Hughie Fury's failed bid to wrest the WBO heavyweight title from Joseph Parker in Manchester on Saturday night paled in comparison to the extraordinary allegations levelled by his team in the wake of the majority points defeat.
Fury's promoter Mick Hennessy accused "dark forces" of conspiring against Fury, the cousin of former world champion Tyson, after two of the ringside judges scored 118-110 in favour of the New Zealander, with a third scoring a 114-114 draw.
Hennessy promised a bid to "protest and overturn" the result, insisting Fury's back-foot performance, which most neutral observers agreed had not quite been enough to take the title in a poor fight, had offered "shades of Ali".
It ended another bizarre boxing night even by the standards of the WBO heavyweight title, which has been contested in such fistic hotbeds as the Norwich Sports Village, and which once famously allowed a fighter to be plucked from the audience to take on Tommy Morrison in 1993.
Hennessy insisted: "We will put in an appeal and protest this as strongly as we can. A rematch has to be a worst-case scenario - we want to get this overturned.
"I thought it was a masterclass (by Fury). I thought he wiped the floor with him. He was gliding round the ring hitting him with jabs at will - it was shades of Ali the way he was moving.
"There's something going on. To me it is corruption at the highest level in boxing. I'm telling you now there are dark forces at work in boxing."
In normal circumstances the performance by the 23-year-old Fury, who had not fought in 17 months due to the effects of a debilitating skin condition, would have been lauded as one offering much promise for the future.
He started cleverly on the back foot and certainly exposed the credentials of the one-dimensional Parker, who hoped to use the occasion to muscle in on major heavyweight bouts on this side of the Atlantic.
But by the middle rounds it was becoming clear that for all Fury's elusiveness he was simply not landing enough on the champion, whose own spurts of activity were marginally more direct and conclusive.
Fury's camp had good reason to question the margin of Parker's victory on two of the judges' cards, but it was hard to give credence to their claim that Hughie should have joined cousin Tyson as a world heavyweight champion.
Fury's father and trainer Peter Fury echoed Hennessy's insistence that his son had been the victim of a major injustice.
Fury Snr said: "I thought the scorecards were ridiculous. I had Hughie at least four rounds ahead because Parker was swinging and missing.
"Hughie has had a very bad decision. My son is sitting there and should be crowned the world champion today all because of political influence."
Source: PA
