Bob Arum didn’t see the controversy that was met with the scoring in Mikaela Mayer’s thrilling win over Maiva Hamadouche.

The November 5 ESPN+ headliner saw Mayer prevail by unanimous decision to unify the WBO and IBF junior lightweight titles in a leading Fight of the Year candidate at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. The fight drew rave reviews, though dulled a bit once the lopsided scores were revealed and announced in Mayer’s favor.

Judge Tim Cheatham (98-92) and Max Deluca (99-91) had the fight wide, while Lisa Giampa (100-90) failed to find a single round to score for Paris’ Hamadouche (22-2, 18KOs). Many found the cards to be disrespectful to the effort put forth by Hamadouche, whose promoter Eddie Hearn had winning a close fight in what he recognized as one of the greatest bouts in women’s boxing history. The chairman of Matchroom Boxing dismissed claims of regional bias, instead claiming that “bad scoring is a global pandemic.”  

Many agreed with Hearn, though not a stance shared by his longtime promotional rival.

“You gotta understand, Eddie Hearn you can’t listen to,” Arum stated during a recent Zoom media conference call to otherwise discuss the November 20 ESPN+ Pay-Per-View main event between WBO welterweight titlist Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter. “Eddie Hearn just goes from the mouth and says whatever comes to his mind, whatever is going to benefit him. He’s entitled to his opinion. I thought the scoring was OK.

“The rounds were close. The fight… maybe I was [partial] but I had Mikaela winning nine out of the ten rounds. I’m not a judge but I’ve seen a lot of fights. Mikaela clearly was throwing the better punches, the harder punches. I don’t care how many punches each of them (landed). There’s no question when you watch that fight, Miakela was throwing the more lethal punches.”

Arum’s Top Rank company has promoted Mayer (16-0, 5KOs) since her pro debut in August 2017, one year after she represented the United States in the 2016 Rio Olympics. The entirety of her pro career has taken place on an ESPN platform, with the thrilling win over Hamadouche marking her second true main event. Normally a boxer who will mix it up as needed, Mayer made a conscious effort to take the fight straight to the relentless Hamadouche, who threw 872 punches in just 20 minutes of action—third all-time in a women’s boxing match according to Compubox.

While Hamadouche was the busier puncher, Mayer was the far more accurate. The unbeaten, unified titlist now based out of Colorado Springs, Colorado outlanded Hamadouche 239-to-233 and at a 40.2% clip, compared to 26.7% for Hamadouche. Mayer outlanded Hamadouche 221-to-211 in power punches, again at a considerably higher percentage (47% to 29%).

“The rounds were close. The fight… maybe I was [partial] but I had Mikaela winning nine out of the ten rounds,” claimed Arum. “I’m not a judge but I’ve seen a lot of fights. Mikaela clearly was throwing the better punches, the harder punches. I don’t care how many punches each of them (landed). There’s no question when you watch that fight, Miakela was throwing the more lethal punches.

“I had it nine rounds to one. One judge had it nine-to-one, one had it eight-to-two, a third judge had it ten rounds to nothing. They were all close rounds. You score each round as an individual battle. While it was a close fight because the rounds were close, I can even understand 10-0.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for krikya360.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox