The boxer, who has previously been a world champion at two weights, fell to a man who had only been chosen at the last minute to fill in for the planned contender who fell ill.
The contest was a British event called Prizefighter in which eight boxers battle each other for a £32,000 ($50,000) purse in the light-middleweight division. The bouts are three three-minute rounds, which means there isn’t much time to get up to speed. That may have been Takaloo’s undoing. Commentators said he did better as the bout advanced and might have won if the bouts weren’t so short.
Takaloo, 35, was one of the favorites to win, but sank on a very close points decision in the first bout.
He was paired with reserve fighter Robert Lloyd-Taylor, who was only fighting because the original competitor, JJ Bird, fainted in the dressing rooms before the night had even begun.
A close-fought contest had the judges split at the end of the three rounds with little to separate the pair. Both had thrown and landed an almost identical number of punches. One judge gave Takaloo the win 29-28 but his fellow two judges disagreed, favoring Lloyd-Taylor.
“I thought I had won the fight, but it’s one of those things,” said Takaloo, who left Iran as a pre-schooler at the time of the revolution.
Lloyd-Taylor went on to win the Prizefighter competition. After Takaloo, he was the most experience fighter in the competition.
The defeat could finally end Takaloo’s career. “I need to get home and have a think,” he said.
Takaloo turns 36 today, which is quite old for a fighter. But Takaloo says he just likes to fight-and to train, which is unusual. “When training gets hard and I can’t get out of bed, then I’ll know it’s time to stop. I don’t box for money. I box to be a champion. I don’t need the money, but I love winning and love competing.”
His professional record to date is 34 fights with 26 wins, 17 of them by knockouts. He won titles in the World Boxing Union, which is one of the lesser of numerous competing bodies that rank boxers. He held the WBU light middleweight title in 2001-02, lost it and then won it back and held it in 2003-04 before losing it again. He then downsized to the welterweight division and won the WBU title in 2006-07. Until a few weeks ago, he had not fought since 2008.