Joe Tessitore Lost It On ‘Clown Show’ Ring Announcer For Reading The Scores Wrong

There is never a shortage of scorecard controversies in the world of boxing, as the subjective nature of judges scoring a fight can lead to some wild and shocking results. The sport doesn’t need the help of others to create moments of confusion when reading off the scores, but that’s exactly what it got on Saturday night in Australia courtesy of ring announcer Daniel Hennessey, aka Lt. Dan.

Nina Hughes and Cherneka Johnson battled for 10 rounds in the bout before George Kambosos and Vasiliy Lomachenko’s title fight in Perth, and went to the cards in what looked to be a win for Johnson. However, Hennessey announced Hughes as the winner, to the confusion of everyone — including the referee who first tried to raise Johnson’s hand. That turned out to be a La La Land moment, as he quickly had to bring the two fighters back to the center of the ring to redo the announcement, reading the cards again and correctly noting it was in favor of Johnson.

The fight was broadcast stateside by ESPN, and the commentary team of Joe Tessitore and Timothy Bradley had seen enough of Hennessey’s shenanigans by this point, leading to Tess absolutely tearing him a new one.

The cards did indeed say that Johnson won, so there was no real controversy here aside from a bad reading.

If you thought that might embarrass Lt. Dan out of any more antics, you’d be wrong, as he kicked off the main event by littering the ring with index cards.

It’s safe to say Hennessey won’t be getting any strong references from Tessitore or Bradley for future fights.