Original photo courtesy of Chris Algieri via Instagram
On Saturday, June 14, 2014, live on HBO, Ruslan Provodnikov dropped a tough fight via split decision against undefeated challenger–and now champion–Chris Algieri.
Provodnikov started the fight on fire, dropping Algieri twice in Round 1 in what looked like it would be an easy night of work for the “Siberian Rocky.”
But instead of being a first round KO victim, Algieri had other plans.
He settled himself and boxed intelligently throughout the rest of the fight, doing enough to earn the favor of two out of the three judges–Don Trella and Tom Schreck–who both scored the bout 114-112.
The third judge, Max DeLuca, had a wide margin victory for Provodnikov–117-109.
How could one judges’ score be so drastically different?
Team Provodnikov seems to be asking the very same question and moving forward, whether they get a rematch with Algieri or not, Provodnikov’s manager has made it clear that he and his fighter would like to have a say in who is judging ringside.
After Round By Round Boxing posted a photo on Instagram of Algieri’s gruesome looking eye, Provodnikov’s manager–the always gracious Vadim Kornilov–told us that his fighter was treated like the challenger instead of the champion.
We asked Vadim if a rematch would be possible if held on the West Coast and this is what he had to say:
While DeLuca was the only official judge who gave the fight to Provodnikov, veteran judge and HBO’s unofficial scorer Steve Weisfeld also scored the bout 117-109 for Ruslan.
Boxing is subjective, and fights like this one bring out age-old debates about what exactly should be given precedence, harder punches or the number of punches landed.
Provodnikov undoubtedly landed the harder shots, but Algieri threw over 200 more punches, landed over 80 more and also landed at a higher connect percentage.
Regardless of who you thought won, fans can agree that both men fought valiantly and the matchup warrants another go round.
