Chaos in Heavyweight Bout: Carty vs Allen No-Contest Controversy
The chaos lasted barely longer than a ring walk.
In the co-main event at Croke Park on Saturday night, what was supposed to be a significant heavyweight step for Dublin’s Thomas Carty against seasoned Doncaster campaigner David Allen dissolved into confusion, controversy and a hospital trip in just 82 seconds.
By the time the first round hit the 90-second mark, Carty was out of the ring, dazed, and the fight was over as a no-contest.
Two illegal blows and “loose ropes”
Carty’s team did not wait long to frame what had happened. In a strongly worded statement, they claimed “two illegal blows” to the back of the Irishman’s head and “loose ropes” combined to create the freak ending.
“After just one minute and 30 seconds of round one, Thomas Carty had received two illegal blows to the back of his head at Croke Park on the Katie Taylor undercard,” the statement read.
“The second blow causing Thomas a momentarily lapse forcing Thomas to reach for the ropes to regain his balance and the loose ropes gave way, propelling Thomas head first out of the ring causing him to strike his head on a ringside table.
“In turn this caused Thomas a suspected concussion and unfortunately an end to this fight on instructions from the ringside doctor.”
The scene was as alarming as it sounded. Carty tumbled through the ropes, crashed into a ringside table and was left unable to continue. He was taken to hospital for a brain scan before being discharged, with his camp later confirming the 30-year-old is back home and healthy.
A packed Croke Park, primed for Katie Taylor’s eventual victory over Flora Pili, had just watched a heavyweight contest implode before it had even started to breathe.
Allen: “I’ll ask if it can be overturned to a win”
On the other side of the ring, Allen saw it very differently.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, the 34-year-old insisted the decisive punch was not deliberate and hinted he will push for the result to be changed.
He said he will probably “speak to the boxing board and ask if it can be overturned to a win”, arguing that under normal circumstances the bout would have been stopped in his favour.
Allen painted a picture of a fight he felt was already tilting his way.
“I was a bit too strong and rough for him,” he said, adding that he believed he was likely to win. The punch that led to the chaos, he maintained, was intended to “clip him round the ear”, not land illegally.
“When I’m heavy and fit, he weren’t going to hurt me in a million years. So, I smiled at him and he didn’t like that,” Allen said.
“I’m not aiming for the back of anyone’s head ever, but I am aiming about here [the ear]. It wasn’t a big shot, I tried to clip him round the ear as I always do, and he’s turned his head into it. It’s gone round the back of the head.”
From there, the sequence unravelled in a blur: Carty turned, the shot landed behind the head, and seconds later he was through the ropes and out onto the arena floor.
“From there on, I don’t know. It’s not for me to say what’s happened. He’s a good guy, I do like him… I’ve caught him behind the head, not on purpose, he’s turned into and he’s gone through the ropes,” Allen said.
His frustration with the officiating was clear.
“At the time, I said to the referee, ‘are you not going to count?’ If that was in the middle of the ring I’d have won by stoppage. I lost my rag a little and said, ‘look, he’s jumped out the [expletive] ring.’ I couldn’t quite believe it, really, I was a bit shocked.”
Questions for the board, and for the ropes
The fallout now stretches beyond one punch.
Carty’s camp are pointing at illegal blows and faulty equipment. Allen is pointing at the rulebook and asking why a count never came. Somewhere in the middle sit the referee’s call and the integrity of the ring itself, with those “loose ropes” suddenly a central character in a heavyweight controversy.
The no-contest will sit on both men’s records for now. Whether it stays there may depend on what the British Boxing Board of Control and the relevant authorities make of Allen’s expected appeal and Carty’s detailed complaints.
One thing is certain: a fight that barely lasted a minute and 22 seconds has left enough arguments to last the rest of the year.
