By Dan Ambrose: In good news for Ivan Redkach, his fine has been reduced considerably from $300,000 to $10,000 by the New York State Athletic Commission [NYSAC] for his bite incident during his last fight against former 2-division world champion Danny Garcia on January 25, according to RingTV.
The NYSAC had originally penalized the 33-year-old Redkach (23-5-1, 18 KOs) his entire $300,000 purse plus a 1-year suspension. For a fighter that age, the one-year suspension alone would have been enough to pretty much wipe out the remainder of his career.
Suspension reduced to six months for Redkach
Redkach suspension will be for six months, which is obviously not as severe. For Redkach’s sake, hopefully the top promoters for other fighters aren’t reluctant to set-up fights against him for fear that they see a repeat bite incident.
It’s unclear whether Redkach even bit Garcia. Redkach says he didn’t, and Garcia acted like he hadn’t been hit.
Redkach denies biting Danny Garcia
“I did not bite Danny,” Redkach told RING, after learning of the ramifications from that episode of the theater of the unexpected, in Brooklyn. “This is the fact. Danny was smiling after my “bite.” Do you really think Danny could smile if I bit him? I disagree with the NY commission, however, I have better things to do to invest my time in.
A lot of boxing fans thought the penalization by the NYSAC for Redkach’s bite incident during the Garcia fight was too severe, given some of the fighters that test positive for banned drugs.
Fans see a situation where a fighter bites their opponent as being less dangerous compared to someone that is using PEDs, and is able to take advantage of the extra size and power they have to beat the daylights out of their opponents.
When you compare biting, which is obviously painful, to someone that is using performance enhancing drugs to get an edge, you would assume that they would be penalized more severely given what the end result could be.
Ivan Redkach fought well against Garcia
Redkach lost the fight to Garcia by a 12 round unanimous decision, which ended a three-fight winning streak for the Ukrainian fighter. Despite losing, Redkach was competitive, and gave Garcia a tough fight from start to finish. Garcia won by the scores 117-111, 118-110, 117-111.
Going into the contest, it was supposed to be a mismatch for Danny, but Redkach showed that he wasn’t going to lay down. He took the fight to Garcia, and forced him to battle harder than he probably expected to.
Although Garcia landed the harder shots during the contest, Redkach got his attention with his own punches. It was a good effort by Redkach, who showed a lot of heart. He was obviously in with a better fighter in Garcia, but he made it tough for him.