On June 24th, cruiserweight Armin Mrkanovic went into his UBF All-Americas title bout with Josh Himes, thinking that even though he was fighting in his opponent’s home territory of Moundsville, West Virginia, that he would receive a fair shake.
That was not the case as most ringside observers believed that Mrkanovic should have come out with the verdict, but instead it was Himes who came out with the unanimous decision by scores of 77-75, 79-73 and an inexplicable 80-72 tally.
“Before the fight, I knew I could and would beat him easily. Before the fight, i was told that my wife got stuck on the road on her drive to West Virginia, and I can admit that I lost the first two rounds,” said Mrkanovic. “I then clearly won five of the next rounds, so for those two judges to give zero and one round shows that something was not right with the fight.”
Mrkanovic claims that even Himes’ team agreed that wrong man had his hand raised.
“After the fight was over, his trainer apologized to me, and admitted the fight was at worst a draw, but said that I should have won the fight. The two other cornermen echoed the same sentiments.”
Mrkanovic wanted to view the fight for himself, but has received pushback from the local promotion.
“I asked for a copy of the fight, and the promoter has refused to show me. He did not want to share for fear that I would be able to look at what happened. It would have done two things, I would have even a more clear argument plus if there is a rematch, I could further expose Himes’ flaws and be even better the next time around. It is funny, I was told that there a handful of people filming it to Facebook Live, but mysteriously those videos are gone. The President of the UBF requested the video, and he can’t even view it.The local paper only mentioned the result of the fight, but made other fight’s more prominent in their story. I was lucky that I was able to download one of those copies to my phone. I am able to view it, but because the original copy is erased, it is not shareable.”
“My team is working on out options on what we can do about this miscarriage of justice.”