(JAN 15) – Friday night’s main event at the Isleta Casino, Holm vs Brakache, ended with Holm defending her WBC and IFBA belts via a controversial technical TKO. Referee Rocky Burke, stopped the match in the seventh round, ruling Brakache unable to continue because a small cut caused by a clash of heads from the two fighters. Mariem ‘Punchenella’ Brakache Challenges the Technical TKO Call and Holm to a Rematch.

The initial gush of blood prompted referee Burke to call time for the ringside doc to check the cut. He ‘OKd’ the cut, but not ten seconds later, Burke halted the contest at 1:40 in the seventh round.

By the time that Burke had ruled the fight over, the cut had stopped bleeding, and Brakache was ready to finish the fight. Brakache requested to continue to fight, going to Holm requesting to finish the fight. Holm, said she wanted to finish the fight as she was taking off her gloves – a contradiction to finishing a fight?

Brakache’s strategy was always to knock out Holm versus go the proverbial distance. “Mariem was just getting warmed up,” said Barry Richardson, Brakache’s coach. Frustrated at the referee’s decision to call the fight so suddenly before the doctor could look at the cut, Richardson said, ‘we’ve treated cuts much worse than this one, and the fight continued.”

Burke’s ruling of a technical knockout for Holm, rather than a technical decision, was technically incorrect. A head butt is illegal. “Whether it was a head butt or a punch, I just wanted to protect,” Burke said.

“His decision to stop the fight should have taken into consideration that this was a bout for the Welterweight Championship titles, and a small cut that quit bleeding should not be what determined the outcome of this fight,” says Brakache. “I wanted to continue fighting, and I should have been given the option to continue to fight Holm,” said a frustrated Brakache whose cut was barely visible.

Adding to the frustration of Burke’s call in the Welterweight Championship fight, was the fact that in the curtain-raiser eight rounder bout between Joe Gomez and Rudy Hernandez is allowed to continue to the final bell, even though Hernandez’s forehead looked like a scene out of Frankenstein, and blood was gushing from his left eye. “I don’t understand how the referee could halt the Welterweight Championship fight with a small cut, given that he let the previous fights of the night continue with more significant and vividly evident injuries,” says Brakache.

“The option as to whether to continue the fight should have been considered in the context that this was a Welterweight Championship fight – you don’t stop a Championship fight with a small cut that had just been OKd by the ringside doc,” says Brakache, finding her groove later in the fight.

Women boxing need to be taken more seriously.  Atlanta-based Mariem “Punchenella” Brakache (5-5, 1 KO) is a former IBA Jr Middle Champion, boxing coach, and a renowned personal trainer in the Atlanta area.  By Carolyn O’Brien – Punchenellaproductions Team -Photos provided by Team Brakache