A bizarre thing happened the other night at the final preliminary round fight between Team Jamaica’s Kevin ‘Bus Boy’ Henry and Prince-Lee Isidore at the 2014 Wray & Nephew Contender Boxing series Welterweight division contest at the Chinese Benevolent Association on Wednesday.

Both fighters came well recommended by their stats for flooring their opponents, and a full house turned up to watch the hard-hitting boxers go at each other. Hylton is the taller of the two at 5′ 6″ and older at age 35 to Isidore, who is aged 28 and stands at 5′ 4. Isidore weighs 145 lbs to Hylton’s 147.

Isidore sports 12 KOs against two losses and a draw to Hylton’s four wins with two KOs and three losses with a reach of 68 to the shorter man’s 70.

Isidore, representing Team Caribbean, chalked up what looked an unassailable points lead in the two opening rounds and was again the aggressor up to one minute of the third round. Then it happened. Thirty-three seconds later it was all over for Isidore. ‘Bus Boy’ Hylton caught Isidore with what appeared to be a short, sharp right flush on the button.

The punch that initially seemed innocuous had its impact. Isidore’s rise from the canvas was groggy, and seeing Isidore’s unsteady gait referee Ian Jardine asked him to raise his hands above his head to test his motor skills. Isidore’s response was unconvincing as he swirled on rubbery legs with glassy eyes.

It was a foregone conclusion when referee Jardine declared that the Team Caribbean representative from Trinidad and Tobago was not in any shape to continue and rightly stopped the contest. He then notified the judges of his findings and the fight was later awarded to Hylton, who booked the final spot to reach the quarter-final stages of the $3-million Welterweight showdown by the TKO route.

The decision by referee Jardine to stop the contest met with furious uproar and boos from a vociferous crowd. Not so much that they were in favour of the Team Caribbean boxer, but the manner in which the fight ended as it appeared to most viewers that Isidore, though receiving a hit in the face, was wrongly pushed to the canvas by Hylton and then counted out.

Hylton thought otherwise. “You can look at the replay I did not push him. He was coming forward on me and I stepped back and him drop. No push no ‘dey dey’. He was coming forward I knock him and then step back.”

“I must give thanks to God. For if it was not the Most High, I would not get the knockout dey,” Hylton emphasised.

Giving his version of what happened, Isidore said: “He caught me with a right hand and then he pushed me down and that’s what happened. I then got back up, but the referee called it off.”