{"id":31046,"date":"2026-06-19T09:53:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/referee-in-usyk-v-verhoeven-fight-had-seen-enough-to-stop-fight-in-11th-round-before-bell-sounded\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:53:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:53:42","slug":"referee-in-usyk-v-verhoeven-fight-had-seen-enough-to-stop-fight-in-11th-round-before-bell-sounded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/referee-in-usyk-v-verhoeven-fight-had-seen-enough-to-stop-fight-in-11th-round-before-bell-sounded\/","title":{"rendered":"Referee in Usyk v Verhoeven fight had seen enough to stop fight in 11th round before bell sounded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The ruling added Lyson stated unequivocally: &#8220;I decided I wanted to stop the contest&#8230; I had already seen enough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The commission also stressed how the referee had the authority to end a contest whenever they saw fit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Under its rules the referee is the sole arbiter of the contest and retains the full and unfettered right to stop the contest at any time,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There is no distinction in authority or effect between a stoppage effected during the round and a stoppage effected between rounds or during the rest period.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A timing discrepancy identified by official timekeeper Brad William also did not meet the commission&#8217;s threshold to overturn the referee&#8217;s discretionary decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The panel acknowledged William&#8217;s evidence, but said &#8220;even if the physical wave-off occurred fractionally after the bell, this is, at its highest, a procedural timing discrepancy. It does not constitute bad faith, corruption, fraud, or arbitrariness&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The scorecards at the time of the fight ending read 95-95, 95-95 and 96-94 to kickboxing legend Verhoeven.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Medical evidence given by Dr Neil Scott confirmed Verhoeven, in just his second professional boxing fight, was medically stable after the contest and did not undermine the referee&#8217;s real-time safety assessment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There is no evidence of bad faith, malice, corruption, fraud, partiality, or any want of integrity on the part of Referee Mark Lyson,&#8221; the commission added. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Verhoeven said fans were denied a 12th round between himself and unified heavyweight world champion Usyk and there should be an immediate rematch. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c5yzxxe0x27o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ruling added Lyson stated unequivocally: &#8220;I decided I wanted to stop the contest&#8230; I had already seen enough.&#8221; The commission also stressed how the referee had the authority to end a contest whenever they saw fit. &#8220;Under its rules the referee is the sole arbiter of the contest and retains the full and unfettered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31048,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31046\/revisions\/31048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}