Tom Aspinall outraged by stoppage in Usyk-Verhoeven: 'What a robbery'
· Yahoo Sports
Tom Aspinall believes there was foul play in the Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven boxing championship fight.
The UFC heavyweight champion was in disbelief and outraged by the referee's decision to step in and waive off the WBC heavyweight title bout, thus giving Usyk a TKO win over Verhoeven. Usyk stopped Verhoeven at the 2:59 mark of Round 11, a second before the round's end. Many watching from home, including the DAZN broadcast team, thought Verhoeven was up on the scorecards and saw the stoppage as premature. Aspinall was on the same boat.
Visit syntagm.co.za for more information.
"Oh, what? He stopped it? No f*cking way," Aspinall said as he watched the fight on his YouTube channel. "For a world title fight, he stopped it with about five or six unanswered shots. What? Mate, what the f*cking hell is that? What a robbery. What a fix that is."
Aspinall believes the former Glory Kickboxing champion was intentionally wronged, and was no mistake by the referee that night in Egypt.
"Mate, two weeks ago, or whatever it was, we were at Fabio Wardley and Daniel Dubois ringside," Aspinall said. "Mate, that happened probably 10 times. Sent Fabio Wardley out there, big swollen eye on one side, nose squashed, big swelling on his forehead. (He'd) been dropped five times in the fight, sent him out again for another round. Stopped it about three rounds too late. Rico gets stumbled to his knee, they let him up with 10 seconds left, he lands a few unanswered shots, and they don't even let him make it to the end of the round? It's a f*cking robbery."
Verhoeven, to many's belief, was en route to pulling off one of the biggest upsets in combat sports history. Usyk, who's an Olympic gold medalist in boxing and multiple-time world champion, was as high as a -2,000 on the betting lines ahead of this bout against Verhoeven, who only had one prior fight in boxing.
"Boxing don't want anyone else to win. Simple as that," Aspinall said. "They want the boxers with the amateur style coming in, winning their Olympic medal, and then switching over and being unbeaten pros. That's what they want. They don't like other combat sports. It's bullsh*t."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC champ Tom Aspinall reacts to 'robbery' in Usyk-Verhoeven