THE British Lionhearts suffered another home defeat in the World Series of Boxing as the Ukraine Otamans came to York Hall, with raucous support in tow, and won the team match 4-1.
Qais Ashfaq was unfortunate against Mykola Butsenko, an experienced bantamweight. The Ukrainian opened a bad cut over Ashfaq’s right eye with a head butt and piled in with the head again. It should have gone to the scorecards but instead the referee decided a punch had done the damage and awarded Butsenko a controversial stoppage victory.
Sam Maxwell came back from a bitterly disappointing loss last time out to dominate Mger Oganisian with classy, long range punch-picking throughout all five rounds in their light-welterweight class.
At middleweight Antony Fowler came up against quality Uzbek southpaw in Hurshidbek Normatov who took a unanimous decision win after technical, tactically astute performance.
After Denys Poyatsyka suffered a cut after an accidental head clash, the Ukrainian was given the technical decision over the Lionhearts’ Romanian heavyweight Ionut-Mirel Jitaru. Ashley Williams was withdrawn at light-flyweight meaning the Otamans’ Hasanboy Dustmatov could enjoy a walkover victory.