Referee gets rocked in face by both fighters in wild boxing match

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As a referee, you try to stay out of the action as much as possible.

Unfortunately for the man presiding over the boxing match between Sina Karimian and Rukiya Anpo earlier this week, this referee rang in the new year by getting his bell rung – multiple times.

The Karimian-Anpo bout kicked off the Rizin 49 Decade card on Tuesday which featured 22 MMA, kickboxing and boxing matches and took place in Saitama, Japan.

While Karimian and Anpo are accomplished kickboxers, this was the first professional boxing match for both of them.

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In Round 6 of their match, the pair seemed to throw traditional boxing rules to wind.

Karimian started by throwing a spinning backfist during the match before the referee immediately stepped in and separated the fighters. Karimian began celebrating and taunting the crowd after using the illegal technique, though it is common in other combat sports.

“Sina, not permitted under these rules, he has broken the ruleset,” a Rizin commentator said after the spinning backfist attempt, which only made contact with Anpo’s hands. “He knows it as well. It was only a matter of time. You know what, I think we can almost take a break here and let Sina be the commentator, he’s talking that much.”

After watching his opponent’s taunts, Anpo put together his own combination of strikes – ending with a backfist of his own.

That’s when things got wild.

During the following exchange, Karimian threw another backfist, which caused the referee to try to step in between the two fighters. As the ref did so, Anpo clocked him in the face with left hook that had narrowly missed Karimian.

The ref recovered quickly but as Karimian backed Anpo into the corner, the referee – again trying to separate the two – received a nasty right forearm to the face from Karimian.

It was then that more officials entered the ring to break things up and the call the fight.

The bout went to judges’ scorecards and Anpo was declared the winner by unanimous decision.

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