The highly-anticipated heavyweight title clash between UK stars David Adeleye and Jeamie Tshikeva was blanketed in controversy.
After a heated buildup, British heavyweights David Adeleye and Jeamie Tshikeva settled their months-long beef in the ring earlier this weekend. But while the fight delivered, the final result has an arguable asterisk next to it after a head-scratching sequence.
Five back-and-forth rounds led Adeleye and Tshikeva to pick up the pace in Round 6. But after a brief clinch, referee Ron Kearney stepped in to break up the exchange, but a lower-guarded Tshikeva ended up paying the price thanks to an Adeleye left hook that landed flush.
After the fight was restarted after a brief count, Adeleye poured on the pressure, eventually finishing a depleted Tshikeva by TKO. Kearney felt the ire and anger of fight fans, Tshikeva, and his corner following the controversial clinch break-up.
Promoter Ben Shalom goes off on David Adeleye vs. Jeamie Tshikeva ruling
In a recent interview with The Ring‘s Louis Hart, promoter Ben Shalom didn’t hold back on the final sequence of Tshikeva vs. Adeleye.
“What I’ve just witnessed was one of the most disgraceful things I’ve seen in my career. To see a referee call ‘break’ twice, take someone’s arm and for him to actually count him out was one of the most crazy pieces of refereeing I’ve ever seen.
“It has to be overturned. I’m not even blaming David Adeleye, the referee has had an absolute nightmare, Jeamie was cruising the fight, it was getting easier for him in there, I was thinking ‘how’s he switched off there?’ from where I was. And then I saw the ref. It’s unbelievable, actually unbelievable, there’s no other result, David Adeleye didn’t win that fight, it has to be overturned.
“It’s actually extremely dangerous as well, in heavyweight boxing, to call a break twice, then have someone take a punch like that is dangerous. We’ll obviously have to appeal for it to be overturned. Jeamie doesn’t even know how that’s happened, he’s confused.
“He was winning the fight, everything was going well and he gets told to break twice. Any heavyweight who catches you when you’ve got your guard down, it’s going to end badly, it’s so dangerous.”
It’s possible that Adeleye’s KO win over Tshikeva could get overturned to a no-contest, making the strong case for an immediate rematch. The controversial finish to their first fight would add more buzz to a pre-fight buildup if the rematch is ordered.
David Adeleye vs. Jeamie Tshikeva 2 possible for later this year
Adeleye has won back-to-back fights since suffering his first-career loss to Fabio Wardley in October 2023. Before the Wardley loss, Adeleye won his first 12 professional fights, including his WBO European title win over Dmytro Bezus.
Meanwhile, Tshikeva’s controversial loss snapped a three-fight win streak, including recent finishes of Michael Webster and Franklin Ignatius. Tshikeva demanded an immediate rematch in his first post-fight comments after the loss to Adeleye.
This is a developing story, and we’ll bring you details on the potential Adeleye vs. Tshikeva appeal as new information becomes available.