Reached out for statements following his July 5th fight against Jack Catterall, Harlem Eubank appeared in denial of the technical decision loss he suffered but did highlight several interesting events; particularly the apparent presence of commentators in Catterall’s dressing room which speaks to a wider problem in boxing regarding favoritism towards or bias against “away” fighters.
At this point, it’s become clear that commentators are far from objective.
The evidence becomes plain throughout every card that is held, even those collaborated through multiple promotions. Commentators often speak extremely positively of fighters they are in support of due to promotional ties. Matchroom cards, for instance, almost always feature commentators highly favoring the Matchroom fighter ― which is virtually identical to other boxing cards, whether they are promoted by Top Rank, Queensberry Promotions or other promotional companies.
Fighters with a large amount of name recognition also gain the favor of commentary skewed in their favor, with the most prevalent instance involving Canelo Alvarez’ May 3rd fight with William Scull. Despite Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KO’s) throwing the least amount of punches in the fight, the brunt of criticism by commentators was focused on Scull (23-1, 9 KO’s), painting a picture as if Alvarez had not contributed to the fight making history for featuring the least-thrown punches in CompuBox history.
Commentary bias clearly exists, but according to Harlem Eubank (21-1, 9 KO’s) it’s a much wider part of boxing then initially believed. During a post-match interview Eubank held following his June 5th bout with Jack Catterall, the welterweight (147 lbs) contender went on to provide some rather disturbing details regarding certain visitors to Catterall’s (31-2, 13 KO’s) dressing room.
“There was a lot of fake news and stuff being spread during the fight. A lot of narratives,” Eubank told The Ring.
“My uncle [Chris Eubank Sr.] told me if I come here as the away fighter, I need to take it out of the judges’ hands.“
Eubank would further go on to mention a particular commentator whom had visited Catterall’s dressing room at some point; conflicting with the assumed duties of commentators needing to remain unbiased.
“There were so-called independent commentators in his [Jack Catterall’s] dressing room before the fight and coaching him at ringside,” Eubank said.
“I’ve not experienced something like that.“
Eubank would go on to mention the commentator by name; British retired boxer Carl Frampton who currently works for DAZN as a commentator.
“I was a fan of this guy and I feel I have been done dirty this evening,” Eubank asserted.
“I was carrying out the gameplan to a ‘T’, and that is to make him [Catterall] miss, and to make him pay late. And if you watch my championship fights, when I take out my opposition, that is exactly how I execute a gameplan.“
The fight between Jack Catterall and Harlem Eubank saw little action between the two, with their respective stances in southpaw and orthodox as well as their similar, elusive styles seeing few exchanges. The bout would eventually be stopped in the 7th round as both fighters suffered cuts ― with Catterall’s deemed by the referee to be too debilitating despite Catterall having been given the all-clear to continue on by ringside doctors.
Catterall would end up winning the bout by technical unanimous decision after the prior 6 rounds were scored by the judges.
According to Eubank, the fight continuing on would have improved his chances of a win, though much of his belief obscures his own inability to cut off the ring and land punches on the more experienced Catterall ― whose outbox style culminated in Eubank struggling to land cleanly.
