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Andy Lee criticises Luke Jackson’s coach Billy Hussein following “senseless call”


Luke Jackson put up a good fight but had it battered out of him on Saturday night in Belfast.

The game Aussie featherweight was dominated by home favourite Carl Frampton at Windsor Park, being dropped to the body in the eight and eventually dropping his hands in the ninth as ‘The Jackal’ hurt him downstairs again and began raining in a flurry to the head.

The towel was flung in by the Tasmanian’s coach, Billy Hussein, and the Sydney-based trainer has been praised for what has been described as a compassionate decision.

However, Ireland’s former middleweight world champion Andy Lee has revealed that he was far from impressed with Hussein’s conduct in the corner.

Lee was ringside providing radio commentary for BBC and was close to the away corner. He claims that Jackson had asked Hussein to end the fight following the eighth round – only for the trainer to send him out for another round.

The Limerick puncher-turned-pundit was speaking on Newstalk 106FM’s Off The Ball last night and described the worrying scene.

Lee recalled how “I could actually hear [Jackson] in the corner – ‘it was a great shot, I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough, it was a great shot’ – and Billy Hussein, his coach, said to him ‘no, go out on your shield, brother, go out on your shield,’ and sent him out for another round!”

“He was stopped, within 30 or 40 seconds they were throwing in the towel.”

The call from Hussein disgusted Lee who believes that Jackson took unnecessary punishment and that the request for the fight to be stopped should have been honoured.

“It was just a senseless call by a coach,” continued Lee, whose pro career came under the tutelage of Emanuel Steward and Adam Booth.

“I’d like to know if he’d ever fought himself, if he’d ever taken a bodyshot himself.”

“You don’t put a man out like that. When a fighter has signalled that he had enough, that’s enough.”

“Fighters are generally proud men and Jackson strikes me as, in a way, a stereotypical Aussie – tough and proud. He came in talking a good fight and he fought a good fight. For him to say ‘look, I’ve had enough’, that should be enough for any coach say ‘right, call this off’.”

Jackson, who labelled Frampton the hardest hitter he had ever faced, has claimed in the aftermath that he wanted to keep going but his corner made the call – which is contradicted by Lee’s revelations.

READ: Luke Jackson pays tribute to Carl Frampton

Continuing his criticism of a trainer who has looked after Dubliners Tony Senior and Tony Bates, Lee added that “he seemed like a guy that was very aware that the cameras were on him and he was almost putting on a show.”

“It was almost more about him and what he was saying, what he was doing.”

Watch Andy Lee’s extended segment on Off The Ball in full below:

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Joe O'Neill

Reporting on Irish boxing the past five years. Work has appeared on irish-boxing.com, Boxing News, the42.ie, and local and national media. Provide live ringside updates, occasional interviews, and special features on the future of Irish boxing. email: joneill6@tcd.ie

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