Unfortunately, No One Thought to Make Note of the Punchline

Dave Hilton of Canada beat Steve Langley of the United States on Friday night in an unusual junior middleweight fight.

Referee Tony Crivello stopped the fight at 2:31 of the eighth round and declared Hilton the winner. The decision angered Langley, as well as the crowd of about 1,500, and brought to an end the behavior that had prevailed at Verdun Auditorium.

After one flurry by Hilton, Langley began clowning around in the ring and actually started laughing. The jocularity proved contagious, and soon spread to Hilton, the referee and the crowd.

That all changed once Crivello halted the fight.

“I could have gone to the 10th round,” said Langley, his face bloodied for the last four rounds. “I had him. He was tiring, he’s out of shape.”

Hilton wasn’t happy with the decision to stop the fight, either.

“I’d planned to go the distance,” he said. “I wanted to test my endurance. My timing is coming back and my jab was better than it’s been in a long time.”