Former Mike Tyson conqueror Danny Williams failed in his shot at the International Boxing Federation Intercontinental heavyweight title on Saturday night when his bout with Russian Oleg Platov was stopped in the 4th round due to a accidental headbutt. At the point of the stoppage, however, Williams was punishing Platov and appeared to have him on the verge of a knockout. In the first round, Platov blitzed Williams with an all out assault, hitting him with a huge flurry of big shots and wobbling him as he was trapped up against the ropes.
However, Platov soon punched himself out near the midpoint of the round, allowing Williams to take his turn landing huge bombs. As the round ended, Platov was hurt from several big shots but escaped without going down. In the second round, both fighters took turns landing tremendous shots with both of them being stunned at points during the round. However, Platov had a huge cut opened up over his left eye, which the referee ruled was caused by a headbutt.
However, neither fighter appeared to bump heads during the rounds, and it seemed as if one of Williams’ huge right hand shots was the actual cause of Platov’s cut.
In the 3rd round, the cut began to cause Platov problems seeing out of his left eye, and he took a lot of punishment from Williams during the round because of his inability to see properly.
In the fourth round, Williams was literally battering Platov at will around the ring, when suddenly Platov turned his back on Williams and started walking to the ropes. The referee then moved in quickly and stopped the fight and ruled the bout a no contest. It has to be a disappointing result for Williams, who appeared to be the stronger fighter at this point in the fight and perhaps could have stopped Platov if the fight had gone a little while longer.