Duarte Hints Judges’ Decision Was Biased

It was the first time all night Frankie Duarte had been stopped.

Stopped cold.

It was in a Forum interview room Tuesday night, minutes after Duarte had lost a unanimous 15-round decision to World Boxing Assn. bantamweight champion Bernardo Pinango.

A reporter asked Duarte what his plans were.

Duarte, both eyelids swollen to twice their normal size, deep cuts tracing a crooked path through both eyebrows, stared into a sea of microphones and cameras and a bank of television lights and searched for an answer.

Nothing came. Except the tears.

At age 32, with 49 professional fights and a much-heralded battle with drugs and alcohol behind him, Duarte had hoped the dream he had harbored since he first stepped into a ring in 1973 was about to become reality.

He still believed it when the bout had ended, his optimism fueled by a 12th-round knockdown of Pinango and the three points deducted from the champion by referee Hubert Earle for low blows.

So when the decision went against him, Duarte could offer little but tears.

And anger at a three-man judging crew made up totally of men from south of U.S. borders.

“I had no idea we were so close to Panama,” Duarte said. “When I saw the score was close, I realized I was going to get robbed. I thought I had the fight under control.”

The three judges were from Puerto Rico (Roberto Ramirez), Argentina (Juan Maio) and Panama (Rudolfe Hill). WBA rules forbid the use of a referee from the fighter’s native country. While Pinango trains in Panama, he is from Venezuela.

“All I know,” said Dan Goossen, Duarte’s manager, “is that I see three rounds deducted from Pinango and Frankie knocked him down in another round. There is four rounds right there. If you’re going to tell me that Frankie didn’t win at least half of the other rounds, what am I going to say?

“Everyone was congratulating me when the fight was over, but I didn’t assume anything.

“I know Pinango did a great job, but Frankie did a greater job. To me, Frankie is a champion, but unfortunately, he doesn’t get what goes with it. What can you say? You were robbed. There’s nothing you can say. You can just let off a lot of steam.”

Asked what he thought the final score should have been, Duarte told reporters, “I’m going to have to watch the fight on film to get an honest opinion.

“I know he was hard to hit and he moved his head a lot. At first, the cuts discouraged me, but afterward they didn’t bother me a lot.”

Naturally, there was quite a different opinion in the Pinango camp. Said Luis Spada, Pinango’s manager: “My fighter shouldn’t have had points taken away. It’s ridiculous. To take three points away in a title fight is ridiculous.”

Joe Goossen, Dan’s brother and Duarte’s trainer, was under no illusions in the corner in those closing rounds.

“I told Frankie to stay on him,” Joe Goossen said, “and to knock him out if he could. I knew what the end result could be.”

It was Duarte’s slow start that cost him the fight and afterward he could only shrug about that.

“I wanted to start sooner,” he said. “That’s always been a problem of mine.” When the fight was over, Spada said he would be agreeable to a rematch.

Informed of the statement, Joe Goossen was quick with a response.

“Did he,” asked Goossen, “say when?”