By Gareth Rees: In what was turning into an entertaining bout between Ovil Mackenzie (21-11) and Enzo Maccarinelli (35-6) for the Commonwealth Light-Heavyweight title, referee Ian John-Lewis made what could go down as one of the worst stoppages in the history of British Boxing, as he stopped the fight in the second round.

It had been a good fight up to the stoppage with Mackenzie moving forward, pushing the pace and throwing lots of shots, while Maccarinelli was defending and moving well countering and landing clean punches. Just before the stoppage Maccarinelli had landed a couple of counter shots on the ropes, before Mackenzie came back with two powerful punches that landed. Then Mackenzie threw two more punches but Maccarinelli had his hands up like he had all fight to block the punches, but John-Lewis jumped in and stopped the bout.

You could see by John-Lewis’ face that he instantly knew he had made a massive error, not waving his hands holding the fighter to stop him taking anymore punishment like in normal stoppages. The views of everyone ringside was a mix of shock and disgust in the decision, with Paul Smith and Steve Bunce describing the stopping as “awful” and the commentators saying they have never seen anything like it and expect to see an instant rematch.

Mackenzie even admitted that the fight should not have been stopped and seemed quite embarrassed about the whole thing in the interview. Maccarinelli said that John-Lewis actually apologised to him straight away but that wasn’t going to change the injustice that had just happened.

We all know Ian John-Lewis is one of the more experienced referees in Britain and with Maccarinelli’s history of being on the end of some sickening knockout’s, he was only trying to protect the fighter. Paul Smith even said “it’s better to be too early than too late” but this doesn’t even get near too early. Obviously refereeing is extremely tough and your judgement and reactions have to be spot on at all times, but in this case unfortunately Ian John-Lewis will admit himself, he made a mistake. The only thing we can do now is hope there is a very quick instant rematch between the two fighters and try to forget this embarrassing night.