Ryan Burnett ‘gutted’ after being forced to retire

Belfast bantamweight Ryan Burnett admitted he’s gutted after losing his WBA title on a fourth-round retirement in Glasgow on Saturday night.

Ryan Burnett ‘gutted’ after being forced to retire

By Bernard O’Neill

Belfast bantamweight Ryan Burnett admitted he’s gutted after losing his WBA title on a fourth-round retirement in Glasgow on Saturday night.

A freak back injury versus Nonito Donaire eventually led to Burnett leaving the ring on a stretcher after the World Super Series quarter-final at the SS Hydro.

“I’m absolutely heartbroken. My back went, I tried to continue but I was simply in too much pain. This is boxing. I’m gutted but it was completely out of my control,” said Burnett.

The Irish 2010 Olympic Youth champion, who looked to be ahead on points, picked up an injury in the 4th round and was retired by his cornerminutes later.

Burnett appeared out of sorts in the third and was left clutching his lower back in agony after throwing a right hook in the fourth.

The No. 1 seed took a knee (which counts as the first knockdown of his career) after that incident and it was obvious that he was in no condition to continue.

Saturday’s defeat, with the vacant WBC Diamond belt also on the line, was the first reversal in Burnett’s 20-bout career and also counts as a stoppage against him.

Donaire, who dropped a unanimous decision to Carl Frampton for the WBO Interim belt in Belfast in April, hailed Burnett as a warrior.

“A win is a win but I’ve got to give it to Burnett, he is an amazing fighter.

“He was fast and was strong as well. He caught me with pretty punchers,” said Donaire.

“As a warrior, as a fighter, you’ve got a guy like Burnett, who is an amazing, amazing fighter. Early on he just kept coming and to go that way wasn’t (how) I’d like to win. I was a little bit more fighting like a bigger guy. My coaches snapped me out of it, “you’ve got to box”, and that’s what I started to do, and again, Burnett is an amazing fighter.”

Saturday’s loss means that Katie Taylor and TJ Doheny remain as Ireland’s World pro champions.

Meanwhile, controversial Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov was elected president of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) on Saturday despite fears that his appointment could lead to the sport’s ejection from the Olympic Games.

Rakhimov won 86 of the 134 second-round votes in the ballot in Moscow to beat his only opponent, former boxer Serik Konakbayev of Kazakhstan.

Rakhimov, previously interim president, courted controversy after being linked to organised crime by the US Treasury Department.

He has vigorously denied the allegations, telling AFP in a recent interview that he had “never been involved in transnational criminal organisations or whatever has been said about me”.

He called his presence on the US Treasury list a “mistake” and hoped it would be “corrected” within six months.

But in October the IOC froze relations with the AIBA and refused to accredit the 67-year-old Rakhimov for the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.

IOC president Thomas Bach said in February that he was “extremely worried about the governance of AIBA”.

And though amateur boxing’s under-fire chiefs handed over a crucial report on internal reforms to the IOC in April, the threat of losing a place in the Olympic movement remains.

On the eve of his election Rakhimov assured delegates and fans that “boxing will naturally be at the Olympic Games in 2020, Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028”.

Saturday’s election was delayed several hours after a glitch in the AIBA’s electronic voting system. A secret vote only went ahead after the AIBA was able to get its hands on a replacement ballot box.

Until last week, Rakhimov was the only presidential candidate after Konakbayev, who won silver at the Moscow Games in 1980 for the Soviet Union, was barred from standing by an AIBA election commission for allegedly failing to submit certain forms by a deadline.

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