Boxing judge suspended by WBA after controversial scorecard and racist tweets

Boxing judge Gloria Martinez Rizzo has been suspended for six months by the WBA after her controversial scorecard and some racist tweets were uncovered.

Rizzo was criticized heavily for her scorecard in Saturday’s Mykal Fox-Gabriel Maestre WBA interim welterweight title fight in Minnesota. She scored the fight 117-110 in favor of Maestre, despite Fox landing the fights only knockdown. The broadcast was also stunned Fox lot the fight, and after the controversial scorecard, tweets were unearthed from Rizzo where she tweeted racist marks to Michelle Obama and LeBron James.

“Ok monkey face your time is gone bye bye,” read a tweet from the ‘@GloriaRizz’ account in response to a 2018 story about the former First Lady.

“Le Brom is so stupid that the only thing he can do is play basketball, other than that go back to the stable,” read another tweet from October of 2020.

WBA president Gilberto Mendoza then told ESPN that they have suspended Rizzo for six months. He also confirmed the Twitter account did belong to the judge.

“We saw her score was wrong despite the unanimous decision,” said Mendoza, who confirmed to ESPN that the Twitter account belonged to Rizzo. “Those comments she made in the past — she might be expelled by the WBA. I don’t support any kind of racism. I believe in equality. … Sports are the only thing that brings equality into the world sometimes.”

Fox also spoke about the result and the subsequent tweets that were revealed by the judge. Fox said had this fight not been on TV, it would have been bad for his career. But, due to the fact it was on TV and people saw it was a robbery has helped him.

“This sport has introduced me to people from different walks of life,” said Fox (22-3, 5 KOs). “But I can’t help but wonder if the person that she is outside of boxing affects how she judges boxing. If it weren’t for it being on TV, I’d say this [decision] could do really bad for me. But people around the world witnessed a robbery that night.”

Mendoza also believes this incident proves the need for new judges in boxing.

What do you make of this story involving Gloria Martinez Rizzo?