Jermaine Franklin let rip at referee Marcus McDonnell for missing ‘blatant’ fouls during his fight with former WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua.
The American fell short in his second consecutive UK fight when he suffered a unanimous decision defeat against Joshua at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday night.
Franklin earned a fight with the former two-time heavyweight champion by pushing Dillian Whyte to the brink of defeat when they fought to a contentious majority decision last November.
After being frustrated by the judges during his first trip to Britain, the 21-2 boxer was not pleased with how he was treated by McDonnell during the fight.
Franklin told IFL TV: “Honestly, he was p***ing me off. That’s kind of the reason I was getting frustrated because I’m like ‘Some of this s*** is blatant.’
Frankling was annoyed by the fact Joshua was tying him up in the clinch and his multiple indiscretions were being ignored by the referee.
He added: “You could blatantly see it. I was getting collar tied, stiff-armed and it was p***ing me off because the ref was on the side that it was happening on sometimes.
“I don’t know if you guys could see but a couple of times I just didn’t even try to wrestle, I just lifted my arms and started looking at the referee.
“Like, ‘Come on now. I’m sitting here complaining about this, you’re not saying nothing, you’re watching him doing it, and when I do say something you say you don’t see it but tell me that I’m getting grabbed because I’m slipping inside.’
“That doesn’t give him the right to grab me, he’s supposed to back up or reposition himself. So, I let the ref frustrate me and take me off my gameplan – it was like I was fighting two people in there.”