Kanat Islam's injury confirmed, controversies arise after bout

Yesterday in Almaty, Kazakhstan,  we saw unbeaten Kazakh  Kanat Islam (27-0, 21) [Ислам Канат] retain the WBO International Middleweight title with a 10 round decision win over Walter Kautondokwa (18-2, 17). 

The bout had controversy all over it, from the scoring to the length of the bout and to the judges. It also saw Islam fighting terrible in the second half of the fight, and not really throwing more than 1 or 2 right hands in the final 5 rounds.

We assumed at the time that Islam had suffered an injury, and today that was confirmed. X-rays showed that Islam had suffered a broken right hand, and after the bout he had had a cast put on it.

The injury, which was apparently suffered in round 7, makes it obvious as to why Islam refused to throw right hands in the final few rounds. What it didn't come close to explaining was some of the other issues with the bout, including a bizarre 99-92 score card in his favour, one of the most egregious scores of the year or why the ring announce stated it would be a 12 round bout.

​According to Vesti the fighters and their teams were aware the bout was a 10 rounder, as was Qazsport who televised the bout. The vice-president of the Professional Boxing Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan,  Viktor Demyanenko, stated that the WBO supervisor had certified the bout for 10 rounds ahead of it taking place. Notably this turned out to be a very fortunate thing for Islam, who looked like he was all in after 10 rounds and likely wouldn't have survived another 2 rounds.

​Another issue spoken about by Demyanenko to Vesti was the officiating, which was supposed to have a Polish official involved, though the judge in question never arrived in Kazakhstan and was instead replaced by a Kazakh judge. Demyanenko stated that "Although it doesn’t look very good, the supervisor made the decision. This issue was not in my competence,", again putting the onus on the WBO supervisor. It seems clear that whilst it was usual, and certainly played a part in the very odd score-cards, it had seemingly been signed off by the supervisor from the WBO.

According the Boxrec, who still don't have the result up at the time of writing, that supervisor was Hungarian Zsuzsanna Toth, who we suspect will have some serious questions to answer.

​(Image courtesy of Vesti)