Paulie Malignaggi suggests referee Harvey Dock favoured Haney in fight with Garcia
Boxer-turned-pundit Paulie Malignaggi wasn’t too impressed with the referee in charge of the Ryan Garcia vs Devin Haney grudge match in Brooklyn at the weekend.
In a stunning and widely unexpected upset, underdog Garcia emerged victorious over unbeaten champion Haney by a majority decision in their highly anticipated mega-fight on Saturday night, April 20.
The bitter enemies clashed in a monumental event at the Barclays Center in New York with Garcia delivering multiple knockdowns to secure victory and silence the critics who had been very vocal throughout the eventful build-up.
Concerns had been raised about the fight proceeding due to Garcia’s erratic behaviour leading up to the bout, further elevated by his failure to make weight by 3.2lbs, which meant he was ineligible to claim Haney’s WBC super-lightweight title.
Speaking to ProBox TV, former world champion Malignaggi gave his assessment of the questionable performance from official Harvey Dock.
“I felt Harvey Dock actually did Devin Haney a lot of favours in Round 7. That was borderline I was starting to wonder if Bill Haney gave Harvey Dock some money. But round 7 was critical, he took a point away from Ryan.
“He was calling for breaks in-between knockdowns but wasn’t physically breaking them so he was allowing Devin to hold for another 10 seconds while Ryan was going for the finish.
“I was thinking maybe that point [deduction] could come into play, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to not win decisions with three knockdowns. Then again, Robin Taylor saw it the other way completely, she didn’t give Devin Haney any rounds at all.”
The scores at ringside came in similar for two of the judges at 109-115 and 110-114, but veteran judge Max DeLuca, who has officiated at over 2,000 fights, saw it as a draw at 112-112, which raised many eyebrows.
Since the fight, Haney has stated his interest in an immediate rematch, while Garcia has called out welterweight Conor Benn and also suggested he might like to move up two weight classes to take on newly crowned super-welterweight champion Sebastian Fundora.