By James Slater: The controversy brought on by the cut eye stoppage win WBA 140-pound champ Amir Khan scored over challenger Paul McCloskey last night doesn’t look like going away any time soon. Both McCloskey and his promoters the Hearns are absolutely livid over the way the ringside doctor, almost instantly after the accidental clash of heads occurred in the 6th-round, waved the fight off. This was without giving McCloskey’s corner a chance to work on the cut; one that was not bleeding profusely and was not running into the Irish challenger’s eye.
In fact, when looking back at previous fights in boxing, where far more severe cuts have NOT resulted in a termination of the action, last night’s decision does look, for lack of a better word, “dodgy.” Was Khan tiring, and was McCloskey’s game-plan of coming on strong in the second half of the fight in with a chance of success? Due to the stoppage many people are calling premature we will never know.
McCloskey’s people are demanding a rematch, Eddie Hearn says the BBB of C will launch an investigation into last night’s proceedings, but Khan says there is “no point” in a rematch.
“The cut is almost nonexistent,” Hearn said. “It’s fanciful to think that was a dangerous cut. From what I saw of the referee (Luis Pabon) he should never be allowed in a boxing ring again. You don’t take away peoples dreams like that and rob the paying public. Amir Khan is a decent man and he would gain a lot of friends around the world if he did the right thing (grant McCloskey a return).
“It’s an embarrassment for us all to be involved in a fight like this where we are so clearly robbing the public.”
With so many fans indeed feeling as though they were robbed last night, boxing has been given another black eye. But will there be a rematch? It looks highly doubtful – what with Khan now looking at the far more lucrative unification clash with the unbeaten Timothy Bradley in the summer. Khan confirmed how he is not interested in facing “Dudey” a second time.
“He didn’t win one round,” Khan said of his challenger. “I was hurting him, I wasn’t tired, and I promise you, if the fight had gone two more rounds he would have been knocked out. There is no point in a rematch.”
While most people would disagree with Khan’s assertion that he would have come on and KO’d his elusive, hard-to-pin-down southpaw challenger, it’s true McCloskey failed to win a round on any single official scorecard. But would the 31-year-old have been able to come on and take advantage of Khan’s seemingly growing fatigue? Again, we will never know.
Unless the BBB of C orders otherwise, we will not see a Khan-McCloskey II. As a result, it’s tough not to have huge sympathy for the man from Ireland.