One of the doctors involved in the highly anticipated rematch between boxers Anthony Mundine and Danny Green has slammed the decision to continue the fight after Green was concussed in the first round.
Ringside doctor Lou Lewis said he quit his role mid-fight last Friday night because his opinion was ignored.
In a fight within a fight, the two doctors present disagreed about whether Green was fit to continue after being caught off guard by a Mundine blow.
GIF: Mundine hits Green before breaking the clinch
Despite four decades of ringside experience, Dr Lewis was overruled by Dr John O'Neill and the referee.
"I was saying ... the fight should be stopped, I don't want it to go on ... [but] I didn't want to have a fight in the ring with another doctor," Dr Lewis said.
"I said to the referee: 'Are you stopping the fight?' The referee said 'No' ... [and] I said: 'I'm having nothing more to do with this fight'." Another blow 'could have been fatal'
Other medical experts also have expressed a view the injured boxer was in danger.
"Another serious blow when he's already concussed, it is no exaggeration to say, could have been fatal," Dr Michael Gannon of the Australian Medical Association said.
Green admitted he was concussed after one round but said he had wanted to fight on.
"I'm just going 'let's fight, let's fight, I'm good to go' because that's what you do if you're a warrior," he told the media this week.
"You just do that. You wanna fight, you don't know what the rules are — mate I didn't know if I was Arthur or Martha."
Dr Peter Lewis of the Australasian Ringside Medicine Association also backed the view that the fight should have ended early.
"I'll give you a straight answer, I think I would have called the fight off," he said.
"When you've suffered a blow like that you're concussed so you're not really able to make rational decisions in your own self interest."
Green fought on for nine more rounds and won the bout and a multi-million-dollar prize for his efforts.
