D-Rod Wins IBF Regional Title via a ?Technical Decision?
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 25 May 2013
Junior middleweight Delvin Rodriguez (27-6-3, 15KO) of Danbury, Connecticut, fighting before his hometown crowd at the Mohegan Sun Casino Resort won the IBF North American Junior Middleweight belt via technical decision as a result of a ?head butt? called by referee Harvey Dock.
Rodriguez beat Freddy Hernandez (30-4-1-0, 20KO) of Mexico City
via a ?majority decision? with the scores as follows: 76-76, 77-75 and 78-74.
Rodriguez could have won anyway as he was the busier fighter and the more accurate one. But that is not to say that Hernandez was losing that bad and had no chance to pull it out. Hernandez had his moments too and who knows what would happen had the fight went on as scheduled.
But as luck had it, it was not Hernandez? night.
Two successive right hands from Rodriguez seemingly opened a cut on the left eyebrow of Hernandez.
ESPN FNF TV replays shows that the call of a ?head butt? might have been erroneous.
Before the two right hands were thrown replays shows that there was no blood on the left eyebrow of Hernandez but immediately after the fighters separated after the second right hand was delivered, clearly there was blood on Hernandez? eyebrow.
Where the declared head butt came from was not apparent in that part of the fight that brought out the blood.
Did Harvey Dock miss the punches?
From what it appears on the replay, Dock was right there closely watching the exchanges. He could not have missed it.
But, he declared a head butt and the fight was stopped on a technicality and based on the scores, D-Rod was head in the cards of two judges thus, he won by a majority decision. Time: 1:37 of round 8.
Foot Note:
Hours after the above story was written, Michael Mazzuili, the Director of the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulations, reviewed the ESPN fight tapes and decided to change the results of the fight from majority decision based on a technicality to a TKO victory for Delvin Rodriguez.
Mazzuili said the decision is based on what the tape indicated. The cut was from two successive right hand punch as seen on the tapes.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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