Watch – Boxing announcer declares the wrong winner in WBA title fight: ‘Is this for real?!’
Ring announcer Daniel Hennessey had a bad night on the job.
For the most part, Saturday’s Top Rank Boxing event in Perth, Australia went off without a hitch. In the main event of the evening, Vasyl Lomachenko defeated George Kambosos Jr. via an 11th-round TKO to claim the vacant IBF lightweight world championship.
Before that, the UK’s Nina Hughes returned to the ring set to defend the WBA world female bantamweight title against Australia’s own Cherneka Johnson. Initially, it appeared as though she was successful, winning a majority decision according to Hennessey’s announcement.
However, seconds later and without any explanation, Hennessey once again read off the scorecards, this time announcing Johnson as the winner.
Needless to say, everyone was left very confused and undeniably frustrated.
“Is this for real?” ringside announce Joe Tessitore said immediately following the second announcement. “Is this guy, ‘Lieutenant’ Dan Hennessey, for real?”
Joe Tessitore calls out ring announcer Daniel Hennessey’s ‘amateur hour’ performance
Tessitore was far from done, calling the entire incident an “absolute clown show” before getting confirmation from Bernardo Osuna of what happened and who actually won the 10-round contest.
“I want clean up what we saw with this absolute clown show garbage amateur hour we saw with the ring announcer moments ago,” Tessitore said.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time Hennessey flubbed the scorecards that night. He incorrectly announced the Pedro Guevara vs. Andrew Moloney match which was the first televised bout of the evening.
