Dodgey Decisions

With all the focus on the supermiddle weight decision I couldn't help but think of Sven Ottke. How many did Sven actually win that he shouldn't have? I know he should have lost to Robin Reid!
It would be fun to find out which fighter has won the most controversial decisions in a career...

There are plenty of fighters who seemed destined by fate to be on the end of controversial decisions, be it the right end or wrong one. There are less examples of men who seem to be exclusively at one end of the spectrum.

In terms of men who seemed to prosper more than others because of them, Ottke is an obvious one from recent times. Going back in history, the great 'Cuban Bon-Bon', Kid Chocolate, could be an example of a fighter who was frequently unlucky with questionable decisions going against him. I forget whether it was the first or second installment of their series, but one of his fights with the great Tony Canzoneri was one in which Chocolate can count himself fairly unlucky to not walk away with the spoils; the fight is available in good quality online for anyone who is interested. The Cuban also lost highly-debated decisions to the likes of Jack 'Kid' Berg and Flyweight great Fidel La Barba, too, and as Chocolate is largely seen as a borderline all-time great in the proper sense, you could argue that such decisions cost him that almost indefinable 'legend' status.

With starkly contrasting fortunes, former Bantamweight king Lionel Rose won three consecutive split decisions, all very, very close, in title fights after lifting the crown - I've not done the necessary research to be one hundred percent sure, but I'm fairly confident that three split decision title defences on the spin must be a record in fights where full championship conditions were ahered to.

As I said though, in general, there tend to be fighters who see both sides of the coin on a regular basis, rather than just one or the other. James Toney got away with murder against Dave Tiberi, for instance, and a less sympathetic panel of judges might just have adjudged him the loser against Mike McCallum first time out, too. On the other hand, his points loss in his first fight with Montell Griffin was a shocking verdict, and he was equally unlucky to not be given a win in at least one of his bouts with Samuel Peter, too.

Similarly, Oscar De la Hoya was the beneficiary of fortunate / incredibly tight decisions against Felix Sturm, Pernell Whitaker and Ike Quartey, but this was evened out by him losing verdicts of a similar nature against Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley (II).

Of course, if there is a man to rival Mr. Ottke for the title of the most prolific beneficiary of dubious decisions, it would probably be former Welterweight champion Johnny Saxton, with his "wins" over Carmen Basilio and Kid Gavilan being the stand outs....Although naturally, when Mr. Palermo is in your entourage, you can expect the judges to be a little kinder towards you than they might normally be!

Froch was fortunate against Dirrell. I had Dirrell up by 2 rounds. Not a robbery but a hometown decision.

Paul Williams seems to be a controversial one. Of course not necessarily his fault but Cintron jumping out of the ring, the Martinez 1st fight, the Lara fight, I feel like I'm missing another one but not sure.

so many to choose from. at least with high profile fights like manny marquez 3 enough people get to see the truth. its the smaller bouts witht he home town decisions that frustrate me. and prizefighter is appauling for dodgy decisions.

Marquez should have got more than a draw and 2 defeats from the 3 fights with Manny and if memory serves the Chris John fight had some suspect officiating and scoring as well. He does seem to have been on the wrong end of the shaft a few more times than most. Eubank got a couple of gifts as well. I've not seen many of Sebastian Sylvesters fights but I'm going to presume he got some bad decisions go his way as based on what I have seen he is total garbage.

Eubank and Watson 1 was a robbery.