‘We declared a draw to save lives’ – GBA boss on controversial Samie-Idowu fight

The President of the Ghana boxing federation, Abraham Neequaye, says judges declared a technical draw for the bout between Ghana’s Bastie Samir, and Nigerian Rasheed Idowu to save lives, despite the former getting knocked out in a UBO light heavyweight title fight over the weekend in Accra.

Samir was sent to the canvas in the second round with a flurry of vicious hooks and failed to recover before the referee proceeded to end the bout.

With expectations that the Nigerian would be declared winner by Technical Knockout (TKO), the judges instead, declared the fight a Technical Draw, much to the surprise of the teeming patrons.

Neequaye reveals the Universal Boxing Organization (UBO) will declare Idowu as the winner of the fight.

“What happened is not a problem of a referee or a judge. They have not done anything. It was clear that Bastir Samir lost the fight.

“But the decision stands on the life of the people there. [With what] the supporters of Bastir Samir [were doing] and what is going on, we need to save lives at that point in time.

“So this is not a local sanctioning body thing. This is an international belt. So we’ve written to the international body, the UBO people.

“We’ve given them the true results on the ground. So they themselves will come out with the results and copy both the promoter and the GBA.”