American-Kiwi ring announcer Lt Dan Hennessey declares wrong winner in boxing championship fight

Nina Hughes (left) v Cherneka Johnson at the RAC Arena in Perth for the WBA Female Bantamweight Championship. Photo / WBA Boxing

Disappointment turned to bemused euphoria for a Tauranga-born boxer after an announcer called the wrong winner in a monumental botch-up that’s now being described as one of the worst ever in the sport.

Cherneka Johnson has made history, becoming the second Māori boxer to become a two-division world champion after winning the WBA Bantamweight title.

But it was the controversy from American-New Zealander Lt Dan Hennessey, who announced the fight’s winner, that stole the headlines.

After ten rounds of boxing the decision went to the judge’s scorecards, where Hennessey announced Johnson’s opponent and UK’s reigning world champion, Nina Hughes, as the majority winner.

Video circulating on social media shows Hughes celebrating with her team inside the ring, before Hennessey curiously calls the two boxers back in the middle of the ring seconds later.

Quite the "Wanna get Away?" moment for this ring announcer.pic.twitter.com/4Kkl9HTK9x

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 12, 2024

Confused, Johnson and Hughes returned only for Hennessey to announce that the winner was, in fact, Johnson.

“Is this guy for real? Is this guy, Lt. Dan Hennessey, for real?” commentator Joe Tessitore said on the US ESPN broadcast. Immediately after the botched announcement.

“Get this dude up out of here man,” Hall of Fame boxer Tim Bradley added.

Hughes waves her arms and shakes her head at the announcer as Johnson celebrates the rollercoaster of emotions.

Professional boxing judge Benjamin Watt said: “American commentators have said that Dan Hennessey was inexperienced and that this botched announcement was the biggest in history. They have said that this has never happened before.”

The boxing community is up in arms over the controversy, taking to social media to protest the announcement.

“How unprofessional. Imagine the emotions for Cherneka Johnson and Nina Hughes had as [they] lost/won the title there,” one person wrote on X.

The official WBA Boxing social media accounts had already posted, congratulating Hughes as the winner.

The WBA already had the post up congratulating Nina Hughes.

This boxing game is cold asl y’all 😭#HughesJohnson pic.twitter.com/t1OqaYfwWb

— HotBoxingMinute (@HotBoxingMinute) May 12, 2024

In a press conference after the fight, Hughes said she felt she’d been robbed, “big time”.

“As soon as they called me back I thought, ‘What’s going on?’ and then they started announcing the scores again and I thought, ‘They’re taking this away from me, I know it’,” she said.

Hughes’ coach Kevin Lilley said the incident was “bullsh*t”.

“We’ve got all the respect in the world for Cherneka and the team, they’ve been good all the way through, but that’s bullsh*t.”

Benjamin Plummer is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He has worked for the Herald since 2022.