By Dan Risk: On Friday 9th September 2011, I sat down to watch and interesting light-middleweight encounter between English prospect Jamie Cox (15-0, 9 KO’s) and unbeaten Commonwealth champion Obodai Sai (15-0, 10 KO’s). There is always a sense of excitement when an unknown fighter like Sai comes out of his native country, in this case Ghana, and there is very little known about him.

Sky Sports pundit Johnny Nelson made reference to the time that Briedis Prescott came out of nowhere to shatter Amir Khan’s dream in 54 seconds. Sai’s record did look somewhat dubious with many of his past fights coming against guys who didn’t have a win to their name and with hardly any footage on him we wouldn’t know what to expect.

Cox himself had proved in the past that he is a classy fighter with some potential but had gone very cold over the last 18 months with only a handful of fights against lower division opponents. His defense has also been questioned in the past, taking far to many shots and trading unnecessarily.

Tonight’s fight between Cox and Sai brings me to the main focus of this article. For anyone who watched the fight it would be fair to say that Cox has stolen a decision on home territory (For any fans who didn’t watch the fight, Cox won by a unanimous decision with the scores as 114-113, 114-112 and 115-114). This doesn’t sound like a bad decision but if any of you watch the fight back, you will understand my grievance.

From Round 1, the fight was nothing but messy. Both fighters found it difficult to get into range and each were only landing the odd glancing shot. As the fight gradually progressed the pattern that I expect began to emerge. Sai was an extremely slippery customer and was popping in and out of range and finding the target with regularity, so much so that he opened up two nasty cuts above the left and right eyes of Cox.

After Round 6, the desperation in Cox’s work began to show and he began to land low blows with sickening regularity. To Sai’s credit, he barely complained to the referee and kept landing his shots. The referee finally deducted points in Round’s 6 and 12 but in reality he could of taken one point off each of the last 6 rounds or have disqualified Cox.

Post fight, many of the pundits, commentators and ringside fans believed that Sai had won the fight comfortably so when the MC announced ‘…and new Commonwealth champion’, boo’s rang around the Hilton Hotel and my front living room. The disgust registered with the former champions camp and they even refused to hand the belt over after the bell and the tears streamed from the Ghanaians face.

This is not the first time I have sat with a cold beer and felt like throwing it at the TV. Only three months ago, I sat and watched Matthew Macklin get robbed in his WBA middleweight contest against champion Felix Sturm in Cologne. Most recognized Macklin had won the fight but to find he had lost by 116-112 on two of the cards was an outrage to me. The third judge had it at 115-113, which was much closer to the events on the nights. Even the German TV had given Macklin the decision by 4 rounds.

When these situations happen, it is incredibly disappointing for the sport and is something to governing bodies need to sort out. Fighters are not in the game to get robbed out of fights and belt. Sai may never get another chance to reclaim his belt of take on better level of opposition he may have come up against if he had won. The winner of this fight was being lined up to fight British champion Prince Arron (24-3, 4 KO’s). We can only hope that the Commonwealth board order a rematch and justice can be done.