Evgeny Gradovich: Did You Laugh at the Insane Scoring By the Judges?

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By Lou Eisen

In what had to be one of the worst decisions rendered in boxing this year, the judges (AKA The Three Blind Mice) scoring the IBF featherweight world title fight between champion Evgeny Gradovich (19-0-1, KO9) and challenger Jayson Velez (22-0-1, KO16) saw it as a split draw. Once again, this rarest of boxing decisions is becoming more and more prevalent due to incompetent and openly biased judges. Such horrific judging has become an epidemic in the sport of boxing.

Terrible judging and openly biased refereeing are conspiring together to ruin pro boxing and they will succeed unless something is done soon to rid boxing of such poisonous officials. Judges and referees need to have their work reviewed and critiqued after every fight they work. They owe a certain set standard of excellence to the fans and, especially, the fighters.

With that in mind Gradovich clearly dominated the fight with his quick accurate combinations and although Velez did marginally better in the later rounds, he still came up well short of a victory let alone a draw. Gradovich earned a well-fought unanimous decision victory over Velez but unfortunately, the three “judges” scoring the fight did not see it that way. Their decision was, in a word, shameful!

Gradovich’s defense of the title he won convincingly from tough Australian Billy Dib was comprehensive, exciting and pleasing to watch. He gave the challenger and the fans a great boxing lesson. In essence Gradovich schooled Velez in the fine art of self-defense. Gradovich’s punches were short, crisp and always on the mark. He threw his shots straight down the middle and always in multiple punch combinations. Gradovich countered Velez’s left jab perfectly in every round with bruising right hand counters, which always found their mark.

It was evident from the outset that Velez was in over his head, talent wise. When the will of both fighters in a match is equal, as it was in this bout, then the fighter with more skill will win out in the end. Velez’s attack was wholly dependent on his left jab. Velez throws everything off of his jab. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is what good fighters are supposed to do. However, Velez has a bad habit of admiring his jab too much and was usually quite slow when it came to bringing his hand back to protect his face.

Gradovich picked up on that flaw in round one, which is when he started to time Velez’s jab perfectly by coming over it every time with a hard right hand counter. Amazingly, in less than one round, Gradovich had figured Velez out, and knew exactly what he needed to do to successfully defend his world title. Surprisingly, Velez did not know how to nullify Gradovich’s short, jolting right hands.

It was rather curious that, a seasoned pro like Velez, really had no answer for Gradovich’s stinging right hands and because of that was getting tagged constantly by the champion’s counters all night long. Velez should have varied his attack, while creating different angles for the champion to look at. Velez threw all of his punches off of his jab, as all fighters are taught to do. In other words, Velez was becoming predictable. Sometimes young fighters fall into that trap of throwing all of their punches the same way from the same angles during a fight. A great fighter like Gradovich will pick up on that and then take advantage of it.

Velez was hesitant to throw his jab after a few rounds, which left him at a loss as to how to land his other punches successfully. His trainer Abel Sanchez gave his young charge some good advice between rounds but for some reason Velez was not following it.

In rounds 10, 11 and 12, Velez started to step on the gas and step inside Gradovich’s smooth right hand counters and land left hooks to the liver of the champ. Velez then followed up his lefts to the liver with right hands to the body and some very fast hooks upstairs. At the very least, he was letting his hands go, which gave Gradovich something to think about. This is what he should have been doing all fight long. However, by the time Velez was beginning to do so, he was too far behind in the fight (or so we thought) to catch up to Gradovich. Winning the last three rounds was not going to do it for him. Velez was in desperate need of a knockout and that was not going to happen anytime soon against a boxer as elusive and as skilled as Gradovich.

Gradovich has an excellent chin and great balance and ring generalship. Velez lacked the requisite stamina or power to even rock Gradovich, let alone knock him out. Velez also seemed rather tentative throughout the match until the last three rounds of the fight when he started to really let his hands go to work. When the fight ended, it was assumed by everyone in attendance that Gradovich had won a unanimous decision. That is until the incredulous scorecards of the “judges” were read aloud. In the end, it was a great fight to watch. It’s just too bad that the judges missed it.