Resembling the undercard bout that featured in the first fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, the co-main event at champion Katie Taylor‘s farewell event ended in bizarre fashion.
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Scheduled between popular heavyweight Dave Allen and Thomas Carty, the ten-round bout ended no sooner than it began. Notably, the way Carty fell out of the ring, failing to continue after just one and a half minutes into the opening round, drew sharp reactions, with some fans accusing him of quitting against a formidable opponent like Allen.
“Catastrophe! 🤦♂️. Thomas Carty goes flying out of the ring in the opening round 😳,” DAZN’s X post read, sharing footage of the sequence where Carty fell off the ring. The Matchroom event’s official broadcast partners later shared another clip from a different angle.
Recorded by an overhead camera, a closer review shows both Allen and Carty engaged in a clinch, slowly moving towards the ropes. With his back facing the ropes, the Englishman lodged a few shots at Carty’s head, which slow-motion footage suggests landed on the latter’s back of the head.
Carty was seen holding his head with his right hand before he slipped in between the top two ropes. Had Allen stood still, the two could have crashed head-on; instead, the English heavyweight moved to his right, leaving Carty, unable to hold his weight, falling down from the ring apron onto the floor.
As he lay down, Carty’s condition looked concerning, as it appeared his leg was caught up in a chair during his attempt to get back on his feet.
It seems he was later given oxygen as the medical team attended to him. Meanwhile, inside the ring, the referee called off the fight, stopping it with a no contest.
For Allen, who had gradually rebuilt his career after the third-round stoppage loss to Filip Hrgovic this past May, it looked unbelievable that the fight would end this way.
The co-main fight’s ending strongly resembled the October 2024 Ben Whittaker vs. Liam Cameron fight. Fighting on the main card of Beterbiev-Bivol I, the bout ended in a draw after a close clinch during the fifth round that saw both fighters lose their balance. They tipped over the top rope and crashed off the canvas and onto the floor outside the ring apron.
As in Carty’s case, Whittaker reportedly suffered an ankle injury during the fall and could not continue.
The similarities did not end there. Like Carty, Whittaker was accused in some sections of quitting in the face of a strong performance by Cameron.
Fans rip into bizarre fall during co-main event at Katie Taylor’s final card
Mincing no words, one fan wrote bluntly, “F**king dived out the ring spewed in front of 86000 of his own county fucking big dafty.” Similar comments followed. “Literally took a dive, felt a couple of rights from Dave, and thought no thanks.”
Allen, while not ranked among the heavyweight division’s top-15, was the heavy favorite to win the fight. Though sharing a similar divisional status, Carty was coming off a win in March this year that came a year after he suffered his first career loss.
For a fighter who began his professional journey just five years ago to be matched against a 14-year veteran who, in that span, has faced some of the heavyweight division’s notable names, in itself suggested a skewed matchup. Still, to think that Carty would seek an easy way out instead of attempting to score what could be his biggest career win looks like a stretch.
But the narrative continued, as another user teased, “That’s one way of getting out of being punched in the face 😂.”
One fan wrote, “Thomas went through the ropes on purpose just so he didn’t have to carry on and Dave get a highlight reel ko on him.” Another added, “Never touched him, Irishman fighting in front of (a) big Irish crowd and bottles it 😳.”
While definitive proof of fixing in heavyweight fights is rare, fighters have in the past faced accusations of taking dives.
One notable instance came in 2015, when Bowie Tupou was accused of taking a dive after his quick knockout loss to Joseph Parker. Tupou was stopped after 69 seconds, prompting some fans to question the result.
The fighter and team later strongly denied the claims, arguing that Parker’s punch landed on the top/back of his head. The incident was described as an unintentional foul, with the team explicitly saying that Parker or his camp did not deliberately foul Tupou.
That precedent, however, does not establish that Carty deliberately went through the ropes to avoid continuing the fight.
It was too early to predict that any such move would have occupied the Irishman’s mind as a means to stop a fight he knew he was going to lose. More significantly, it looks hugely unlikely that any fighter would think of using such tactics on such a significant event, with thousands watching inside the arena and millions across the world.