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Australian boxing legend Jeff Fenech has welcomed the decision to retroactively award him a fourth world title belt, more than 30 years after a controversial draw with Azumah Nelson.
- Fenech challenged Nelson for the super featherweight belt in 1991, with the fight controversially judged a draw
- Fenech said he was "never the same fighter" after that and lost a rematch a year later
- A panel of World Boxing Council judges reassessed the fight and awarded a unanimous decision to Fenech
Having already won bantamweight, super bantamweight and featherweight belts, and being undefeated at the time, Fenech got in the ring with then-super featherweight champion Nelson in Las Vegas in June 1991.
After 12 rounds, judges scored the fight a draw, allowing Nelson to keep his belt, sparking boos from the crowd and a furious reaction from Fenech inside the ring.
It was widely seen as a poor decision as many believed Fenech had dominated, and those people's opinions have now been recognised as fact, with the World Boxing Council (WBC) retroactively awarding the super featherweight belt to the Australian.
Fenech spoke to the ABC Sport Daily podcast, welcoming the news but acknowledging that he had been "robbed of some sporting history" at the time.
"So many times I walk around and people say 'you got robbed of your fourth world title, you should've been a four time world champion'. Well, now I am", Fenech said.
"I thought I'd done it, I thought I'd done it better than ever, I thought I'd won at least 10 rounds, which is a lot against a fighter of the calibre of Azumah Nelson.
"I was just really sad, I was devastated when the scores were read out. Totally devastated, my heart dropped out of me.
"I was quite angry, I had a few four-letter words to say to Don King and the team in the ring. The next 24 hours were really difficult, just sat in my room and wondered what could've been."
"When I got home I started questioning the sport I loved. Questioning the sport I gave my heart and soul to."
Fenech told ABC that with the passage of time he had mixed feelings over the judges' snub.
"When I look back on it now, I think maybe it was a great thing. I was very, very spoiled. That would've been four time world champion [if I'd won]. Only God knows what I would've been like that if that had happened," he said.
"I learnt a lot about who I was as a person and who my friends were. That was a great lesson. As great as it was to learn, I was robbed of some sporting history."
The WBC said a panel of judges reassessed the fight and it was deemed a unanimous decision for the man dubbed "The Marrickville Mauler".
"That makes a grand total of four WBC belts for him," the WBC said.
It puts Fenech in rarefied air as a four-division champion, but perhaps does little to change the impact of the fight on the rest of his career.
"I can't put my finger on it and tell you exactly what it done to me, but I can tell you I was never the same fighter," he said in 2015.
"After the [first Nelson] fight I came back home, obviously heartbroken and disappointed. I was never the same.
"I was never the same fighter and we never really seen [again] the guy that fought Azumah Nelson in Vegas."
One judge scored the fight 115-113 to Fenech, another scored it 116-112 in Nelson's favour, while the third judge could not split them, ending up with 114-114 on his card.
The pair had a rematch at Princes Park in Melbourne a year later, with Fenech brutally knocked out by the Ghanaian in the eighth round in front of 40,000 fans.
In 2008, Fenech and Nelson, aged 43 and 49 at the time, squared up one more time, with Fenech winning a majority decision.