Female referee shrugs off wild, swinging punch from super-heavyweight boxer at Commonwealth Games

Cameroon’s Maxime Njieyo was fortunate not to end up in the centre of a viral storm following his fight at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Sunday.

The super-heavyweight boxer accidentally landed a wild punch on Paola Falorni - the referee of his fight with India’s Sagar Ahlawat - and can count himself lucky that she took the punch remarkably well.

The incident took place during the last-16 contest in the biggest weight division available.

While in professional boxing the top two divisions are cruiserweight and then heavyweight, amateur boxing names them heavyweight and super-heavyweight respectively.

As a result, there were a lot of powerful punches exchanged between the two fighters.

However, it was never part of the plan for the referee to be on the end of one of them.

At one point in the bout, Falorni stepped in to break the boxers up while they were clinching.

Out of frustration with the bout seemingly not going his way, Njieyo hurled a huge left hook to try and catch Ahlawat on the break.

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Ahlawat successfully backed out and the punch missed him completely.

Instead, it flew through the air and landed on the side of the face of Falorni.

Thankfully, it did not catch her completely clean, though it was clear from her reaction that she undoubtedly felt the force of the blow.

Regardless, she did not go down and instead stood there gesturing to Njieyo about his reckless punch.

He instantly apologised for his mistake by bowing to her.

She appeared to accept his apology and the fight resumed.

In the end, Ahlawat won by unanimous decision and progressed to the quarter-finals of the Commonwealth Games.

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