HE MAY have been capable of beating his opponent, but he had no chance of beating the referee. Robin Reid failed in his attempt to win the WBA and IBF super-middleweight titles from Sven Ottke, the long-reigning champion, in Nuremberg on Saturday night, but the handling of the bout by Roger Tillerman, the referee, left the former WBC champion from Runcorn fuming with indignity.

Reid lost by a unanimous decision, which looked dubious enough after he had dominated the first part of the bout and the last couple of rounds. However, the contest really swung in the sixth round, when Reid had what appeared to be a genuine knockdown ruled out and then had a point deducted for illegal use of the head, something of which the German had appeared more guilty.

“When you have a referee like that you have no chance; at one point he was even warning me for hitting him,” Reid said. “I still think I won clearly, because Ottke wasn’t doing anything. Rules are rules but they just don’t seem to matter over here; he wins if he survives.”

Ottke is now likely to retire, which would at least give Reid a shot at one of the vacant titles. As for the debate over who is the better, Ottke or Joe Calzaghe, Reid has no doubt. “Ottke isn’t a patch on Joe,” he said.

Audley Harrison continued to show how far he has improved with a three-round stoppage of Brian Nix, in Laughlin, Nevada, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Harrison, the Olympic super-heavyweight champion, stayed behind his southpaw jab in the first two rounds but opened up in the third, dumping Nix on the canvas after landing three left uppercuts.

However, Harrison’s hopes of challenging for titles at home next year could be frustrated by the news that Danny Williams, the British and Commonwealth champion, has left the BBC’s stable of boxers and signed with Frank Warren, whose shows are broadcast on Sky.

Twenty-five years after his father, Leon, had beaten Muhammad Ali in one of the heavyweight upsets of all time, Cory Spinks became undisputed world welterweight champion, defying the odds to outscore Ricardo Mayorga in Atlantic City.