The bout was labelled \u201cBad Blood\u201d but Michael Zerafa wilted at the first sign of it as boos and bottles rained down from a furious crowd when the ringside doctor stopped his hugely anticipated main event with Nikita Tszyu after a second round head clash drew a bad cut.<\/p>\n
Zerafa appeared to tell the ringside doctor his vision was impaired after a cut appeared over his left eye.<\/p>\n
It dripped blood during the round, but was cleaned up in between rounds.<\/p>\n
The doctor inspected the cut, and was forced to advise referee Chris Condon to stop the bout before the third round, with the pay per view fight ruled a no contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to be the bad guy, but he is the bad guy for life now,\u201d said commentator Ben Damon, while American commentator Shawn Porter suggested Zerafa knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he just knows this is a no contest,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet a cheque now, get a cheque later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought for promoters if you quit you don\u2019t get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite telling the ringside doctor he couldn\u2019t see, Zerafa attempted to walk it back, but was nearly drowned out by the Brisbane crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why everyone\u2019s booing me,\u201d he said. \u201cThe doctor stopped it. It\u2019s not my fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said it\u2019s blurry but I said all good let\u2019s go. I\u2019m ready to go. If we want to do it again, let\u2019s run it back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good, it was blurry, it is what it is. It\u2019s boxing, no disrespect, I don\u2019t know why everyone\u2019s booing<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to apologise to everybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why you\u2019re booing. This is the sport, I apologise. I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said it\u2019s blurry, but not enough to stop the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the moments after the ring was stopped, a frustrated Tszyu told Zerafa he could see, and that there wasn\u2019t any blood on his eye. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m being told that Michael said he couldn\u2019t see,\u201d Tszyu said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s what the doctor said. The fight was getting good. Sorry to everyone who came out and expected a 10 round war. Sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether he thought Zerafa could have continued, Zerafa just smirked as the crowd erupted. <\/p>\n
\u201cI dunno,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was six months of work, it sucks. What can you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Zerafa was escorted out of the ring by security as angry punters hurled abuse at him.<\/p>\n
The bout was shaping up to be a cracker before the underwhelming ending.<\/p>\n
Zerafa landed an early one-two, and followed up with a nice right hand, forcing Tszyu to counter inside.<\/p>\n
Zerafa went down, his glove touching the canvas, but it was ruled a slip by referee Chris Condon as \u2018The Pretty Boy\u2019 made a good start.<\/p>\n
Tszyu tried to make it a war in the second, and a head clash opened a nasty cut over Zerafa\u2019s left eye, immediately drawing blood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bout was labelled \u201cBad Blood\u201d but Michael Zerafa wilted at the first sign of it as boos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[148341,2840,18614,173709,703,173702,19608,173707,49,48,173234,41022,173705,42276,173706,5220,173236,172450,173233,24118,22751,6846,36375,18600,173703,19603,173704,82,5154,173708,24100],"class_list":["post-413070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-anthony-velazquez","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-heavyweight-title","tag-boxing","tag-brendan-bradford","tag-brisbane","tag-brother-fight","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-demsey-mckean","tag-family-feud","tag-fight-bitter-rival","tag-fight-night","tag-fox-sports-prelims","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-jack-javed","tag-jeremy-latimore","tag-max-reeves","tag-michael-zerafa","tag-new-south-wales","tag-newcastle","tag-nikita-tszyu","tag-oceania","tag-prelim-fight","tag-queensland","tag-rumour-mill","tag-sports","tag-tim-tszyu","tag-tsyzu-zerafa","tag-world-title-eliminator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}