The referee Charlie Fitch played a pivotal role in one of what will be 2024’s fights of the year when he rescued Otabek Kholmatov with seven seconds left of his fight with Raymond Ford.

Fitch, an official from upstate New York, made the crucial call to halt the Uzbek, who was up on two scorecards, in the dying embers of a thriller, in which Camden’s Ford captured the vacant WBA featherweight title.

“That was definitely one of the best action fights I’ve been the ref for,” revealed Fitch.

“The way I was looking at the fight, there were a lot of ebbs and flows to it. First of all, it was an honor being in the ring refereeing those two guys. They both displayed tremendous character and I had no idea how the judges had it scored. 

“Sometimes, as the referee, you’ll see things one way, but you’re seeing the overall fight, whereas the judges are seeing each individual round as a fight. How they score it doesn’t roll over from one round to the next, so a lot of times how I see it as a referee is different to how the referee has it. 

“I was looking at it going in to round 11 that the momentum did seem to be going Otabek’s way, at that point in time.”

Both showed championship qualities, with the balance swapping freely from round to round.

“They each had their moments and they both displayed tremendous character because, for me, the amount of punishment they gave one another, you’ve got to be in tremendous physical strength, to have the leg strength to take those punches; they both really landed some heavy leather on one another but walked right through it and were able to come back with their own shots throughout the fight,” said Fitch.

“Then, in the 11th round, Raymond Ford got headbutted and cut, and in the 12th round Ford had him hurt. It wasn’t a knockdown when he had him down, but he definitely had him [Kholmatov] hurt.”

Neither fighter dominated, although both had their successes. The crowd at the Turning Stone in Verona, New York, was going so crazy that few could hear the 10-second clackers sound to signal the fight was nearing its natural conclusion after 12 competitive rounds.

“This fight looked like it was going to go the distance, for sure,” recognized Fitch. “A lot of times with stoppages, you’ll see it in advance, and you’ll think, ‘OK, there’s a good chance this fight will be stopped’, and you kind of prepare for that as a referee. There was none of that in this fight. I didn’t see that at all in this fight. When Otabek went to the canvas, when they got tangled up and he slipped and fell, he was hurt but it wasn’t a knockdown and I still didn’t think, ‘This fight could be stopped’. It still looked to me like it was going the distance. 

“Then, when he [Kholmatov] drifted across the ring and he didn’t have his legs under him at all… I stopped it because of a combination of two things; the way his back turned, he was defenceless really – he wasn’t able to defend himself – combined with Ford throwing vicious punches with very bad intentions. He was looking to knock him out cold, and I think one more punch easily could have done that.

“I did not know how much time was left. There’s a 10-second warning in New York but the crowd was so loud I did not hear that, but I knew it was near the end of the round, probably 30 seconds or less, but I didn’t know it was 10 seconds or less.”

Often with fights that finish in a similar fashion – not many do – many analyze the performance of the referee, but Fitch has largely been applauded for the part he played.

“It’s been really positive feedback, which has been nice,” Fitch said, although he refuses to rank it as the standout moment of his time handling major fights.

“Definitely one of them,” he said, when asked whether it was one of the best he had officiated. “To name one fight as the best is always so hard to do because it all depends on the criteria being used. So, like, the biggest fight in my career that I’m not sure I’ll ever beat is [Carl] Froch-[George] Groves, because of how big that was and the tremendous ending and punch that it had [in front of 80,000 fans in Wembley Stadium]. It will be hard to top that. 

“Then action fights, remember when David Lemieux knocked out Curtis Stevens? For three rounds they just went toe-to-toe, exchanging punches. This was also one of the best fights, and different to that fight. This wasn’t just toe to toe; there was a lot of skill between Raymond Ford and Otabek Kholmatov, so in that way, this was a better fight, because of the ebbs and flows, but I can’t say one fight is the absolute best.”