A ring announcer called out the wrong winner of a boxing match — in a stunning gaffe evocative of the infamous 2015 moment in which Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner of the Miss Universe pageant.
The bizarre incident happened early Sunday morning in Perth, Australia — following the conclusion of a women’s bantamweight championship bout between Nina Hughes and Cherneka Johnson. Following the 10-round contest, the ring announcer — “Lieutenant” Dan Hennessey — made a truly outrageous blunder.
“Your winner by majority decision, and still the wba women’s bantamweight world champion, Nina Hughes!” Hennessey said — after reading out the three judges’ scorecards.
Hughes was raised up in the air by one of her corner people and paraded around the rung to celebrate. But seconds later, the referee curiously brought both fighters back to the center of the ring for a do-over of the announcement. Hennessey re-announced the three score totals and then made an unfathomable correction.
“Your winner by majority decision, fighting out of the blue corner, Cherneka Johnson!”
Hughes — who, just seconds earlier, had been celebrating — was left dumbfounded. And so too were ESPN commentators Joe Tessitore and Timothy Bradley.
“Is this guy Lieutenant Dan Hennessy for real?!” Tessitore said.
“Get this dude up out of here man!” Bradley replied.
“What are we doing?!” Tessitore added.
Watch above, via ESPN.
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