By Terence Dooley

The WBO have confirmed that they will not rescore the recent world heavyweight title fight between their holder Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) and mandatory challenger Hughie Fury (20-1, 10 early) despite a written protest and request from the Fury camp.  The fight took place at the Manchester Arena on September 23 and headlined the first show to take place at the venue since the Manchester bombing that rocked the city in May of this year.

Fury lost by margins of 118-110, twice, and 114-114, on the cards of Marcus McDonnell, Terry O’Connor and Rocky Young respectively, which prompted an angry response from promoter Mick Hennessy, who felt that the 23-year-old had won the contest by virtue of his boxing skills and movement.

New Zealand-based Parker was given the decision by a brace of wide margins and is eyeing pastures new, especially now that the WBO has confirmed that a rescore, and possible subsequent appeal, will not take place.

Initially, there was speculation that their decision to apply the rescoring rule to Manny Pacquiao’s decision loss to Jeff Horn had set a precedent, but the organisation revealed that, unlike the Pacquiao fight, there had not been a request sent in from the complainant’s governing body, in this case the BBBoC.  Therefore there was no scope for them to look into scoring the fight again.

‘[T]he WBO will not conduct a WBO independent judges rescoring of the bout,’ stated the WBO when replying to the request in writing.  ‘In the Pacquiao versus Horn bout the WBO independent judges rescoring was done at the request of the Philippine Commission’.

They then directed Hennessy to Section 18. Return Fights of their regulations, pointing out that only the Executive Committee can rule in favour of an immediate return bout in the case of ‘...a clear misapplication of the rules of boxing resulting in a manifest unfairness’.  This decision, coupled with the lack of a complaint from the Board, leaves Hennessy with no other option other than to appeal again by providing additional supporting information or set his sights on a different title fight route.

Either way, Peter Fury, the father and trainer of Hughie, recently told BoxingScene that the contender will fight again around April time and that they hope to digest the lessons learned from his first world title fight in order to have another run at the world crown.

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