Boxing SA set to amend some rules

Boxing SA is planning to amend some of its regulations, according to COO Mandla Ntlanganiso who was reacting to a scenario where a referee conducted the mandatory eight count for a boxer who had been knocked down when actually he should not have done so because his opponent was not in the neutral corner.

The regulations in this regard say when a boxer goes down from a punch, the referee in charge must order the opponent (boxer who delivered that knockdown blow) to retire to the furthest neutral corner. It adds that they must do that by pointing the boxer to that corner.

Simply put, the referee must wait until the boxer reaches the neutral corner before he could conduct the mandatory count of eight. The assumption, because that regulation also has a grey area, is that the count on Sunday during a tournament in the Eastern Cape was null and void because the boxer who dropped his opponent was standing in his corner.

Ntlanganiso was at the ring side when this happened during Tewo Boxing Promotions bill at ICC. When pressed to comment on this issue, he said: “We are in the process of amending regulations and I believe some require improvement. You are quiet correct, there is no standard ruling regarding that specific situation.

"This includes some of the scoring we've had recently where there were wide margins, you wonder how those judges arrived at such scores. As BSA, we cannot do anything because nothing in the current regulations says there must be some form of reviewing of judges' scores where they must explain themselves.

"By right there must be sanction against a judge who cannot account to their scoring because it taints the image of the sport. Hopefully, we will be able to talk about all these things during the process of reviewing the regulation and make a recommendation to the sports minister, who is the only one with powers to amend the regulations."