The American boxing ring announcer who called out the wrong winner after a title fight last weekend has resigned.

Following a boxing match between Cherneka Johnson and Nina Hughes in Australia on Saturday night, announcer Dan Hennessey read out the judge’s scorecards and mistakenly said Hughes was the winner of the WBA bantamweight title.

The ensuing social media backlash was too much to handle, Hennessey revealed.

“Thank you all for the kind words. Unfortunately, the worldwide backlash is absolutely incredible and it’s affecting my mental health to a degree where I will have one more show ever,” he wrote on Facebook. “I am doing this show because I am still a man of my word … I love and will keep in touch with all my friends from around the world. Thank you. No longer the world’s punching bag. I’m out.”

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The resignation comes after Saturday’s controversy shocked the boxing world.

ESPN’s Joe Tessitore ripped into Hennessey over the controversy.

“I want clean up what we saw with this absolute clown show, garbage amateur hour we saw with the ring announcer moments ago,” he said.

On Saturday, Johnson and Hughes went the distance and the fight came down to the judges’ decision.

Both fighters thought they had won the contest and were eagerly waiting to hear how the judges had scored it.

In contrast, Cherneka Johnson was euphoric to hear that she had actually won. (Warren Little/Getty Images)

The fighters joined Hennessey and the referee in the middle of the ring and Hennessey initially announced that Hughes was the winner of the fight.

The enthusiastic boxer began to celebrate but then the error was noticed.

The fighters were called back to the middle of the ring and Hennessey corrected himself, revealing Johnson won via split decision.

From triumphant to defeated, Hughes was forced to go from hearing she was the champion to hearing that she had suffered the first loss of her professional career.

“I just don’t get it,” Hughes said after the drama, via Sky Sports. “How can they announce I had won and then change the scores? I thought I’d dominated early. I thought she won a few of the later rounds but I felt like I won it comfortably.”

She added: “I don’t get how you can announce the winner and then change the scores. It’s a joke. I feel like I’ve been robbed big time. There’s got to be a rematch. I didn’t lose that fight.”

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In contrast, Johnson was euphoric to hear that she had actually won.

“I’m not the judge and I’m just glad that they figured out the wrong decision,” Johnson said. “Nina was a tough fight. I’m not the judges, but I definitely think I won that fight. I’m just over the moon I won this bout.”

Dan Hennessey read out the judge’s scorecards and mistakenly said Hughes was the winner of the WBA bantamweight title. The subsequent social media backlash was too much to handle. (Adobe Stock)

After the initial drama, Hennessey apologized on Facebook.

“I own it. It’s all on me. I take full responsibility for the Chernika Johnson V Nina Hughes controversy,” he wrote. “Not the Judges, not the sanctioned body. Me.”

He added: “I have apologized to all involved and now I apologize to you. I am sorry for what happened. Again, I own it and can only try and do better next time. Not my best day in the office.”

Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos and Reuters contributed to this report.

Eleven months ago, the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants looked like two franchises headed in somewhat different directions.

In June, a surging Giants team came to Dodger Stadium, swept a three-game series in dominant fashion, and jumped their intradivison rivals in the National League West — marking the clear nadir of the Dodgers’ slow start to 2023.

A year later, the clubs are still seemingly headed in opposite directions.

Only now, it’s the Dodgers who are cruising with a big division lead, and the Giants struggling to gain any traction, in danger of suffering through yet another wasted year in the shadow of their Southern California counterparts.

The Dodgers’ 10-2 blowout of the Giants on Tuesday at Oracle Park served as the latest example.

The Dodgers had more hits (13 to nine), fewer errors (none to the Giants’ two), a better starting pitching performance (thanks to a six-inning, one-run effort from Gavin Stone), significantly more production from their star players (highlighted by Shohei Ohtani’s 12th home run and three total hits), and even a more vocal presence in a split crowd of 33,575.

Going back to last year, the Dodgers (29-15) have won six straight games against the Giants (19-25). They have clinched four straight series in a suddenly one-sided rivalry. And, not even two months into this season, they are already 10 games clear of San Francisco in the standings.

Rarely in this series’ recent history has one club’s stock been so up, while the other’s has been so dreadfully down.

“We’re catching them at the right time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But they’re not gonna feel sorry for us. We’re not gonna feel sorry for them.”

In almost every facet Tuesday, the Dodgers’ superiority over the Giants was pronounced.

Look at the team’s biggest offseason acquisitions.

The Giants saw their $54-million third baseman, Matt Chapman, go just one for four, leaving his batting average at .210; and their currently injured $42-million designated hitter, Jorge Soler, get drilled in the head during pregame batting practice by a ball that ricocheted off the cage.

