But trainer says referee call was a mistake

DEARBORN — Deep in his heart, Brian Mihtar knew the day would come. He knew not only that he would lose his first professional fight, but he also knew that one day he would be on the wrong end of a questionable decision by the judges.

That’s why Mihtar, a Dearborn boxer who traveled to Florida to take a step up in competition, has always had the philosophy of knocking his opponent out and not leaving things up to the judges.

Mihtar almost pulled that off in his fight with Tampa boxer Chris Grays in Grays’ backyard at the St. Pete-Times Forum, but a questionable ruling cost him a chance to win the fight and Mihtar ended up losing as all three judges scored the fight 58-56 in favor of Grays. Mihtar fell to 9-1 in his professional career while Grays, nicknamed “The Dream Shatterer” for his penchant for beating up-and-comers, went to 7-7 for his career.

“We were robbed,” said Ray Mihtar, Brian’s brother and trainer. The biggest source of Ray Mihtar’s issue with the judges is a sequence of events that occurred in the first round.

Grays had never even been knocked down in his pro career according to Ray Mihtar, but Brian Mihtar caught him with a left hook to the head late in the first round that caused Grays to lose his balance and begin to fall.

What Grays did next was the difference in the fight, and it didn’t sit well with the Mihtar camp.

“He was off his feet, his hands were in the, air he didn’t know what to do. As he was falling he grabbed my legs tight and tackled me,” said Brian Mihtar. “I jumped back up and he was barely gaining his composure. The ref said no knockdown but that was the end of the round.”

If Mihtar had gotten that knockdown he would have at least gotten a draw on the scorecard, but it was ruled a slip by Mihtar according to the refs.

For the rest of the fight, Ray Mihtar thought Grays won the second round but Brian Mihtar won the rest of the fight.

“After that Brian put on the most unbelievable clinic I’ve seen in my life, body shots, jabs, hard hits, you name it,” said Ray Mihtar about the rest of the fight.

At the end of the fight, Grays and his trainer both came over and congratulated the Mihtar camp, thinking Mihtar would win. Grays’ trainer even said as much.

But when the final decision was rendered, the Mihtars and Brian’s trainer Buddy McGirt, the 2002 Boxing Writers Association Trainer of the Year award winner, were all stunned.

The hometown fans cheered, but Ray Mihtar was beside himself. He went around to the writers and other neutral observers ringside and asked for their opinions on who they thought won the fight, and none of them said Grays had won.

Mihtar went to McGirt, a former world champion, afterward and asked him the same thing.

“Your brother got robbed, what’s the matter with you?” he replied.

When asked if his camp would file a protest, Ray Mihtar said he didn’t think it would help much.

“There’s no protest to file, once the decision is rendered, it’s final,” he said. “Boxing is boxing, we were dealt a bad decision and we’ll deal with it. We don’t cry but we’ll call it like it is. Brian won the fight hands down.”

Ray Mihtar said he was wary of taking the fight in the first place, and had a feeling something like this could take place.

“We fought a fighter that was a lot tougher than his record indicated. He’s a cagey fighter,” he said. “They said don’t fight him because he’s a genuinely nice guy and the judges love him. He and the judges are very close, they literally have his phone number and they call him for charity events and everything. We ignored all that. We said we’re not worried about it, we’ll go ahead and take the fight.”

Former light heavyweight champion Glenn Johnson also told Ray Mihtar before the fight that the “Florida judges are funny,” as he was dealt a similar tough-luck decision loss earlier in his career.

Now, Brian Mihtar knows how Johnson feels. But he insisted he will get back to training and fighting right away and thanked the Dearborn community for their support.

“It’s a part of boxing, I knew it would happen somewhere down the line but I didn’t think it would happen this soon,” said Brian Mihtar.

“Brian told me he would rather have been knocked out than to have lost the way he did, at least then he would have known that he had lost fairly,” said Ray Mihtar. “He was pretty depressed about it.”

Brian Mihtar has another fight tentatively scheduled in Las Vegas for May 17th and he also might come back to Michigan for a fight on April 24th.