By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth/WBC International light welterweight champion John Wayne Hibbert (17-3, 11 KOs) won a controversial 12th round knockout win over Tommy Martin (13-1, 5 KOs) on Saturday night at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK. Hibbert dropped Martin in the 12th round. Martin beat the count, but the referee halted it anyway.
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In a fight a lot closer than the final scores would have you believe, Britain’s John Ryder (22-2, 12 KOs) defeated 41-year-old high level journeyman Sergey Khomitsky (30-13-3, 13 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBA International middleweight title. The final judges’s scores were 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113.
I agreed with the 115-113 score. The 41-year-old Khomitsky appeared to win the last four rounds of the fight, and at least one of the first eight rounds. You can make an argument that the judges mangled the scoring and didn’t give Khomitsky any credit for the rounds that he appeared to control, but with him being the visiting fighter, he was was pretty much in a hopeless position. I think Khomitsky would have needed a knockout to get a draw in the fight, because he was really up against it fighting a home fighter in Ryder.
I thought the referee should have done something about the nonstop clinching that Ryder was doing in the fight. If it had been a different referee working the fight that controls excessive clinching, we would have seen a much different fight with Ryder losing points and possibly even being disqualified for his holding. The holding really took away from the fight because Ryder was grabbing the Ukrainian every chance he could get to prevent him from throwing punches. It was like a wrestling match in many rounds with Ryder grabbing Khomitsky to keep him from throwing his punches. I thought I was watching Kell Brook from his fight against Shawn Porter. It was just awful to look at.
What was interesting after the fight was how the Sky commentators were already talking about how Ryder had won the fight even before the scores were revealed. You don’t see that kind of thing too much close fights, but that’s what we saw tonight. As soon as I heard the Sky talking heads saying that Ryder had won before the scores were released, I knew that Khomitsky had no chance. It’s a pity because you can really make a good argument that the fight should have been scored a draw.
Khomitsky can’t seem to get a break. When he fought Blackwell and Martin Murray, I had him winning both of those fights. Instead of winning the fights, Khomitsky lost to Murray by an eight round decision and was held to a 6 round draw against Blackwell. It was just sad, sad scoring in both of those fights.
Ryder, 27, was stopped in the 7th round last year by Nick Blackwell.
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WBC International super featherweight champion Martin J. Ward (13-0, 7 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a 3rd round knockout win over challenger Mario Pisanti (16-3-1, 5 KOs).
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