Disgrace gone unpunished

Disgrace gone unpunished
Mark E. Ortega
Ultimateboxingresults.com
June 2, 2008

On May 30th, something truly disgraceful happened in the boxing world that has gone largely unnoticed.

The bout in which so much corruption and incompetency occurred was a heavyweight bout between Konstantin Airich and Danny Williams in Pais Vasco, Spain.
To start, Williams was deducted two points for a second low blow in the second round. The referee initially issued a standing eight count for the second low blow, but then took away two points from Williams. He couldn’t make up his mind whether it was a knockdown or a low blow, but then deducted points. If it were a low blow, normally a fighter would be deducted one point or even issued a second warning before points were taken away.

In the third round, Williams was given two standing eight counts. Williams was hit by a hard shot against the ropes that staggered him, and since he was against the ropes I can see how a standing count was fair in that instance. Also in the third round, the tape comes severely loose from Williams’ glove, but the referee does nothing about it. Williams is stunned by a punch and finds his balance but is quickly issued another standing eight count. It is during this time that Williams himself had to remove the tape from his glove.

In the fourth round, Williams was issued a count after throwing a right hand that missed and falling. This means a third “knockdown” was awarded to Airich.

In the fifth round, Williams knocked Airich down legitimately, and the referee gave Airich nearly thirty seconds to recover.

In the sixth round, the most disgusting thing I have seen happen in a bout in a long time occurred when Airich was badly hurt by Williams a minute or so into the round. At this juncture, Airich’s PROMOTER Ahmet Oner of ArenaBox Promotions, went and rung the bell, and the round was declared over.

In the seventh round, Williams swarmed a badly hurt Airich and the towel was thrown in by Oner, probably to try and save face for the debacle that happened in the previous round. Oner also had no right to throw in the towel, as he was not part of Airich’s corner.

The sixth round in particular just mesmerized me in terms of what happened. It was almost comical how badly they were trying to save their fighter from a loss. Oner should be at the very least be fined a large amount of money, if not barred from the sport altogether.

Another thing that I have yet to conclude is why the boxing media has failed to report most of this, or even mention how corrupt this fight was. No website I have browsed has even a mention of Oner being the one who rang the bell about a minute and a half early. ArenaBox Promotion’s website fails to even mention that the sixth round was halted early. This was obviously omitted for a reason.

Not only should Oner be seriously penalized, but the referee of the bout, Alfedo Garcia Perez, should never be allowed to officiate a professional bout ever again. In the fifth round, Perez was yelling at Williams in Spanish. Danny Williams does not speak Spanish, so he obviously had no idea what Perez was saying. The only way the referee was able to show Williams he was doing wrong was by waving his finger at him and shouting “No, no,” as if Williams was a young child who had done something wrong. The referee failing to stop the action to remove loose tape from Williams’ gloves was also vastly overlooked without reason. The fact that the fighter himself had to remove loose tape from his gloves is more than ridiculous.

What happened during this fight that is even more disappointing is that it was an otherwise exciting fight, especially by today’s heavyweight standards. Both fighters were throwing hurtful bombs with bad intentions, but it will forever be overshadowed by the fact that the fight was riddled with corruption and incompetence.

Arena Promotions have since replied to Mark Ortega with this statement:

Dear Mr. Ortega,

First of all I want to thank you for asking for our side of this story. I understand your anger but before you blame Ahmet Öner and ARENA Box-Promotion please keep in mind that it was Mr. Öner personally who threw in the towel to end the fight IN FAVOUR OF DANNY WILLIAMS. If he had in mind to cheat on Danny or steal the victory from him that would have been the stupidest thing to do – especially considering that Konstantin Airich was way ahead on all scorecards.

To clarify the situation below you find the official statement of Mr. Öner.

Ahmet Öner on Konstantin Airich vs. Danny Williams on May 30th in Bilbao : “First of all I want to apologize for all the confusion in this fight. And I want to point out that I never meant to cheat on Danny ion any way. If it would have been my goal to steal the victory from him I wouldn’t have thrown in the towel at a point were Konstantin was leading on all scorecards.

To me the first couple of rounds between Konstantin Airich and Danny Williams have been the most entertaining I’ve seen in a while in heavyweight boxing. Konstantin showed a great performance and impressed Danny with his enormous power and very hard hands and sent him to the canvas a couple of times. The way Danny recovered from that and came back to win the fight with all his experience was very impressive as well. The main problem of the fight, however, was very poor refereeing and the officials of the local commission.

Regarding this I want to make clear that the show was only co-promoted by ARENA and we didn’t bring German officials to Spain but worked with the local commission in Bilbao . I didn’t know anybody of the officials before the fight and to me they really turned this great bout into a farce. The referee was at no point in control of the action inside the ring. When Danny’s tape loosened from his glove the ref wouldn’t stop the bout to have it fixed. At one point the ref even tried to wrap the tape around the glove himself which looked really stupid to me after that he even ripped it off completely. In addition to that he warned Danny and deducted points in strange situations, he gave him a standing eight-count which wouldn’t have happened in Germany and he saw knockdowns where the fighters obviously slipped. The supervisor did nothing to correct the referee and what the timekeepers did was the biggest disgrace. They stopped the breaks prematurely and had one round – I think it was the 5th – going for 3:30..

Because the fight was very exciting but disturbed by poor refereeing I got very angry and started to argue with the officials. Additionally I had heard after the 3rd round that Konstantin had problems with his left hand and seemed to be seriously injured. So when Danny started to attack Konstantin in the 6th I shouted at the officials to stop the fight. Actually Konstantin’s trainer didn’t think that his fighter was in danger so he didn’t throw in the towel what would have been the best at this point of time. I thought Konstantin might get knocked out hard as I know that Danny can do some damage. So I kept on shouting ‘Stop the fight!’ and meant that it should have been a tko for Danny at this point. This situation led to the ringing of the bell with 1:30 to go in the round. As the officials acted as if nothing had happened and just started the 7th round after a break I threw in the towel to end all discussions. I never meant to cheat on Danny or to steal the victory from him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have thrown the towel in.

Unlike other (German) promoters I stand for boxing as a sport. I want to see interesting fights and great action inside the ring. That’s why I do the aggressive matchmaking I’m known for. No other promoter in the world would have let a guy with only 10 pro-fights take on a world class fighter like Danny Williams. In addition to that I didn’t do the fight on German soil or with German officials like other German promoters do it to control the judging. We went to neutral soil which proofed to be a mistake as this local commission really did a bad job. I think the first half of the fight showed that it was a good match-up. That this was ruined by poor refereeing teaches me not to work with inexperienced referees and officials again. And I regret the mistake I made in choosing Bilbao as place for the fight to happen.

I hope that Danny understands my motives and what happened in Bilbao . And I hope that he didn’t mean to accuse me personally but point on a problem we have in professional boxing in general: Promoters impinging on officials to have their fighters win. This might be a typical German problem but I am not a typical German promoter – I am Turkish; I work internationally; and I am a boxing fan as well which means I want to see great fights with fair decisions. Everybody who accuses me personally should not forget that it was me who ended the fight in favour of Danny and that I saw Sinan Samil Sam losing to Oliver McCall in Ankara one year ago which wouldn’t have happened one of the other ‘typical German promoters’.

After all I hope that Danny gives Konstantin a rematch one day after he recovers from his broken hand because I think Konstantin deserves it as he really showed a hack of a fight which shouldn’t be forgotten besides all the anger and confusion.”