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That quote belongs to Showtime commentator Al Bernstein. Its subject is Nevada referee Russell Mora. Bernstein made the comment between rounds 11 and 12, when a replay showed Mora had called a lowblow a clean punch � a mistake he�d made numerous times during a championship fight he officiated and Showtime televised. Bernstein is not known for hyperbole; if anything he leans too far towards equanimity. Immediately after the fight Showtime personality Jim Gray � yes, that Jim Gray � began his postfight interviews with Russell Mora instead of the match�s winner or vanquished champion. Gray indicated to Mora that Mora changed the very result of the match. Strong words indeed. What Showtime�s talent said about Mora�s performance is worth treating, but first some details. The match was Mexico�s Abner Mares against Ghana�s Joseph King Kong Agbeko. It was the final of Showtime�s short but delayed Bantamweight Tournament. It was also for the IBF title, which belonged to Agbeko. Mares won by majority decision scores of 113-113, 115-111 and 115-111. My scorecard concurred. I had it 115-113 for Mares. I gave the Mexican rounds 1, 3, 6, 7 and 11. I had the Ghanaian winning rounds 2, 4, 8, 10 and 12. I had rounds 5 and 9 even. And with Russell Mora�s help, rounds 1 and 11 went to Mares by two points, 10-8. There were two knockdowns that were not actually. Mares benefitted from both. Does that make Mares a rotten kid or second-tier fighter who is only competitive at the championship level when it�s two-against-one? Not at all. It just makes the result of Saturday�s match sufficiently wrong to be disregarded by aficionados, and such disregard is punishment enough. It�s what will happen to Referee Mora, fear not. Boxing has never been a very large community. Today it is a tiny and shrinking one. With the help of modern communication tools, it is a community capable of suffocating state commissions into complying with its will. This sort of thing can turn to bullying but generally hasn�t in boxing. Of course Texas� Gale Van Hoy � about whose future judging efforts some fans still want email alerts � might disagree. Don�t hold Mora against Mares. The young Mexican bantamweight earned that first knockdown by looking better in his opening two minutes against Agbeko than anyone has. Mares was sharp and tight. Agbeko was wild and unbalanced. When Agbeko planted to throw an odd-angled punch and his feet splayed, it wasn�t on account of anything Mares did in that preceding instant. But you know what? Mares had done enough in the preceding 120 instants to make a knockdown seem plausible. Russell Mora was not looking at the combatants� feet. He wasn�t much looking at their gloves either. His eyes were on the combatants� heads. These are likely his mechanics; he watches the heads � where most action happens � and relies on peripheral vision and feel (as a former Golden Gloves state champion) to take care of the rest. These mechanics explain why, time and again Saturday, Mora�s primary concern was Agbeko�s pressing on the back of Mares� neck, not where Mares� left fist went. The Showtime crew, meanwhile, sat well beneath the action and saw each lowblow as if thrown in slow motion. Welcome to perspective. Mares is not necessarily a dirty fighter. He is a fighter who commits to throwing lots of left hooks to the body. And if you throw lots of those punches at a moving target, you land lowblows. How? Because the left hook to the body is not a punch thrown on a flat plane. In order to find an opponent�s liver, many things must go right at the moment of impact. Along with your opponent�s breathing rhythm being on inhale, the knuckles of your left hand must be rising. You can do this one of two ways: 1. Throw a flat punch with an upwards twist at the end, or 2. Throw an uppercut-hook hybrid that begins low and ends high.