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Hometown judging is nothing new in boxing. As the saying goes, visiting fighters often need a knockout just to get a draw. This was extremely evident on Saturday, March 5th during the 12-round heavyweight bout between Cuba’s Luis Ortiz and Tony Thompson of Washington D.C. Just to be clear here, the contest was held at the D.C. Armory in Thompson’s hometown. One judge handed in a ridiculous scorecard and luckily for him it wasn’t needed as Ortiz stopped Thompson in the sixth round. However, he did score the first five rounds in a very odd and questionable manner.

The 36-year-old Cuban entered the fight with a perfect record of 24-0 along with 21 Kos and was heavily favoured to win the fight by stoppage as the 44-year-old Thompson was 44-6 with 27 Kos. Judge Lloyd Scaife of Washington must have put his money on the underdog Thompson though as there’s no other logical explanation for the way he scored the bout. Ortiz opened the fight by knocking Thompson down in the very first round and the other two judges gave the round to the Cuban by a score of 10-8, which is the standard when one boxers scores a knockdown. Scaife didn’t see it that way though and gave Ortiz the round just 10-9.

Ortiz won the second round and all three judges scored it 10-9 in his favour. The third round featured the most bizarre scoring as Ortiz knocked Thompson down again. As expected, the two other judges scored the round 10-8 for Ortiz, but Scaife inexplicably scored it 10-9. But wait a minute! He didn’t score it for Ortiz he actually gave the round to Thompson even though he was decked. This was a three-point swing in the round compared to giving it to Ortiz 10-8.

All three judges scored the fourth round the same at 10-9 for Ortiz, but Scaife once again produced an odd mark for the fifth round, which he gave to Thompson 10-9 while the other judges had it 10-9 for Ortiz. At the end of the fifth round, Scaife had Ortiz winning the fight by just 48-47, while the other judges Paul Wallace and Tammye Jenkins had it 50-43 by giving Ortiz all five rounds. The D.C. Boxing and Wrestling Commission was just as confused as the fans and boxers by the scoring and issued a press release.

The statement said: “The District of Columbia Boxing and Wrestling Commission is aware of a judging issue related to the Ortiz-Thompson fight on March 5, 2016 at the DC Armory. The Commission takes such matters very seriously, is in the process of reviewing the specifics, and will share additional information with interested parties as soon as the review is completed.” The commission is expected to discuss Scaife’s scorecard on March 17th when it meets again.