Another Vegas Lottery: Tracy Byrd Desicions Agnieszka Rylik
By S. Noble
26.03 - They say fighting abroad can be hazardous, the fans are against you, and there is often a language barrier and sometimes they your boxing style is not to the taste of the local cognoscenti. Lennox Lewis has certainly found it an uphill struggle to win over the American public and boxing press. Not until his merciless destruction of Mike Tyson last year, has he been accepted as one of the finest champions to lace up a pair of gloves. The verdict in his first fight against Holyfield reflected this, despite the global reaction to the rather bizarre scoring of that fight. It appeared that at least one of the judges scored what she thought would see in the ring, rather than what she actually saw.
If that can happen in one of the biggest fights of the century, perhaps it is no surprise that it can happen to any fighter. Agnieszka Rylik the Polish world champion now knows how big Lennox felt when the cards were read out early that March morning. On Saturday in Las Vegas she suffered a similarly upsetting fate at the hands of a judge who appeared to have been watching a different bout.
The shock upset came in a bout against Tracy Byrd, sister of world champion Chris Byrd. Unlike her brother who resides in Flint Michigan, Tracey works as a policewoman in Las Vegas, so despite her underdog status, was effectively the home fighter. Despite this, Byrd appeared to be a competent, but limited fighter who had always lost when attempting to move up to world level. The fight appeared to be following a predictable pattern, when Byrd was sent to the canvas in the second round by her more powerful opponent. Byrd has a reputation for resilience though, and has recovered from knockdowns before and despite seven defeats on her record had never been stopped.
It was now that a leg injury that Rylik was carrying began to take its toll. Unable to finish her opponent, Byrd was allowed back into the fight, as the Pole paced herself to ensure she did not run out of steam in the later rounds. This allowed Byrd to begin to take the fight to the champion. Although Byrd clearly had the better of the middle rounds, Rylik rallied from round seven and fought to ensure she retained her unbeaten status.
When the scorecards were revealed it was clear that the fight had been nail bitingly close. One judge scored it for Rylik by two points; the other judge had Byrd sneaking it by one point. Inexplicably in a fight where most observers had found it difficult to separate the two fighters, the third judge had scored a clear three point margin in favour of Byrd. What made this even harder to understand was the fact that the second round had to have been scored 10-8 in favour of Rylik due to the knockdown.
It is a shame that this controversy had to sour the evening for both fighters. In all honesty either a narrow defeat or a narrow victory would have been a fair result. To score such a close contest by such a wide margin means that either the knock down was not spotted (gross incompetence for a judge at this level). Or that it was ignored, suggesting that the judge had decided who was going to win the fight regardless. In some ways it resembles Howard Eastman's unsuccessful challenge against William Joppy, in which one of the judges produced a similarly bizarre scorecard. What is clear is that there should be a rematch and that it should not take place in Las Vegas. Although for the big money fights it provides a fantastic venue, all too often fighters further down the card suffer at the hands of substandard referees and judges.
