Green: I was fighting purely on balls and instinct

Australian cruiserweight champion Danny Green Machine” Green was critical of referee Frank Garza after Anthony “The Man” Mundine connected with what he ruled an illegal punch in the first 30 seconds of the contest on Friday that rendered Green out on his feet and he was not given the five minute rest to recover which the boxer is entitled to under the rules.

“It was a very, very, very cheap shot,” Green told Karl Langdon of 6PR Radio. “The referee was going to call the fight off and disqualify him and I’ve gone, ‘No, that cannot happen. It’ll be a nightmare, there’ll be riots in the stands, there’ll be riots around the country and there’ll be bodies in the street. It couldn’t happen. I had to hang tough and pull it together and somehow try and keep going.”

“The referee also should have given me five minutes time to recover. When you get a low blow you get five minutes, when you get literally knocked unconscious he didn’t give me a second.

“It was disgraceful from the referee — he was a very poor referee and it was disappointing. It literally could have cost me the fight but I just had to stay in the game.

“…I was severely concussed. I was fighting purely on balls and instinct.”

“He (Garza) took a point off him for literally knocking me unconscious with a blatant foul then gives me a foul when I told the referee that’s what I’m going to do and he agreed with me in the changerooms. Mate, the ref was all over the shop.”