Boxing Round of the Day: Round 7 of Golota vs. Bowe 1 Ends in a Riot

This week 15 years ago, one of the ugliest scenes in U.S. sports history erupted after Andrew Golota was disqualified for continuously landing low blows on opponent Riddick Bowe during the seventh round of their bout at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York.

The fight was a highly anticipated fight at the time, pitting Riddick Bowe (38-1-1 NC at the time of the fight)—who was coming off a victory in a rubber match against Evander Holyfield—against Polish upstart Andrew Golota (28-0 at the time of the fight) in his first major fight of his career.

As the fight started, Bowe came in out of shape and clearly had no respect for Golota and was fighting with no regard to his opponent's power. Bowe was losing the fight on the scorecards through six rounds.

Golota was warned several times to keep his punches up throughout the fight until finally the referee, Wayne Kelly, deducted a point form Golota two separate times before the seventh round. After yet another point was deducted in the seventh round, Golota was told if he landed one more low blow he was going to stop the fight.

At the end of Round 7 of the fight, Golota again was winning the round and then, for no reason at all, landed another low blow, which resulted in the referee Kelly calling the fight.

After the stoppage, members from Bowe's crew rushed the ring and one of Bowe's corner men attacked Golota with a walkie-talkie, causing a huge gash on Golota's head which took 11 stitches to close and causing all hell to break loose in-and-out of the ring and was named Ring Magazine's Event of the Year in 1996.

A riot, which lasted for several minutes, took Madison Square Garden by storm, giving the city of New York and the sport of boxing a huge black eye at the time.

A rematch was set up vs. Bowe and Golota, and lo and behold, the fight was yet again stopped due to low blows landed by Golota.