Last Thursday night in California, Gerald Washington scored a second round knockout win over Skipp Scott on Golden Boy's FOX Sports 1-televised card, when he was counted out by referee Dr. Lou Moret. However, the real finishing blow of the knockout came while Scott was already down on the canvas, a right hand to the body that left him unable to recover.
Referee Moret apparently missed the shot, and as a result, Scott's team has filed an official protest with the California commission.
You can see the shot at about 7:55 of this video (just after that, so you get the full sequence):
The real puzzler here is that Moret is clearly looking directly at the action, so how did he miss it? Trainer Jessie Reid explained what happened, or at least what Moret said happened."I told Lou Moret after the fight that he made a mistake. He said he thought Washington was already in the action of throwing the last punch while Scott was going down," Reid said.
"I told him he missed the shot while Scott was already down. I told him he should have at least taken points and given Skipp five minutes to recover from the illegal blow. Then I walked him over to the TV announcers and they all told him he made a mistake. Then I walked him to each judge. And judge told him he missed it. I've never seen anything like this before. It was definitely a big mistake. My fighter should not have a loss on his record because of this mistake."
Promoter Kerry Daigle knows what he's up against, but is hoping that the evidence is so clear that the result can be changed, and a rematch made.
"Washington is with Al Haymon and he's a very powerful man. I understand how hard it can be to go against the powerful forces in boxing, but this is such a clear case of an honest referee making a mistake that the commission has to step in and rectify the situation," Daigle said.
"We'll fight Washington again right away. We're not looking to duck him. We would like to see a clear winner between these two as much as anyone else. But these fighters work so hard and to hand Skipp a loss in a circumstance like this isn't fair. We are confident the California Commission will recognize this."
If the result were to be overturned -- and by the rules, it should be, but rules in boxing don't always make things happen -- then it would surely be changed to a no-contest rather than a DQ, which Reid says he'd like to see.