Dave Allen has spoken out after certain fans labelled him a “con man” following his three-round loss to Filip Hrgovic in May.
The defeat, which came seven months after being outpointed by Arslanbek Makhmudov, came suddenly when Allen’s coach Jamie Moore threw in the towel at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster, England.
At the time of the surrender, which was accepted by the referee, Allen was under increasing pressure but still appeared to have his wits about him. He has since accepted that Moore, one of Britain’s finest trainers, acted compassionately.
Allen, 26-9-2 (20 KOs), took the defeat with good grace on the night, but he told Ariel Helwani that he’s received abuse from fans due to the anti-climactic end to the contest.
“First of all, I never made the fight,” Allen explained. “Filip Hrgovic was offered to me. Do you want to box Filip Hrgovic? [I said] What’s the crack? It’s a big ask.”
The money he was offered, which was life-changing, alongside the setting at his local stadium persuaded Allen to go ahead with a bout many observers feared would be a mismatch.
“Of course I’m gonna do it,” said the 34-year-old. “We’re up against it but I trained really hard. I was confident, I was fit, I was ready to go.
“If people think I weren’t good enough, that’s fair. He was a level or two above. I knew that, but I prepared correctly for it.
“I got stopped in the third round [but] the towel should never have gone in.
“My coach [Jamie Moore] is a good coach and friend of mine and we had a conversation about 10 days after the fight. I didn’t watch it back for 10 days.
“At the time, I thought, well, I must have got battered, I must have been missing something. Because I was in there and thought, this is hard work, but I’m not getting hit too clean and I’m not getting hit overly often. I’m riding a lot of [the punches], he’s not particularly hurting me, he’s starting to blow, and I’ve opened up a little cut on his eye.
“I thought, I might not win this but, like the Makhmudov fight, I’m going to hit him back at some point and he’s going to know about it. Then the towel came in.
“When I watched the fight back, I was highly pissed off, I was very, very annoyed. That was my night, I was willing to leave it all in there and I didn’t get the chance to do that. And people said, you’ve ripped us off. No, I never.
“For people that said you ripped us off, said they bought tickets, that sat in the cold [to watch], I understand your frustration but how do you think I feel?”
“I know why [Moore] did it. To save me for another day and I love him for it. But when people are saying, you ruined our night, well, how do you think my fucking night was? It weren’t very good for me either.”
Allen has won one bout since, a four-round decision over Ross McGuigan in June, and he’s scheduled to take on Thomas Carty on September 5 on the undercard of Katie Taylor’s farewell at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland.
Should he fail to beat his 11-1 (9 KOs) opponent then Allen will join Taylor in retirement.
“If I can’t beat Thomas Carty, that’s the end of the road because I’m nowhere near as good as I feel like I was before,” Allen said.
“I’m not saying I was ever a world-beater but at the level I’m about to box at against Thomas Carty, I should be winning.
“If I can’t, I ain’t got it no more.”
