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Can only a knockout separate Perozzi and Nelson?

Six judges watched two boxers slugging it out over 20 rounds and not one of them could reach the same decision.Teresa Perozzi and Tori Nelson must be wondering whether all of those hours in the gym were worth it.Their world title rematch at Berkeley Institute on Saturday night ended the same way as their previous showdown at the Fairmont Southampton in stalemate.The three judges in the first fight were as far apart in their final conclusions as those who gathered around ringside a couple of months later.Is it any wonder that boxing remains one of the most controversial of all sports?Millions of dollars have been lost and won because one judge can't agree with another.Sometimes an entire crowd can apparently see what the judges can't. And the boxers themselves can be as baffled as the spectators.Sports of a subjective nature are often open to question when final results are determined.Gymnastics, ice skating and diving are a few that come to mind but rarely are the judges who decide the athletes' fate are as fickle in nature as boxing's adjudicators.It's understandable that neither Perozzi nor Nelson are particularly concerned whether they meet again.A knockout appears to be the only way they can be separated. Both hit the canvas on Saturday night but neither long enough to render the judges' scorecard redundant.Nelson will be reluctant to visit these shores again having formed the impression that home ring advantage weighs heavily against her, despite the fact that five of the judges over the course of the two bouts were from overseas.And Perozzi might be wary of taking on the same opponent in her own back yard.But while there may have been dispute over the result of the headline fight on Saturday, there was no disputing the popularity of boxing in Bermuda.Again the point was hammered home that better facilities here would produce better boxers which in turn would result in more events such as that which was greeted with so much enthusiasm last weekend.Under the PLP, promises were never fulfilled and boxing has remained in a state of flux.Instead, what was promised was a statue of Bermuda's only Olympic medallist Clarence Hill which hopefully will now be dropped and more emphasis put on finding a permanent home for the sport.New Sports Minister Wayne Scott may want to put it high up on his priority list.For relatively little cost there remains an opportunity to produce more in the mould of Hill.* * * *AMERICANS will tell you that the Super Bowl is bigger, better and far more important than football's World Cup.They'd be wrong of course.But the intoxicating clash between the Ravens and 49ers on Sunday night will have done more for the sport worldwide that even they might have realised.Beamed across the globe, it was a classic worthy of any sport's end-of-season showpiece.And often that isn't the case when the two best teams meet to decide who takes home the ultimate prize.ADRIAN ROBSON