Ohtani, meanwhile, maintained his MLB leads in batting average (.361), extra-base hits (29) and OPS (1.107), punctuating his three-hit night — he came just a triple shy of the cycle — with a towering 446-foot home run in the fourth inning that just landed short of McCovey Cove beyond the right-center-field bleachers.

“I was disappointed it didn’t go over,” Ohtani joked through his interpreter.

“That’s Barry territory,” Roberts added, referencing the long drives he used to watch Barry Bonds hit while teammates with him on the Giants. “There aren’t too many guys that can do that.”

The clubs’ rookie starting pitchers were another point of comparison.

Giants right-hander Keaton Winn was punished repeatedly for mistake pitches over the heart of the plate, giving up five runs in less than five innings.

Stone, on the other hand, continued his promising start to 2024, lowering his ERA to 3.27 by again inducing soft contact (he had only two strikeouts but gave up only five hits) and working in and out of trouble.

“This is a dream park to play in, especially with the Dodgers,” Stone said. “You can definitely feel the rivalry.”

The discrepancies didn’t end there.

The Dodgers received production from both of their big stars (Mookie Betts also had two hits) and the bottom of the order (including a triple from Gavin Lux and doubles from James Outman and Miguel Rojas).

They got three stress-free innings from the underbelly of their banged-up bullpen, a group that continues to shine even without several key relievers.

And, as the Dodgers poured on four insurance runs in the ninth inning, chants of “Let’s Go Dodgers” rang out around the ballpark, with almost nothing but blue-and-white-clad spectators left populating the stands.

Sue Bird hopes that when she’s in her 50s and 60s, she can be like a former NBA player who currently throws out opinions on television. One model Bird sees for herself: Charles Barkley. She remembers multiple instances of hearing the Naismith Hall of Famer talk about his playing days on TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”

“He’s like, ‘Oh, I had to fly commercial. I didn’t have these charter flights.’ Or, ‘Oh, these guys are making $40 million. Like, my contract was only —I don’t know, $10 million.’ And he kind of sounds disgruntled,” Bird said on NPR’s Fresh Air last month.

She wants to one day be able to toss out back-in-my-day tales. “I’ve always joked, I hope I’m that disgruntled athlete because that means all the blood, sweat and tears was for something,” she said. “It means the game has grown.”

Bird retired after two decades in the WNBA following the 2022 season. She hasn’t been out of the league even two full years (Bird technically jumped back in this April when she joined the Storm’s ownership group), but the league she’ll watch this summer is already in a better place than it was when she retired.

Changes — both momentous and minute — are already aplenty as the 28th regular season begins Tuesday. For years, as Bird and recently retired Candace Parker graced the hardwood, the WNBA chipped away at areas of growth. But now the pace of the adjustments is explosive.

“To be very honest, the impact of the wave right now is more profound than I thought it was going to be,” Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel said. “It got to be a bigger wave a lot faster than what I think we projected it to be. And wow, I’ll say it feels amazing.”

“Expansions were always in the design. The moment has arrived where the investment matches, finally, us being able to put these ideas to fruition.”

—@chiney on the growth of the WNBA 📈 pic.twitter.com/Y6egBKMcgY

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) May 10, 2024

Television viewership numbers have skyrocketed across women’s basketball. April’s WNBA Draft averaged a record 2.47 million viewers, a 307 percent increase over last year, and it was the most-viewed WNBA telecast since 2000. The first preseason exhibition for Chicago Sky rookies Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso didn’t air on traditional television, but more than 500,000 viewers tuned in to a phone stream from a resourceful fan. It seems like a harbinger of what will come in the regular season, which tips off Tuesday.

“The growth is happening so fast,” said Cheryl Reeve, the Minnesota Lynx’s coach and president of basketball operations. “It’s so accelerated. And I’ve been saying this in our own organization, that business as usual isn’t going to work anymore.”

The early viewership returns reflect the strengthened link between the college and professional games. Cardoso and the South Carolina Gamecocks’ win over Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2024 national championship game averaged 18.9 million viewers, making it the most viewed women’s college basketball game ever and the most viewed basketball game (college or professional in men’s or women’s basketball) since 2019. The tournament was up 121 percent from 2023.

With a high-profile rookie class entering the league, WNBA attendance is swelling, too. No team had ever sold out its season ticket package in the offseason, but three teams (Las Vegas, Atlanta and Dallas) did this year. Three games have also been moved to bigger venues to accommodate more fans who want to see Clark play.

