When the referee is the one grabbing all of the headlines after a boxing match, you know that something went wrong.
Unfortunately, that was the case in the main event between between Brandon Rios and Diego Chaves on Saturday night. After the two boxers game out with gun blazes to start the match, the match took in a strange turn in the third round when a point was deducted from Chaves for seemingly no reason. Referee Vic Drakulich took the point away for what he said was holding but not without much disagreement and controversy.
The fight got even stranger as it went along. Drakulich decided to take a point away from Rios in the fifth round (perhaps in an effort to even things up) and by the sixth round, both fighters seemed frustrated. The fight got dirty as both seemed to throw headbutts and started to use their forearms on each other’s eyes. The result was Drakulich completely losing control of the fight with the fighters yelling at each other and at the ref.
Drakulich took another point away from Chaves in the seventh round.
In the ninth round, Chaves was mercifully disqualified for throwing an elbow to Rios’ face.
At the post-fight news conference, Chaves said Rios kept hitting him in the middle of the back, which is a foul, and even resorted to pulling up his shirt to show a series of bruises.
“What was I supposed to do?” said an exasperated Chaves, who was leading by a point on two of the three judges’ scorecards and trailing by a point on the other at the time of the disqualification.
At the time of the stoppage Chaves was up 75-74 on two cards with Rios up 75-74 on the third.
The post-fight press conference was attended by Bob Bennett, the executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission and chairman Francisco Aguilar who scrambled to explain how the fight had deteriorated into such a comical farce.
“Vic early on tried to set a standard in that fight between these two fighters,” Aguilar said. “This was not a boxing match; this was a brawl. They were there to brawl. Vic tried to take control of that fight by deducting the points, whether or not you agree that point was appropriate. He was trying to get control and as the fight went on, he was losing that control.
“I don’t think either corner had respect for the authority in that ring. That is my concern. When he went in there to lay down the law, they were not listening. That fight was disintegrating to a point where it could become dangerous.”
“Vic early on tried to set a standard in that fight between these two fighters,” Aguilar said. “This was not a boxing match; this was a brawl. They were there to brawl. Vic tried to take control of that fight by deducting the points, whether or not you agree that point was appropriate. He was trying to get control and as the fight went on, he was losing that control.
For his part, Bennett said that the referee had no choice but to disqualify Chaves after the fighter threw the elbow at 1:26 of the ninth round.
“I don’t think either corner had respect for the authority in that ring. That is my concern. When he went in there to lay down the law, they were not listening. That fight was disintegrating to a point where it could become dangerous.”
Promoter Bob Arum said there are no plans for a rematch and was thinking about having Rios face either Mike Alvarado for a third time, Ruslan Provodnikov or Timothy Bradley in his next fight.
To his credit, Rios didn’t seem happy with the “win.”
“I didn’t want to win that way,” Rios said. “I never wanted to win like that.”
