C.J. Ross never should have been appointed to judge Floyd Mayweather’s fight with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and the blame for the controversy she caused rests with the Nevada Athletic Commission for putting her in position to mar the hyped pay-per-view bout held Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Ross, 64, announced Tuesday she is “taking some time off from boxing,” after the backlash created when she scored the super welterweight title fight a 114-114 draw. Just about everyone else in the building — including fellow judges Dave Moretti (116-112) and Craig Metcalfe (117-111) — saw Mayweather as an easy winner. The Post scored the bout 118-110 for Mayweather.
After initially defending her scoring, Ross, a judge for 22 years, decided she would step down after meeting with Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission, chairman Bill Brady and commissioner Francisco Aguilar on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
“She told us she wanted to take some time off and take an indefinite leave of absence for her own sake as well as the sake of the sport,” Kizer told The Post on Wednesday. “We told her we respect her decision and appreciate her love of the sport she served for over 22 years.”
Ross said social media played a role in her decision to step down.
“Controversy happens in a lot of fights,” Ross told the Associated Press. “With the help of social media, people expressing opinions, it brings things to a different light. I’m taking the brunt of it.”
It was a bad appointment from the beginning. Ross already had come under intense scrutiny when she was one of two judges who scored Timothy Bradley a split-decision winner over Manny Pacquiao in June 2012.
“If anybody looked at the Tim Bradley-Manny Pacquiao fight, you knew C.J. Ross didn’t belong among the judges scoring Mayweather-Alvarez,” said a longtime boxing official, who wished to remain nameless. “Some people get it and some don’t. She’s been in too many controversies. There are eight billion good judges. It’s baffling why she was put in there.”
Controversial and even bad scoring has been a part of boxing since its inception. It happens on all levels and will continue to happen. There is no perfect formula for getting all three judges to see a fight the way the fans and media do. But Ross had enough red flags to question why she was appointed for Mayweather-Alvarez by Kizer and approved by the commission.
Kizer said Ross was selected after he drew up an initial list of potential judges and referees and submitted it to the fighters’ camps, promoters and sanctioning bodies. Objections to anyone on the list can be noted before and during a public meeting of the commission. If there are no objections, Kizer makes his recommendations, which are normally rubber-stamped.
Kizer said Ross’ scoring in the Pacquiao-Bradley fight didn’t concern him.
“It was 15 months later, so no,” Kizer said.
He pointed out Duane Ford, the other judge who saw Bradley beating Pacquiao, worked Mayweather’s fight with Robert Guerrero in May without any objections.
Brady told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the negative publicity from Ross’ scoring prompted Gov. Brian Sandoval to question the process.
“I apologized to the governor for any embarrassment we may have caused the state,” Brady told the newspaper. “He made me aware of his concerns. He wants things done right.”
If there’s one flaw in the process, it’s the Nevada’s commission preference to use Nevada judges in high-profile fights such as Mayweather-Alvarez. Ross and Moretti are from Las Vegas; Metcalf is from Canada. Their fee was believed to be $8,000.
In fights as high-profile as Mayweather-Alvarez, only the best judges worldwide should be used.
“My only concerns are, are they going to be good and are they going to be fair?” Kizer insisted. “Nevada judges are looked at with the same scrutiny as all judges are.”
Kizer doesn’t think there will be much fallout from Ross deciding to step down under pressure. It’s not good for boxing if judges are scoring bouts thinking about the heat they could get on social media if they differ greatly from the other judges.
“I tell my judges to treat the first round like it’s the only round and treat every subsequent round like it’s the first round of the fight,” Kizer said. “The good judges do that.”