(FEB 22) After having traded phone
calls and emails with the IFBA recently Team Destiny has filed a
formal protest with the organization’s Board of Governors relating
to the February 6th bout in Korea between Ji Hyun Park and Suszannah
“Destiny” Warner. We have urged them to review the scoring of the
judges in comparison to the actual events during the fight and cite
the clause in the group’s By-Laws that require a rematch when
controversial decisions are awarded.
Although the footage is difficult to see, it is still evident that
Warner landed more punches in number, in effectiveness and in power
than did Ji Hyun Park during the bout. While the first two rounds
and as the last two rounds were very close, rounds 3 through 8
clearly were won by Warner. During this time, “Destiny” pressured
Park with continual flurries of body shots and nearly knocked Park
out in each round between the third and the seventh. Park threw
punches during this time but often struggled to connect. She spent
most of these rounds falling into Warner in an effort to both stifle
Warner’s momentum and catch her own breath. Additionally, the
referee continuously pulled the fighters apart as if to warn them
against head butting. While we appreciate his diligence and concern
for their well-being, he broke up the momentum of the fight, often
while Warner was flurrying punches to Park.
The fight Supervisor, Kim Messer, who won her first IFBA title in
Korea with this same promoter, provided a summarized press release
of the fight that is published on the IFBA’s website. Team Destiny
does not agree with that account the last rounds of the fight. In
that release, Messer said Park was able to use her reach by keeping
her distance and using the jab in the tenth round; this was only
true in the first 12 second of the last round. In the YouTube
footage available, Park appears to have moved her arms more during
the round. But her arms were noticeably heavy; her punches were
completely ineffective and her energy level clearly lagged Warner’s.
We appreciate the IFBA’s effort to help improve the balance of
judging by bringing an American judge to Korea for this bout. We
also believe that judge scored the fight objectively in awarding
Suszannah 6 rounds. But for anyone who sees the fight, I think it is
evident that Warner’s taking 6 rounds should have been the minimum
number of rounds taken by Warner. She simply over-powered Park
throughout the fight. In fact, in the real footage on TV, it
appeared that Park agreed.
At the end of the fight Park fell onto the ropes to collect herself,
put a towel over her head, and barely celebrated the win, as the
embarrassment of a shallow “victory” seemed to show through her
facial expressions and body language. The IFBA was resistant to Team
Destiny’s view of the fight. They mentioned that “two of the judges
were close” in their scoring. We respectfully disagree. When one
looks at the difference between 96-94 and 94-96, this is a
measureable difference in opinion of four rounds, or 40% of the
fight. We were particularly flabbergasted by the judge who provided
a score of 98-93, who seemed to be watching a completely different
fight. For anyone who sees this footage, where could this judge have
awarded an extra point for Park somewhere during the fight? So by
bringing in the American judge, we were able to have a 30% chance of
getting a fair decision in Korea. Unfortunately, that was not
enough.
While we have been approached by some in the sport to discuss our
overall experience in fighting for the IFBA and in travelling to
Korea, we would prefer to focus efforts for now on the actual
circumstances in the ring. In spite of immense challenges, Warner
traveled to Korea, spent 13 hours in economy class, two days before
the fight; spent 8 hours in a car being shuttled around, the day
before the fight, and overcame numerous other challenging
circumstances. In spite of this, she still clearly won, proving to
have more stamina than Park throughout the fight. Anyone who
objectively views the footage can see that.
In a statement in follow-up comments on the IFBA’s website, relating
to similar protests filed by teams representing Jolene Blackshear
and Lisa Brown, the organization says that it seeks to assure all
judgments are “beyond reproach”. In that context, we request that
the original footage a fair review to determine whether this
constitutes a controversial decision. We cite article 10.4 in the
IFBA’s By-Laws which states:
If a Championship match ends in a draw or if such match is extremely
close and there is a controversial decision, the Board of Governors,
at its discretion, may recommend that the two (2) boxers be ordered
to fight again for the Championship within a period to be set by the
Board of Governors.
