T Is For TKO

TKO in boxing stands for Technical Knockout and usually means that either the referee has stepped in to stop the fight, or the opponent has thrown in the towel (yes this is where the expression comes from).

So this post is a rant for Coach Cris whose most recent fight was wrongly declared as a TKO win for his opponent. 

Hold on tight because this is a disgraceful story in which certain players should hang their heads in shame...

On Saturday 4 December 2021 Cris took on Roarke Knapp for the WBA Pan African middleweight boxing belt in Johannesburg in South Africa.

As is the case with any professional fight, there was a meeting on Friday (the day before the fight) between both camps and the officials for the boxing match. At this meeting the rules were agreed to and both camps signed up to them. One of the rules both camps agreed to was the Three Knockdown Rule in which any boxer knocked down by their opponent three times in a single round will be declared the loser by TKO. For the knockdown to count, the referee must count it out.

In the third round Cris knocked Knapp down four times, though one of those was deemed to have been a slip by the ref. However, the other three knockdowns were each counted out by the referee and as such Knapp lost the fight by TKO with Cris being declared the winner and new holder of the WBA Pan African middleweight boxing title.

However that's not how this sorry episode ended...

The referee ignored the rules and Round 4 progressed as if nothing had happened. Sadly this impacted Cris negatively (as it would) and he was not in the right frame of mind. The fourth round was scored for his opponent and Cris threw in the towel in protest in the fifth. The thing is, there should never have been a fourth round, never mind a fifth! 

The referee Tony Nyangiwe has been slated across the board for his incompetence, and Cris's camp have lodged a formal complaint with the WBA but to this day nothing has been done. Many of us have written to the WBA but none of us have received a response. 

Now I'm not in to conspiracy theories, but there are some questions that need to be answered, not least of which is why the promoter Golden Gloves who sponsored Knapp did not intervene? Also, why have they remained silent on the matter since that night?

Cris responded in typical Cris fashion, he has been full of grace and whilst he has asked some tough questions of the WBA and Golden Gloves, he has never ranted and raved about this daylight robbery.

Many of us now think the only fair thing to do would be to have a rematch.

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This post is part of a series in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge, April 2022.