A despicable officiating so blatantly lopsided offered by an obviously blind ‘referee’ Russell Mora hugely assisted Mexican Abner Mares on his way to annexing the Showtime Bantamweight Championship from Ghana’s Joseph King Kong Agbeko. Mares won a majority decision as two judges gave him the fight at 115 to 111, with ringside judge C.J. Ross drawing it at 113 for both men. Agbeko demanded an immediate rematch, accepted, also immediately, by Mares. Russell Mora had turned his blind eyes to Mares’ notorious below-the-belt punches refusing to even caution him once in no less than 10 of such blows, and then capped his shameful officiating job on the night with an even weirder act – to proceed so blatantly to start the count for an Agbeko knockdown in the 11th round. He was not done yet though, for moments after Mares had been handed the title, Russell Mora was defending his actions and claiming the blows he had seen during the bout had been “fair” ones, and when shown the most glaring 11th round foul punch that should have at least earned Agbeko a draw, Russell Mora demanded he needed more time on the clip to come to a decision whether his performance was shameful. “Abner Mares, would he have won without your help this evening?” was the point blank question put to Mora, and hear what he had to say, “I don’t help the fighters, I enforce the law. First and foremost I have to enforce the law. Those punches were on the belt line, it’s a fair punch, I had to call it fair. It will be unfair to give the other guy the advantage because he says it’s low. I saw the punch, it’s on the beltline, I got to call that a fair punch.” You’re right! A fair punch indeed! And how frustrating the criminality proved for the otherwise ‘gentleman’ of a boxer, Agbeko, who saw racism painted all over the sport and questioning why it must be so, mostly for Africans. It must have irked him too badly to have uttered those emotionally charged comments otherwise those would not be words to associate him with. Mares himself was also defending his tactic to go for low blows and punches claiming he never hit him low, an action that immediately leaves one wondering what Vic Darchinyan, his previous victim in December last year during their semi-final encounter in Tacoma, Washington, might have been thinking as Sunday morning’s bout came to the controversial majority decision. Agbeko had rebounded from a first round vintage performance by Mares that sent him to the ropes and apart from a slip in that round which strangely attracted a count, he had taken good control of the rest of the fight, destabilized from time to time by Mares foul punches that should at least have cost him some points, if not the bout. Mares himself suffered an unfortunate cut on the brow in the sixth round from an accidental head clash, but he fought gallantly and hardly appeared to have been done in by that accident. In his frustration, Agbeko had to be restrained from making Russel Mora his immediate opponent in the ring as he made attempts at getting to him physically. Well, he was later to say the bout had been difficult because he had had to fight both Mares and ‘referee’ Mora. “First of all, I want to tell the world that I’m a true champion. I don’t know why, especially boxers from Africa I don’t know why this happens to them every time, when I fought Vic Darchinyan. I was fighting the referee and Vic, I was butted and they counted me. When I was fighting Manny Perez, the same thing happened, I had a head butt and still the referee counted me. I’m fighting Abner Mares, and still the same thing is happening to me. I got like over 20 low punches, he never warned him, he never [did] anything. It’s like I’m fighting the referee and I’m fighting him. It’s like he is trying to be a racist...I don’t think I [lost] this fight, the referee stole my title to give it to him and I demand immediate rematch.” In the meantime, Agbeko’s corner served notice they will officially protest the officiating and outcome of the bout, because what transpired, doesn’t make Abner Mares a worthy champion.