A referee is facing a storm of criticism after twice ignoring a corner’s thrown towel during a heavyweight bout at The O2 on Saturday night — allowing a beaten fighter to take further punishment before the contest was finally stopped.
Amy Pu was the official for Adam Olaniyan’s clash with Dan Garber on the undercard of Daniel Dubois’s rematch with Fabio Wardley at the Greenwich arena. Olaniyan stopped Garber at 1:15 of the second round, but the ending has been overshadowed by what happened in the moments before.
Two towels ignored
Olaniyan, a 21-year-old heavyweight prospect, had already dropped Garber with a heavy body shot in the opening round. With the Briton in trouble, his corner threw in the towel — and when Pu did not notice it, they threw in a second one. Olaniyan himself tapped the referee on the shoulder to draw her attention to it.
Instead of stopping the contest, Pu walked across the ring and kicked both towels out. Garber, who had been given a count and beaten it, was sent back out for the second round.
Early in the second, Olaniyan floored Garber again with a heavy right hand. The towel came in once more from the corner. Again it was ignored — and Olaniyan landed another brutal shot before Pu finally waved the fight off as Garber dragged himself upright.
Backlash from ringside and beyond
The footage spread quickly online, with fans calling it one of the worst pieces of refereeing they had seen. Ringside reporter Danny Gilfillan wrote that Garber was receiving oxygen afterwards, adding: “Rules should be changed to make the towel coming in an automatic fight ended.”
One widely shared post on X called Pu “the worst referee in boxing” and said she “must be removed from the sport”. Others pointed out that a towel thrown from the corner is boxing’s clearest possible signal that a fighter’s own team believes he should not continue.
The incident has reignited a long-running debate about whether a thrown towel should end a fight automatically. Under current British Boxing Board of Control rules, the referee retains discretion — the towel is treated as advice from the corner, not a binding instruction. Critics argue that leaves too much room for exactly the kind of scenes witnessed at The O2, where a fighter’s own team had clearly decided enough was enough.
There was no immediate comment from the referee or the Board in the aftermath, though the footage — viewed hundreds of thousands of times overnight — has ensured the controversy will follow Pu into her next assignment.
Garber, 14-10, has now been stopped seven times since November 2023 — including a first-round defeat to Moses Itauma in 2024. Olaniyan moves to 5-0 with five knockouts, every one of his professional wins coming inside two rounds.
A dramatic night at The O2
The controversy came on a card headlined by Dubois’s brutal second-round stoppage of Wardley, in which the champion retained his WBO heavyweight title. Dubois floored Wardley after just 17 seconds and finished the job at 2:21 of round two, as Wardley’s trainer Ben Davison threw in the towel and referee Steve Gray waved it off.
Elsewhere on the bill, Louie O’Doherty kept his British and Commonwealth lightweight titles with a controversial majority draw against Michael Gomez Jr — two judges scoring it 114-114 — while two-time Olympic gold medallist Bakhodir Jalolov outpointed Solomon Dacres over ten rounds.
It was a busy weekend for London sport, with Chelsea also winning 2-0 at Everton on Saturday. But it is the scenes in the Olaniyan-Garber fight that have lingered longest — and the questions for the officials involved are unlikely to go away quickly.
Fans heading to Greenwich for future events can find current ticket information for the Tower of London and details of Neasden Temple’s Diwali fireworks display elsewhere on London Streets.
