fighter: Either through biased judging or through partial refereeing.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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