Thomas Carty's Manager Blasts David Allen After No Contest Ruling

Thomas Carty’s manager has launched a fierce attack on David Allen and the officials after the heavyweight’s bizarre tumble through the ropes at Croke Park was ruled a no contest rather than a disqualification.

The Irishman had barely started the biggest night of his career, on the undercard of Katie Taylor’s farewell, when it all unravelled in the opening round.

“Blatant” foul and a career night ruined

Carty had started sharply, his jab snapping Allen’s head back and marking up the Englishman’s face almost immediately. Then the chaos came.

Under pressure, Allen appeared to respond with two blows that Carty’s manager Mike Ofo insists crossed a clear line. The second, a shot to the back of the head, sent Carty sprawling clean through the ropes and out of the ring.

He couldn’t continue. The referee called it a no contest.

For Ofo, that call is indefensible.

“What happened was plain for all to see,” he told Sky Sports, accusing Allen of “blatantly fouling him twice in quick succession” in response to Carty’s early success. The second shot, described by Ofo as an “illegal rabbit punch to the back of Thomas’ head,” is, in his view, decisive.

“There is only one outcome under the rules of boxing in those circumstances – a DQ loss for Allen.”

The sense of loss for Carty runs deeper than a single result. This was meant to be the statement performance, the crowning moment so far of a career rebuilt after misfortune. Instead, he left the home of Irish sport stunned and “gutted” by what his team see as a freakish and avoidable ending.

Allen’s defence: “I’m not aiming for the back of anyone’s head”

Allen, speaking on his YouTube channel, offered a very different reading of the incident.

He walked through the sequence punch by punch. A left hook to the body, a clip to the head. Carty firing back with a combination, an uppercut that snapped Allen’s head back. Then, Allen says, Carty grabbed at him.

“I’m not aiming for the back of anyone’s head ever,” Allen said, explaining that he targets around the ear and insisting the decisive blow was not a heavy shot. In his version, Carty turned his head into the punch, causing it to land behind the head.

“It’s gone round the back of the head,” Allen said. “From there on, I don’t know. It’s not for me to say what’s happened.”

Allen added that, had the same sequence played out in the middle of the ring, he believed the referee would have counted and he would have won by stoppage.

He also stressed he holds no ill will towards Carty, calling him “a good guy.”

“Gaslighting” and a call for the BUI to step in

Ofo is having none of it.

He dismissed Allen’s explanation as “trying to set a narrative” and accused him of “gaslighting” in the aftermath. From the Carty camp’s perspective, this wasn’t a grey area or a marginal call. It was a clear foul, twice, and a clear disqualification that never came.

Behind the anger lies a conviction that Carty was on course to take over the fight.

Thomas and his team, Ofo said, were “all confident that he would have stopped Allen in the later rounds,” pointing directly at what he described as “the terrible shape Allen turned up in.” The manager even took a swipe at Allen’s famous moniker, saying he should change his nickname from “The White Rhino” to “The White Hippo.”

The next move, as Ofo sees it, belongs to the Boxing Union of Ireland. He wants the referee’s decision reviewed and overturned.

“Once the BUI have reconsidered the referee’s decision and done the right thing,” he said, “we will happily give Allen a rematch and they can settle it once and for all – hopefully inside the ring this time!”

Carty’s cruel luck and the rematch he wants

For Carty, this is another brutal twist in a career already touched by misfortune. His only professional defeat came last year, when a freak knee injury wrecked a fight he had targeted as a springboard.

Now, in front of a huge Croke Park crowd, with the stage set for his 12th professional win, he found himself out of the ring and out of the contest before the bout had even begun to breathe.

He wants Allen again. So does his manager. They believe a rematch, with clean officiating and a full set of rounds, ends with Allen stopped and Carty finally getting the statement win that keeps slipping from his grasp.

Allen, for now, has declined to respond to Ofo’s latest comments.

The tape will be watched, the arguments will continue, and the BUI may yet be asked to make a call that stretches beyond one night in Dublin. Was this just messy heavyweight chaos on a big stage, or a clear-cut foul that cost an Irish fighter the defining victory he has been chasing?