Cloud vs Campillo Controversy: Team Campillo Files Two Complaints, Texas Claims They Will Investigate

RingTV.com reports that Gabriel Campillo's team has filed multiple complaints, one from manager Sampson Lewkowicz and one from attorney Leon Margules, and are officially asking the Texas athletic commission to overturn the controversial decision in Campillo's February 18 loss to Tavoris Cloud in Corpus Christi.

In addition, Campillo's team wants the two judges who scored the fight for Cloud disciplined.

Lem Satterfield lays out the histories of the judges in the Ring article, but just quickly, it's worth noting that both officials who scored for Cloud are very inexperienced. One (David Robertson) had scored just a single previous world title fight, while the other (Joel Elizondo) had never scored a title fight.

There is one obvious fact here, and that's that judges have to start scoring world title fights sometime. Something was once everyone's first major title fight as a judge, something was everyone's second. So it's not simply that they're inexperienced that makes it so awful, really, as the fact that the feeling is they're also either incompetent or were somehow corrupted, though there is basically no way to prove that they were indeed corrupted by outside forces or whatever, and I'm not saying that they were, either. More likely than not, it was just incompetence.

Particularly awful was the 116-110 Cloud card from Robertson, meaning he had Cloud winning eight of the fight's 12 rounds, which seems absurd when actually watching the fight.

At one point I read something, I don't recall where, from someone in attendance who said the fight didn't look like a Campillo win, at least not decisively, without TV commentary and camera angles. I don't really know what to do other than to call BS there; the crowd booed the decision heavily. It sure didn't sound like they saw it any differently than those who watched on TV.

The one judge who did score for Campillo was Denny Nelson, who has been noted in the past as a Don King-friendly fighter (King promotes Cloud). Back when King had Devon Alexander, Nelson was ringside for both of Devon Alexander's highly questionable wins over Andriy Kotelnik and Lucas Matthysse, and scored both fights for Alexander.

Texas commission spokesperson Susan Stanford says that they're investigating, or are in the process of beginning an investigation, but those familiar with the boxing landscape are likely certain that the best thing that can come out of this will come from the IBF. The deplorable Texas commission all but laughs in the face of standards for the sport of boxing and is no stranger to controversy. Earlier in February, the Texas commission and the WBC came under fire for not administering post-fight drug tests, a WBC standard but rather obscenely, not a Texas standard, for the February 4 middleweight title fight in San Antonio between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and Marco Antonio Rubio. The WBC blamed Texas, Texas accepted the blame with the excuse that the dog at their homework.

The IBF may actually order an immediate rematch, and they've received a complaint as well. If you have any hopes, pin them on the IBF.