De La Hoya Blasts Houston Judges Over Poor Scores
By Michael Doss
Promoter Oscar De La Hoya, president of Golden Boy Promotions, kept it real about the wide scores in the Paulie Malignaggi vs Juan Diaz and Daniel Jacobs vs Ishe Smith bouts. Both fights were close. The Golden Boy fighters, Jacobs and Diaz, won unanimous decisions on Saturday at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. In both of the fights there were two absurd score cards. One judge had it 118-110 for Diaz, while another had it 100-89 for Jacobs in the fight with Smith.
De La Hoya, to his credit, spoke against the poor scoring.
"The fight was a close fight [Diaz-Maliganggi]. We look at the landslide that one of the judges had, I don't agree with it. I'm not a judge but I don't agree with it. Paulie Malignaggi was right [about getting screwed by the scoring] but it was a close fight. Both fighters gave it their all. You have to give it up to Paulie Malignaggi because he came to fight. He was in tremendous shape and put on one hell of a performance," De La Hoya said.
"That landslide of 118-110 - what is that? We don't need that. It was a closer fight, there is no doubt about that. The [Smith-Jacobs] fight was a close fight. Ishe put up a tremendous fight. When see scores like 100-89, the fight wasn't seen like that. We all saw a close fight. We all saw a great fight."