By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Australia’s Bill “The Kid” Dib has won the WBO Asia Pacific featherweight interim title with a controversial first round stoppage of Japan ’s Kenichi Yamaguchi that sparked ugly scenes at Luna Park in Sydney.
Yamaguchi dropped Dib almost midway in the opening round but Dibb who is ranked No. 11 by the IBF recovered to drop Yamaguchi in the final second of the round and then hit the Japanese fighter who was down with what some ringside spectators said was a hard punch.
An angry Yamaguchi pushed referee Les Fear while Dibb himself engaged in a shoving match with people who entered the ring. Dibb tried to explain his actions in hitting the Japanese fighter when he was down by saying “the shot was in the moment. Things like that happen.”
Referee Fear stopped the fight because although Yamaguchi beat the count he appeared to be wobbly although the referee failed to consider Dibb’s action throwing a punch at the Japanese fighter when he was down or the fact that there was only one second remaining in the round.
The 23 year old Dibb improved to 23-1 with 12 knockouts while the 29 year old Yamaguchi dropped to 15-2-2 with 4 knockouts.
Dibb had lost to WBO featherweight champion Steven Luevano by a unanimous twelve round decision last October b18, 2008 but came back to win the WBC Youth Interim title with an 8th round technical decision over previously undefeated Davey Browne last March 11.