Scorecards from the Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua rematch called into question, as they show it came down to final round of title fight

While the right man won in the Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua rematch, the scorecards certainly raised some eyebrows.

On Saturday night, Usyk once again boxed his way to a points decision victory over Joshua to defend his WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles, while adding the Ring Magazine belt to his collection, too.

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No one can deny that Usyk deserved victory, but it seems the judges had it much closer than the majority of fans and pundits who watched the fight.

The final scores for the contest read as follows: Viktor Fesechko gave it 116-112 and Steve Gray scored it 115-113 both in favour of Usyk, while Glenn Feldman had it 115-113 for Joshua.

Since then the breakdown of these scores has been released and it makes for an interesting read.

The American judge, Feldman, somehow had Joshua winning five of the first six rounds, while on Gray's scorecard, if Usyk had not won the final round, it would have been a draw.

Feldman was asked by iD Boxing afterwards how he came to the conclusion.

“Just the way I did,” he responded before deferring to his supervisor who said he equally saw it as a close fight and offered insight into scoring.

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“Understand that boxing is scored round by round, not by the fight as a whole and those rounds were razor close.

“It depends on your perspective, how you evaluated the impact and the effectiveness of the punch.

“I mean the key thing is they scored it as they saw it and that’s why we have three judges.”

After the fight, renowned trainer, Shane McGuigan, took to Twitter to bemoan the scorecards, writing: "Scorecards far too close for me. I had it 8-4 Usyk.

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"He boxed tactically a great fight and fought for his nation. Respect."

Meanwhile, promoter Lou DiBella took the opportunity to draw attention to the wider problem of poor judging in boxing.

"Big day for boxing," DiBella said. "Also a big day for very questionable scorecards.

"Again a big day to lament how a great sport impugns its credibility with regularity, virtually no shame, and zero consequences.

"Which is the case WAY TOO OFTEN on big days for boxing."