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2009 Robbery of the Year

We wanted to come back to finish off our 2009 Boxing Year End Awards with a somewhat facetious award, the 2009 Robbery of the Year Award, and choosing this winner was easy. The Award goes to the 12-round majority draw gifted to Kermit Cintron in his match against Sergio Martinez on February 14 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida.

Martinez won this match by knockout, disqualification and on the scorecards, yet somehow left with only a draw. The Argentinean won the match the first time with a straight left hand that dropped Cintron with 11 seconds to go in round 7 for the 10-count. Florida referee Frank Santore literally said, "10". Santore then began waving off the match. He then walked Cintron back to his corner, in the manner an official normally does when a match is over. Santore then said he had been misunderstood. Cintron had actually stood at 9, and Santore was waving to signal the end of the round. It actually appeared Santore talked to someone at ringside, who convinced him to restart the match. The knockout is where Cintron should have lost the match in the first place.

Cintron should have lost the match a few seconds later, because his corner came into the ring before the end of the round. They came in to argue that their charge was dropped by a head butt and the knockout should not count. That was before the official had signaled an end to the round. This should have resulted in Cintron being disqualified for loss number 2. A key point that also needs to be made here is that because so many people entered the ring thinking the match was over, there was a huge delay starting round 8. The judges had even turned in their scorecards. This allowed Cintron a lot of extra time to recover.

Loss number for 3 for Cintron comes on the scorecards, which were inexplicable. Despite not being credited with a knockout, Martinez won round 7, 10-8. That meant Cintron was going to need to win 7 rounds to earn the draw. That changed in round 12. That is because with 2:07 to go in round 12, Santore deducted Martinez a point for hitting behind the head. This was a horrific call, and it appeared at this point Santore was actively working to swing the match in favor of Cintron. The punch that drew the point deduction hit Cintron behind the head, because Cintron ducked the back of his head into the punch. By rule that is a legal blow. The issue seemed irrelevant, though. Martinez appeared to be so dominant in the match, that losing the point would not be a factor. HBO's unofficial scorekeeper, Harold Lederman, scored the match from ringside for Martinez, 116-110. That was the same score I came up with watching on television. That is also the same way the most experienced judge on the panel New Jersey's Tom Kaczmarek scored the match. Yet, somehow the 2 inexperienced judges from Florida, Ged O'Connor and Peter Trematerra, both scored the match a draw, 113-113.

This was a match for Martinez' 154-pound title. Usually, when there is a draw in a title match the challenger asks for a rematch. Cintron's promoter, Lou DiBella, specifically said he did not want to do a rematch. He was under no illusions of what happened in this match. This was such a horrendous robbery it had to be number1contender.net's 2009 Robbery of the Year Award Winner. A full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/5/25/recap-of-sergio-martinez-vs-kermit-cintron.html

There should be some other archived boxing recaps posted on number1contender.net in the coming days.