How players arrive at those contests will be changing as well. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced last week that the league plans to add charter flights on a full-time basis sometime this season. The news came as the league’s existing charter policy appeared increasingly untenable in the long term.

Clark and her Indiana Fever teammates traveled to Dallas for their first preseason game on a commercial airline and were greeted by a few fans and media members. They experienced no travel or security issues on their first road trip of the year, according to a team spokesperson. But one video clip showing Clark and center Aliyah Boston passing by a luggage carousel, with a member of the organization’s security team present, gained more than 2 million views. It served as a reminder of their current conditions.

Engelbert was uncommitted about when exactly a full-charter program would be implemented. She said the new travel program, which will cost about $25 million per year for the next two seasons, will launch “as soon as we can logistically get planes in places.” Still, the news of private travel was cause for celebration.

Lynx guard Kayla McBride called the change “a breath of fresh air.” Minnesota forward Napheesa Collier noted that with viewership increasing across women’s basketball, it was imperative to make the adjustment to protect player privacy.

“All these players in these spaces are becoming so popular that it really is about (safety) as much as it’s about recovery,” she said.

Even before Engelbert’s announcement, franchises around the league recognized the importance of increasing security. According to a person with knowledge of the Chicago Sky’s plans, after not traveling with security last season, the franchise will travel with security this season. Every WNBA team will travel with security personnel on its commercial flights, for as long as they remain the standard.

There has also been additional security around the Sky at practices, which take place at a public facility in suburban Chicago. Sachs Recreation Center wrote in an email, obtained by The Athletic, to its community members that beginning April 29, two police officers would be onsite during all Sky practices for the remainder of the season. Their presence is new this year and the change appears likely to have been driven by the Sky’s desire to bolster its player safety.

Fever general manager Lin Dunn said Indiana was taking similar precautions to ensure every member of her franchise would be safe when flying commercial. In addition to having a full security team at home games, the Fever will be traveling with multiple full-time security members, employed by Pacers Sports and Entertainment, on all road trips, the team spokesperson added. Multiple members of their security team will also be present at ancillary team events, like they were at Indiana’s promotional photo shoot in downtown Indianapolis last week.

Those changes are reflective of a new era in the WNBA. Breanna Stewart, the No. 1 pick in 2016, recalled taking photos and signing autographs at airports without a security detail present during her rookie season.

The travel adjustments demonstrate a commitment to improving player experiences. New facilities provide another significant boost. By season’s end, the Storm and Mercury will have opened new spaces. The Storm debuted their 50,000-square foot performance center in April, equipped with state-of-the-art strength and conditioning equipment, a health and wellness suite, and an aquatics room — all of it designed and engineered by a group that was 85 percent women and people of color. The Mercury’s will be part of one of the largest developments for a professional sports organization in the country, according to the franchise. It is expected to open by the time they host the mid-July All-Star Game.

Our new home 💚⛈️ pic.twitter.com/DHjRvHFEFR

— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) April 18, 2024

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It should come as no surprise, then, that both added stars: Seattle signed 2016 league MVP Nneka Ogwumike and four-time first-team All-WNBA guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, while Phoenix bolstered its roster with 2021 Finals MVP Kahleah Copper and All-WNBA defensive team guard Natasha Cloud.

Having already become the first franchise to win consecutive titles in 21 years, the Las Vegas Aces will look to win a third straight this summer. Expect a standout season from their star, A’ja Wilson, who Nike announced on Saturday would be getting her own signature sneaker and clothing collection in 2025. Wilson is one of just over a dozen WNBA players ever to have a signature shoe and the first Black WNBA player to get a signature shoe since 2010.

All told, as Engelbert prepares to give the Aces their rings Tuesday night, she is glowing when thinking about the state of the WNBA. With league revenue having reportedly doubled since 2019, she said they have “huge investment” coming in through corporate and media partnerships. (The league’s existing media rights deal with ESPN ends after the 2025 season, and a new CBA could come into effect in 2026.) At April’s Draft, which was held in front of fans for the first time in eight years, feeling the positive momentum Engelbert said the WNBA was “ready for what’s next.”

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Expansion into new markets is part of what’s to come. A 13th franchise will begin play in the Bay Area in 2025, while a 14th team is reportedly set to launch in Toronto in 2026.

“We are witnessing a transformational moment in sports,” Engelbert said, “that we may not experience for generations.”

Bird, too, feels the added buzz. She said the sport has crossed a cultural cachet line. For that reason, it might not take Bird, 43, another seven years to become a semi-crotchety pundit. She might be able to tell stories about the old days before she even knows it.

(Photo of Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston and Temi Fagbenle: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)