WBA orders N’dam-Murata and Barthelemy-Relikh rematches

Following the outrage over a split decision victory for Hassan N’dam this past weekend in Tokyo, the WBA has made some big decisions: they’ve ordered a rematch between N’dam and Ryota Murata, and suspended the two judges who scored the fight for N’dam.

N’dam (36-2, 21 KO) won on scores of 115-112 from Canada’s Hubert Earle and 116-111 from Panama’s Gustavo Padilla, while U.S. judge Raul Caiz Sr scored if 117-111 for Murata, closer to what most observers had. Earle and Padilla are both suspended for six months, and WBA president Gilberto Mendoza said the two “will have to pass some tests” before being reinstated to serve as judges in WBA-sanctioned fights.

N’dam won the vacant WBA “world” middleweight title with his victory over Murata (12-1, 9 KO), a 2012 Olympic gold medalist.

The WBA also ordered a rematch of Saturday’s fight between Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh, which Barthelemy won via unanimous decision in Maryland. The organization also wasn’t happy with the judging in that fight, which was scored 115-111, 116-110, and 117-109 for Barthelemy, and Mendoza says they will ask the Maryland Athletic Commission to no longer appoint judges Henry Grant, John Gradowski, or Don Risher to WBA-sanctioned fights, though they can’t do much more than that with U.S. rules and laws.

Barthelemy-Relikh wasn’t quite as controversial as N’dam-Murata, which is being viewed as a flat-out robbery, but there was some discussion about the scoring, and a rematch makes enough sense.