By Lem Satterfield
Yvon Michel, promoter of WBC/IBO light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal, is livid with the recent comments from Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, and promoter Gary Shaw, regarding the officiating in Canada. Both Schaefer and Shaw are upset with the officials assigned to the last two fights involving Jean Pascal.
This past Saturday, Pascal fought 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins to a controversial twelve round majority draw at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City. Schaefer, who promotes Hopkins, was not happy with the referee or the two judges who scored the fight a draw. Schaefer also cited an October of 2008, decision by IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, over Golden Boy promoted Librado Andrade, during which Canadian referee Marlon Wright's long count appeared to have helped Bute to survive a near-final round knockout at in Montreal.
Shaw was not pleased with the way Chad Dawson's fight was stopped in the eleventh round of his August clash with Pascal in Montreal. Shaw believes Dawson, who was behind on the scorecards, was very close to stopping Pascal, and the fight was called to a halt in order to save the Canadian star. Dawson suffered a bad cut during the action and the officials stopped the action in the eleventh, which sent the bout to the cards and gave Pascal a technical decision win. Shaw is also upset with Ali Funeka's twelve round majority draw against Joan Guzman in November 2009 in Quebec.
"We should be careful not to get mixed up in American bulls**t," Michel told reporters after Pascal-Hopkins. "They think they can't lose, that a draw is impossible, that someone cheated. This is what they can't accept -- that they lost."
Michel feels the comments from Shaw and Schaefer are nothing more than sour grapes. He doesn't see anything wrong with the way Pascal's fights were handled or judged. Michel believes that American promoters are always complaining when their fighters are beaten in foreign countries, but they don't have any complaints when foreign fighters are abused by officials on American soil.
"These are stupid comments. The one about Funeka and Guzman, they are two fighters from other countries who have nothing to do with Canada. So, that has nothing to do with it. The judges saw it the way that they saw it. There was no favoritism toward one fighter or another. The judges called it the way that they saw it. It has nothing to do with a local decision because neither one was a local guy," Michel said.
"As far as Chad Dawson, he was just truly out-classed by Jean Pascal. The guy never adjusted to Pascal's style. So that result would have been the same anywhere in the world. As far as Pascal, the judge from Canada and the judge from Belgium both scored it a draw, and the judge from the United States had one round shy of giving it a draw. At 114-112, he had one close round that he gave to Bernard Hopkins. Otherwise, he would have scored it a draw also."
"So it was a close fight that would have been the same anywhere in the world. It easy for the American promoters that are coming here and that have failed to win a fights. It's easy for them to try to make everybody believe that it was not because of their fighters, and that it's always because of the Canadian referees or their judges."
"But we saw what happened when [WBC junior welterweight champion] Devon Alexander fought [Ukrianian] Andriy Kotelnik [in Alexander's hometown of St. Louis]. Nobody said, 'Well, hey, when we go to the United States, they're bad,' and, 'We can't win there.' We are respectful of other countries and we are respectful of their officials and their judges and their organizations. But that is not the case for the promoters who are coming here. They cry over spilled milk and they are just not being fair."
Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com. To read more from Lem Satterfield, go to AOL FanHouse by Clicking Here .
