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Gabriel Campillo was on the short end of the stick of some awful scoring again tonight in Texas, getting robbed despite delivering a reality check to IBF light heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud in Corpus Christi. Cloud won on split decision scores of 116-110, 114-112, and 111-115. Bad Left Hook scored it 116-110 for Campillo.
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Campillo (21-4-1, 8 KO) is the recipient of a third straight lousy decision in a major fight (he had a couple of stay-busy wins in there, too), following his 2010 robbery loss to Beibut Shumenov and last year's robbery draw against Karo Murat.
Tonight, Cloud came out strong and looked phenomenal in the first round, flooring Campillo on a right hand, and then knocking him into the ropes moments later, rightly called a knockdown by the referee, who did a totally fine job in the fight.
But after that first round, Campillo took over.
It was Campillo bossing the fight, both on the back foot, where he picked Cloud (24-0, 19 KO) apart routinely, and coming forward, which led him to unleashing big combinations. He cracked Cloud to the body and head repeatedly, and there were very few rounds where Cloud was able to keep pace with the Spaniard.
The absolute closest I could see this fight would be 114-112 for Campillo, which is the card that Showtime unofficial scorer Chuck Giampa had. That would be eight rounds to four for for Campillo.
There is no way in hell to argue that Cloud won eight rounds of this fight, or seven rounds of this fight. The two judges who scored this fight for Cloud were way off -- why? That's up for you to guess. Incompetence, corruption, whatever it is, it's wrong.
Giampa also noted that the two judges who scored the fight for Cloud had one world title fight between them. That seems unfortunate.
After the fight, Twitter erupted with fighters saying they felt Campillo was robbed, including Bernard Hopkins, Paulie Malignaggi, and Ishe Smith, who once wrote a piece about the Shumenov vs Campillo robbery. Malignaggi said that Campillo was "Malignaggi'd" in Texas, as he was against Juan Diaz in 2009.
The main event is coming up next, with Paul Williams facing Nobuhiro Ishida in a 12-round junior middleweight fight. Join us for the rest of the show.