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Japanese bantamweight Satoshi Shimizu has successfully protested the result of his almost comical second round loss to Azerbaijan's Magomed Abdulhamidov from this afternoon, and Shimizu will be advancing to the quarterfinals.
Abdulhamidov won the fight originally on a score of 22-17, but the fight was outrageously refereed in the third round as Shimizu repeatedly dropped Abdulhamidov only to receive no credit for any knockdowns, and only get points from one public warning issued to Abdulhamidov. It was appalling officiating, and the AIBA have done the absolute right thing here. The organization's ruling is that Shimizu should have earned a stoppage win by their rules.
AIBA also will decide on what to do about the referee from the fight tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, Iranian heavyweight Ali Mazaheri will not be advancing, despite a ludicrous disqualification call in his bout with Cuba's Jose Larduet. Mazaheri was warned three times in the second round and disqualified, which the AIBA notes is consistent with their rules. Of course, the real problem is that Mazaheri was being warned for incredibly questionable "infractions" in the first place, and basically couldn't move without being warned by the referee. It was more grotesquely troublesome officiating, and Mazaheri says he feels like the fight was fixed:
"It was a fix. I could have got a bronze easily if it hadn't been for that," an irate Mazaheri, who walked out of the ring before the decision was officially announced, told reporters through a translator.
"In my previous fights I had done really well. It was a set up."
Our hearts go out to Mazaheri, who was shafted in a big way by this decision and had fought well in the opening round against the Cuban. Again, to Mazaheri's credit, he showed respect to his opponent and to his opponent's team, just not to the referee who screwed him. And when he left the ring without acknowledging that referee, the crowd in London rightly cheered him.