While there are concerns about Mixed martial artists crossing over into boxing using ‘mma moves’ you rarely hear of that among legitimate boxers – however this doesn’t mean that that’s not a real concern.
One recent case proved just that.
In an unprecedented incident, Australian boxer Stevie Spark has won the WBA inter-continental super lightweight championship after his opponent Montana Love was disqualified.
Love had thrown out Stevia Spark out of the ring and into the press core.
When the unexpected event occurred in the sixth round, Spark had previously knocked down Love and was leading on the scorecards.
When the two combatants collided on the ropes, the American pushed the Australian out of the ring. Love had been seriously cut above the eye from a head collision and the match was in danger of being halted.
Spark deftly landed on his feet and grinned. He immediately strolled back up the steps and into the ring to continue. However, the referee had already stopped it in front of the enraged Cleveland crowd.
Love was unhappy with the outcome since it was his first professional loss.
Love later told,
“That was a bad call, very bad judgement from the referee,’ Love said in the ring afterwards and then accused his opponent of using dirty moves:
“He doing dirty tactics, it was happening all night, man. Elbows, behind the back, headbutts. Dirty tactics all night and he tried to roughhouse me.”
“I’m just not one of them guys that’s going for that, you know what I’m saying? So I just pushed him off me, I never … I’m not picking him up, his arm’s around me, grabbing me, and I just pushed him.”
Eddie Hearn called the referee’s decision to disqualify Love terrible. He claimed that the referee moved too quickly and quickly realised his mistake in favouring the Australian boxer.
Spark made fun of his propensity to fall on his feet later. He said, “Bloody good landing if you ask me! It was just warming up to be a fantastic fight and we were going to give you a fantastic show. Unfortunately that’s just how boxing is sometimes.”
This was Spark’s fourth consecutive victory since moving back down to super-lightweight in July of last year, when he faced off against local hero Tim Tszyu.