Say what you want about Warren Beatty beefing the 2017 Best Picture announcement, but at least he only announced the wrong result once. At last weekend's Budo Sento Championship event in Mexico City, the referee, in-ring announcer, and broadcast team collaborated to produce a tripartite cloud of errors so dense that not even the two fighters could figure out who actually won their match.
Hector Valenzuela and Martin Navarro went the distance in their Muay Thai bout last Friday (their fight starts about two hours in), and the in-ring announcer correctly read out the three scores for split decision as 30-27, 28-29, and 29-28. So far, so good. Basically everything that happened after this part went wrong:
In case you are understandably confused by this nonsense, here's what happens: The decision is read out as a win for Valenzuela, in the blue corner, although the referee initially raises Navarro's hand, then raises Valenzuela's hand. The announcers are confused, because they believe Navarro is the winner, so the in-ring announcer and referee try to redo the announcement. The announcer again says Valenzuela's name, and again the announcers are like, You fool, you dum-dum, Navarro is the winner, and then the ring crew repeats the process for the third time. The referee finally raises Valenzuela's hand, who actually, officially did win the fight, contrary to what the announcers thought. OK, great. This feels like what I imagine what it would feel like to drink a dozen beers then try to explain how light can be both a particle and a wave.
