Love vs Spark full fight video highlights and results: Stevie Spark beats Montana Love in bizarre disqualification

DAZN’s main event ended in astonishingly strange fashion tonight, with Stevie Spark (16-2, 14 KOs) winning by disqualification as the fight quickly spiraled out of control in the sixth round. The fight started with Montana Love (18-1-1, 9 KOs) using his speed and skill to pick off Spark, but Spark picked his spots to launch lengthy combinations and caught Love along the ropes in the second, dropping Love.

Love would regain control of the fight, although Spark would have his moments with mauling action, and then an unfortunate clash of heads between the fighters that would leave Love with a bad cut over his left eye. That prompted the referee to call in the doctor to take a look at Love’s condition, and at that time it seemed like the fight was in jeopardy of being stopped as Love complained that his vision was impaired.

The doctor warned Love that one punch on that cut would likely open it completely, and agreed to let the fight continue while keeping a close eye on how things developed. Things, however, would quickly escalate from there because as soon as the action started Love was jumped by Spark, the two fighters got tangled up along the ropes and frustrated Love pushed Spark off of him and Spark would flip over the ropes — although he would gracefully land right on his feet with no harm done.

The referee, however, felt the maneuver was a flagrant one by Love, and immediately disqualified him under considerable protest by both Love, his corner, and Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn who called it a terrible decision. Love would then confront the local commissioner who said that although he wouldn’t immediately overrule the DQ, he would give Love the opportunity to appeal the loss and turn it into a no contest should video evidence support his stance.

Love vs Spark highlights

Richardson Hitchins vs Yomar Alamo

In the DAZN co-feature Richardson Hitchins (15-0, 7 KOs) ran away with the fight early, dominating Yomar Alamo (20-2-1, 12 KOs) with his jab which quickly discouraged Alamo increasingly as the fight wore on. A few rounds in and with Alamo completely unable to get past Hitchins’ jab, it became more and more apparent that Alamo didn’t really want to be in there anymore and largely tried to play defense and keep-away for as long as he could.

But in the second half the accumulated punishment began to wear on Alamo, and with him hardly throwing any punches back his corner realized that it was time to pull the plug on the fight after the eight round, and did exactly that. With the win Hitchins looks towards a fight with Montana Love.

Raymond Ford KO-8 Sakaria Lukas

Raymond Ford (13-0-1) had a statement outing tonight, largely dominating Sakaria Lukas (25-2-1, 17 KOs) over eight rounds of action before he landed a nasty hook that put Lukas down and out, hard. With the knockout Ford became the first to stop Sakaria, and gives him plenty of positive momentum going forward in his career.

Thomas Mattice UD-10 Christian Tapia

I’m not going to go too deep here but felt this fight in particular deserved some recognition as it was a brilliant, fan-friendly action fight from start to finish. This fight featured a beautiful style blend of the boxer in Thomas Mattice (20-3-1, 15 KOs) taking on the come-forward puncher in Christian Tapia (15-1, 12 KOs).

The fight started with Tapia more or less having his way, but Mattice would line up a beautiful counter hook early that would drop Tapia and change the tenor of the fight to come. Tapia, who was never discouraged, continue to come forward and let his hands go with pretty good success, but his defensive liabilities saw him dropped one more time, and visibly hurt several more times before it was all over.

But even in spite of the damage you could see Tapia taking, he was continued to come back and dish it right back to Mattice, however a late surge by Mattice really closed things in his favor, and enabled him to pull out the big win here.

Ferreira UD-4 Cardoso

Beatriz Ferreira had a successful professional debut tonight, easily handling an overmatched opponent in Taynna Cardoso in a four-rounder where she was really able to show her skills. On top of that, perhaps the most notable thing about this fight was that it was three-minute rounds for the women here, who petitioned the local commission to let them go as long as the men.