Four-division world champion, Roy Jones Jr, has criticised the early stoppage in Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero’s world title victory over Ismael Barroso.
The forty-year-old Venezuelan, Barroso, went into the bout as the underdog, but managed to score a shock knockdown over Romero in the third-round and looked like he was going to pull off the upset of his younger counterpart.
With all three scorecards in Barroso’s favour going into the ninth round (76-75, 77-74, 78-73), it seemed Romero needed a knockout if he was to claim the WBA (Super) World Title and he got it… kind of.
Referee, Tony Weeks, stepped in to waive the bout off in the ninth with an extremely controversial stoppage which has sent the boxing world ballistic.
A plethora of fighters as well as promoters have shown their disappointment at what appears to be a ploy to make a pay-per-view clash between Romero and Ryan Garcia and, in an interview with 210 Boxing TV, Roy Jones Jr sympathised with Barroso.
“I thought it was a very, very, very, very, very, very premature stoppage. It happens, it’s the sport of boxing. Certain guys want to keep their guys clean so that they can go and make the bigger money fights and last night was a perfect example of how that happens.
“It makes it where boxing is not fair anymore. As you know I’m definitely not a guy for unfairness, because at the Seoul Olympics, I dedicated nine years of my life to win a medal. I wanted a gold medal at the Olympics, I got to the finals and I was robbed of that opportunity. That is a very bad feeling, which left a very bad taste in my mouth.”
“If a guy wins, let him win. If a guy loses, let him lose.”
Romero proceeded to follow the script and call Garcia out after his ‘victory’ was announced, but he may have to defend his new belt against Ohara Davies first.