Who could ever forget Faye Dunaway incorrectly announcing that La La Land, not Moonlight, won for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2017? We saw something similar at the Miss Universe Pageant in 2017, when host Steve Harvey announced that Colombia’s Ariadna Gutiérrez was the winner, only to come back on stage minutes later to announce that Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines had, in fact, won.
Thanks to Lt. Dan Hennessey, boxing now has its version of that.
On Saturday night, challenger Cherneka Johnson defeated champion Nina Hughes to win the WBA bantamweight championship. That result — the correct result — was eventually announced. But not before Hennessey, the ring announcer, made a massive error. As a ring announcer, you’d think that announcing the correct winner is the most important part of the job after a fight. But Hennessey couldn’t quite do that.
Hennessey initially announced that Hughes was the winner by majority decision. It was a confusing moment. The referee was seemingly sure that Johnson had won the fight and began to lift her arm but quickly stopped. Hennessey quickly called the fighters back to the center of the ring.
He then re-read the scores and announced that Johnson had in fact, won. Hennessey even excitedly pointed toward Johnson’s corner when he announced “The winner by majority, fighting out of the blue corner.”
Joe Tessitore and Tim Bradley, calling the fight for ESPN, quickly blasted Hennessey.
“Is this guy for real? Is this guy, Lt. Dan Hennessey, for real?” Tessitore said.
“Get this dude up out of here,” Bradley added, beginning to laugh.
“I mean, what are we doing? We said it before in the first fight incorrectly of the normal standard protocol of how you read scores. And then he just did that.”
“Oh my goodness,” a laughing Bradley added.
“What are we doing?” Tessitore said.
“What are we doing?” Bradley echoed.
“Can somebody please Mark Shunock, Jimmy Lennon, Michael Buffer, anybody but Lt. Dan Hennessey in this spot right now?” Tessitore said.
[Photo Credit: ESPN]