Tommy Carter left fuming following ‘knockout’ loss on Matchroom card
Irish Tommy Carter‘s dream appearance on a big Matchroom undercard in Birmingham last night turned sour in somewhat controversial circumstances.
The Tideswell-Drogheda middleweight took on local prospect Ryan Kelly on the ‘Bragging Rights’ card and fell to a third round stoppage loss in his scheduled four rounder, taking a count before the referee waved off the bout seconds later when Kelly poured forward.
However, the 21 year old disagreed strongly with the stoppage, noting that he felt he was winning the bout at the time and argues that the initial ‘knockdown’ was in fact a slip.
Carter spoke to Irish-Boxing today after his initial anger had subsided and explained how “I think that the stoppage was uncalled for as did everyone else apart from the ref.”
“The whole fight I was in no danger. Kelly was weak. His corner were shouting him to ‘go for speed, the strength will come,’ because they knew that he was a weak fighter.”
“When my hands touched the canvas for the count it was due to my feet been misplaced after moving forwards from some shots that had landed on me. I was not expecting the ref to count me as I thought he could clearly see it wasn’t from the shots that I touched down.”
“When he started counting I shrugged at him and laughed as if to ask why he was counting me.”
“After the count Kelly landed a few weakly placed shots and then the ref jumped in and stopped the fight for no reason.”
Carter is now subject to a mandatory 28 day suspension from the BBBoC, something he intends to appeal, which will force him off a home card on a Kieran Farrell show next month. The youngster described how he spoke to referee Shaun Messer afterwards to apologise for his incensed reaction and was told that ‘the next shot could have been a bad one.’
The fight-anyone middleweight feels that “at the end of the day, any shot could have been a bad one.”
“I know that he [the ref] is there to protect us, but I think the incidents this last year are having refs run scared which is understandable, but at the same time a bit frustrating.”
The good news for Carter [now 1(0)-4(2)] is that a rematch between him and ‘Ruthless’ Ryan Kelly [7(2)-0] has been proposed over eight rounds on Friday December 16th. Carter is confident about the second chance and stated that “these next two months I am going to train like an absolute animal and I’m going to go yet again into his home soil and take the fight to him and come out on top once again.”
“I’m in this lad’s head.”
