By Erik Schmidt: Let me start off by saying, last Friday night’s bout between Danny Williams (39-6, 31 KOs) and Konstantin Airich (9-1-1, 8 KOs) was a terrible fight in terms of the job done by the referee of the fight, who appeared to do everything wrong in the ring, ranging from calling multiple standing eight counts, to penalizing Williams needlessly over and over again with much of a reason. That said, the action in the fight was some of the most exciting that I’ve seen in quite some time, and whether want to accept this or not, this fight was arguably the best heavyweight fight of the year, perhaps even the best in two years or more.

We saw each fighter going down in the fight, in Airich’s case he saw the canvas close hand twice. So what if the 6th round was stopped a little earlier than expected, everything was made right in the 7th when Airich’s corner threw in the towel. However, I think this fight needs to be done over, next time of course with a different referee, and possibly a different country other than Spain. Germany would probably be the best location, because we’d be able to bring in a larger audience than any other location for the fight, since both Williams and Airich probably wouldn’t sell that well in other parts of the world such as America or England. The fight was incredibly exciting up to the 3rd round, which incidentally as the time that Airich broken his left hand. After that, he was unable to punch as well as he did in the previous rounds when he had Williams on the verge of a knockout. After the injury to Airich’s hand, Williams got into the fight and began to take over with his power shots.

Other than a different referee and a different country, the rules need to be different next time out. The standing eight count has to go, because it was a nuisance for both fighters, in particular for Airich, who most likely would have knocked Williams out in the 2nd round if not for the two standing eight counts that was given to him. Also, the referee needs to be more lenient with low blows, because Williams received needless point deductions and warnings last time out, when all he really should have gotten was a friendly reminder, telling him to keep up his punch above the belt.

I’m not sure about Williams, but I believe that Airich would be more than open for a rematch, because he showed that he has the skills and power to beat a world class fighter like Williams, even though this was only Airich’s 10th fight as a professional. That’s almost unheard of for a fighter with so few fights to be put in with a fighter so far above his head, and even less common for a fighter to do as well under those circumstances as Airich did against Williams. Hopefully, the pressure can be put to bare on bringing these two fighters back into the ring because this fight was inconclusive as far as I’m concerned with all of the problems that existed.