By Scott Gilfoid: Dan Goosen, the promoter for American heavyweight Malik Scott (35-1-1, 12 KO’s), is appealing to the British Board of Control to have Scott’s 6th round knockout loss to Britain’s Dereck Chisora (17-4, 11 KO’s) overturned and changed to a “No contest” due to the fight being ruled a knockout instead of a technical knockout.
For a fight to be ruled a knockout, a full 10 count has to be administered. In this case, Goosen saw referee Phil Edwards make a blunder by stopping the fight on a 9 count instead of a 10 count, as Scott was on his feet at the count of 9.
Goosen said to Dan Rafael of ESPN “Bottom line, Malik was up at the count of nine. They key is the decision was ruled a KO and not a TKO and subsequently the referee is required to count to 10 or, at least, not wave the fight off until a full 10 seconds had elapsed, which it did not. A TKO would have allowed the referee to call the fight any time before the count of 10.”
It’s going to be interesting to see what the British Boxing Board of Control comes up with in their determination. I can see them doing something like changing the KO to a TKO, and letting Chisora’s stoppage win stand; although that make no sense at all in this case because Scott was clearly not hurt badly as he was looking straight at the referee on one knee after having been hit in the back of the head by a right hand from Chisora.
You can’t call it a TKO if Scott isn’t badly hurt and you’ve already started counting to 10.
The fight should be ruled a no contest because the referee did appear to make a mistake in stopping the fight on the count of 9 instead of 10.
I’m still trying to figure out how the referee Phil Edwards could have make such a huge mistake with the count, and the only thing I can think of is Edwards might have figured that Scott wasn’t getting up so he waived the fight off early instead of counting to the full 10, which is what he should have done. In that case, it should have been a TKO, not a KO. But why would he do that when Scott didn’t look hurt?
The mistake basically ruined the outcome of the fight because it kept it from continuing and it put a HUGE, HUGE question mark over Chisora’s victory.
I hope the British Boxing board does the right thing and rules it a no contest because no way was Scott counted out in the physical sense. He was a 9 count and that was it.
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