Two-division world champion, Shakur Stevenson, has gunned for boxing officials after a controversial judging decision which was heavily criticised and left Maxi Hughes devastated.
Hughes went into his bout against former undisputed lightweight champion, George Kambosos, as a relatively heavy underdog.
Nevertheless, he appeared to outbox the Australian and used effective counter-punching throughout the clash to land the cleaner shots, doing enough to upset the odds in the eyes of the vast majority of viewers.
However, the judges awarded Kambosos with a majority-decision victory, with one card scored 117-111 in his favour – a ruling that even Kambosos himself admitted to be generous.
In an interview with Top Rank, Stevenson claimed that recent biased judging is ‘messing up boxing’ and wanted officials to face stricter criteria.
“I thought that it was a robbery, I thought Maxi boxed well and I thought that he was the better fighter.”
“I think that the judges should be held to a higher criteria, they should be as focussed as the boxers and that they should need a lot more [qualifications] to become a judge.
They’re not watching the fights, they’re not really paying too much attention to the fights and it’s messing up boxing.”
As for how the fight affects the lightweight division, Stevenson showed little interest in fighting Kambosos in the future.
“I want to fight the best of the best, so as of right now, Kambosos is not on my level. I want to fight the [Vasyl] Lomachenkos, the Devin Haneys, Gervonta Davis, those are the fights that I am looking for.
If you see me fighting Kambosos, you all know that I am going to stop him, that’s how I feel about it. So, I don’t feel like he is on that level, but if I haven’t got a choice and he is the next step down then I will beat him up too.”
Stevenson will likely challenge for a lightweight world title in the near future, with the undisputed champion, Haney, expected to move up to super-lightweight and vacate his four belts.