It is becoming something of an undesirable British tradition of late for an officiating howler to encroach upon headlines that ought to have been the sole preserve of the boxers over whom they stood watch. At Leeds Town Hall on Saturday, Doncaster’s Michael Alexander became the latest native referee to bungle a crucial call when he short-changed Preston’s “Magic” Matty Clarkson against Birtley puncher Travis Dickinson in the 6th round of a tumultuous light heavyweight brawl that had clocked up a grand total of six knockdowns prior to its premature denouement.
“Tasty” Travis (17-1, 7 KO) who bears a passing resemblance to the legendary Jack Dempsey, needed to channel the “Manassa Mauler’s” spirit in order to retain his English championship. Dickinson took a count in the 3rd, was floored three times in a hellacious 5th round (throughout the duration of which he teetered on the brink of collapse) and complained of broken ribs in the aftermath while gurning through busted lips; Central Area champion Clarkson (12-2-2, 3 KO), meanwhile was flattened in rounds 1 and 2, and finished the bout with a black eye and a suspected broken jaw.
Dickinson, who halted super middleweight star George Groves as an amateur, came out smoking on the bell — dropping Clarkson hard in the opening minute with a crunching right uppercut that bundled him onto his back. Upon rising, the underdog elected to hold his feet and retaliate in order to fend off his pursuer and landed a searing right cross towards the end of the session that gave Dickinson pause for thought.
After losing his mouthpiece early in round 2, Dickinson uncorked another right — his money punch — that clipped Clarkson high on top of his head and bowled him over again. Clarkson, though, retained real ambition and, after weathering the remainder of the round, registered an iffy looking knockdown of his own in the next (Dickinson protested that he’d been pushed after being tagged with a right over his jab). Dickinson immediately tore back into his man, steadying Clarkson with another heavy right as both men — wide open and brawling — waded into one another with abandon.
The 4th was more sedate; crucially, though, Clarkson had started to eye Dickinson’s body and as his own right cheek began to swell grotesquely he appeared to hurt Travis with a lead right hand to the midriff.
And then came the mayhem.
Clarkson detonated a ferocious left hook against Dickinson’s ribcage in round 5, cloaking the Geordie in an agonising sickness that felled him to his haunches and insisted that he stay there. Dickinson, though, arose grimly — pain etched across his face; as he grimaced, his black gumshield suggested a great and infinite scream. Intent on silencing it, Clarkson ravaged Dickinson with a pitiless body assault.
Twice more Dickinson would sink hopelessly to the canvas — his face contorted in misery. Yet, each time Clarkson closed in to try and put him out of it, Dickinson would roar back in two-handed defiance. One could not fail to be reminded of the late Arturo Gatti, that icon of agony, as he too fought through such fever states. It was gripping stuff.
As round 6 whirred into action, Dickinson — still anything but comfortable – lost his gumshield before the third man ushered Clarkson over to the ringside physician. Once Clarkson had been given a once over and the action resumed, Dickinson slugged him with a brace of straight rights, prompting Alexander — quite inexplicably — to leap between them and record a TKO that ringside commentator Al Bernstein would label “incomprehensible.” The time of the stoppage was announced at 2:20.
Once Alexander’s folly fades from memory, perhaps it won’t matter, who won and who lost last night. For it is the nature of the fight rather than the result, that will recall their names long after they stop punching. And isn’t that what every fighter wants when all’s said and done, for us to remember them?
