Judge Javier Alvarez VS HBO: Spotlight On Commentators VS Judges

Judge Javier Alvarez somehow found a scorecard with 115-112 for Vanes Martirosyan when Martirosyan and Demetrius Andrade squared off for a chance to win a vacant major world title on HBO live boxing, back in November. I don't know how, but now that some time has passed from this match, I thought I would spotlight this in case of future matches with Javier Alvarez judging. Cheers to HBO for deriding his card. Anybody can see a fight differently, but not that differently. I saw no valid total that can be turned in for a Martirosyan win and do fully support HBO's team in this one.

Perhaps Martirosyan was more in the fight than given credit for. If you said that, I wouldn't argue. If you said it was closer than HBO's commentators made out to be? Fine. Not an invalid statement, to me, considering that Kellerman didn't even seem to like Steve Weisfeld giving Martirosyan three rounds. Vanes hung tough and made it awkward as he normally does. Maybe some of the rounds were close enough that you couldn't argue much Martirosyan edging them when HBO's commentators didn't see it that way. Fine. Maybe some. But to see a card turned in where Martirosyan actually won? A card reflecting that he somehow got the better of this fight by any scoring method? I really hate to pick on judges and they have to turn in a highly contentious card that I can't see a competent, uncorrupted judge turn in for me to draw attention to it. But here is one.

I have recently reviewed the fight from my DVR and it was just as bad a scorecard in my mind as I found it that night, late last year. Some folks looking this one up on boxrec may see the scores and that Andrade was knocked down in the first and assume it was one of those matches where a knockdown can make all the scoring difference, like a Cotto/Clottey type score. It wasn't that. I would never write off a judge completely after even a card I find this bad. Not for one night of bad judging. But it's a red flag and I want to spotlight this because if it becomes a pattern, we, to protect our sport, need to take action and tell the boxing establishment that we will not stand for a judge that develops such a pattern (C. J. Ross) and take action like turning our backs on watching these matches live and hit channels in the pocket by lowering the ratings we give them if they air fights with judges we know have a pattern of bad cards, be those cards bad via corruption or ineptitude or severe bias of some kind.

So, IN CASE Javier Alvarez develops into a judge with a pattern of this, let's draw attention to it. If you spot a fight that he's judging that I haven't seen or taken notice of, where he has turned in another score like this, please, by all means, comment on this page and tell me what to look for and I'll try to locate it and view for myself to see if I agree it needs attention. Here is the talk of the scores as the HBO crew goes off on Judge Javier Alvarez:


Max Kellerman: "What a stinking score card, that fifteen/twelve for Martirosyan-and that better be a m- that better be a misprint-a misread."
(Kellerman seems fairly flustered)

Jim Lampley: "Otherwise you'd have to wonder what fight that judge was watching."

Kellerman: "What's the name of that judge who gave the fifteen/twelve scorecard?

Steve Weisfeld: "Javier Alvarez."

Kellerman: "And what did you say about him, Steve?"

Weisfeld: "I said he doesn't have tremendous judging experience."

Kellerman: "Yeah, or eye sight, apparently."

Lampley: "Javier Alvarez, in scoring the fight 115-112 for Martirosyan, scored the first five rounds of the fight, all for Vanes Martirosyan. I mean, that's-that's pure blindness. I'm sorry. It's embarrassing to us and to the sport when a score card like that turns up in a situation like this. . . Final Compubox numbers for the benefit of the blind judge who scored this for Vanes Martirosyan. . ."

Lampley: "Mondo Bizarro. A very, very strange score card."



Also of note: Please notice that Javier Alvarez was assigned the Keith Thurman VS Jesus Soto Karass match the following month! Awful! So, we have one black mark/red flag for Javier Alvarez. Let's hope that this is an anomaly and he turns out to be a better judge than this would indicate.



Work that bag,
Basement Gym Boxing



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