Moroccan-born Yassine El Maachi rose from obscurity to beat former world champion Junior Witter in the final of Prizefighter.
Hitter facing bleak future after Prizefighter final defeat
Moroccan-born Yassine El Maachi rose from obscurity to beat former world champion Junior Witter in the final of Prizefighter - the welterweights.
In a bizarre finale, El Maachi out-Wittered the 'Hitter' as the pair threw unorthadox punches from long range, most of which missed by a mile.
Witter, 37, entered the final as a hot favourite after dominating his first two fights but was unable to get to grips with El Maachi, who looked the stronger of the pair.
Witter found himself on the deck twice as the pair tangled, while the Moroccan also sent his opponent spinning right out of the ring and into a helpless cameraman as the brawl descended into farce.
The Bradford man, who won the WBC light-welterweight title fours years ago, landed the cleanest shot in the early seconds that left El Maachi dazed, but that was as good as it got.
To be fair to El Maachi, he was the more accurate of the finalists during a forgetable nine minutes that was a nightmare for the judges, one of whom unsurprisingly had it a draw.
But the other two gave it to El Maachi by a round, leaving Witter to ponder an uncertain future following a fourth loss in seven.
Lynes loses
'The Showman' had been a surprising winner of his semi-final against local hero Colin Lynes, who to most onlookers edged their match-up quite clearly.
Lynes, a quality operator at domestic level and a finalist in Prizefighter light-welterweights 18 months ago, did not find the cocky El Maachi any easier than Witter did - but at least he appeared to have some answers.
El Maachi was always looking to land a swooping left hand, particularly in the final round which he must surely have felt he had to win to have any chance of victory.
But while one judge had it 30-28 in favour of the former European champion, once again it was the underdog who edged it on the cards.
It the other half of the draw Witter had proved the classy boxer he always was while predictably failing to endear himself to the East End crowd with his postering and posing.
He overcame the limited Nathan Graham in his opening bout and then clearly won the first two rounds against former British champion Kevin McIntyre, the Scot forced to take the only count of the night after taking a heavy body shot in the first round.
The final looked like Witter's for the taking, but not for the first time in his career he came up short when it really mattered.
