Last year, Anna Adams, a reporter for BBC’s “Newsnight,” spoke with Ivan Khodabakhsh, the C.E.O. of the World Series of Boxing. They sat facing each other, in front of a wall of promotional posters that said, “The Dream Place for Boxers,” but this was not, it turned out, a promotional interview. Khodabakhsh’s league is an initiative of the International Boxing Association, which also controls boxing in the Olympics. Adams was investigating allegations that the association, which is known as AIBA (the group has dropped “Amateur” from its name without dropping the extra “A” from its acronym), had conspired to fix the Olympics.

“You promised Azerbaijan two gold medals at London 2012 in exchange for ten million dollars,” she said.

Khodabakhsh’s indignant response was a classic of the form. “First of all, no comment,” he said. “Secondly, absolutely a lie.”

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In September, the BBC broadcast and posted its investigation, which alleged that an “anonymous investor” from Azerbaijan had given nine million dollars to the W.S.B., in exchange for Olympic guarantees. The report included an explosive quote from an anonymous source whom the BBC described as an “insider”:

Ivan boasted to a few of us that there was no need to worry about World Series Boxing having the coin to pay its bills. As long as the Azeris got their medals, the W.S.B. would have the cash.

In response, AIBA conceded that it had, in fact, accepted a loan from a Swiss company which “originated from an Azerbaijani investor.” But the association firmly rejected the implication of corruption: “Any suggestion that the loan was made in return for promises of gold medals at the 2012 Olympics is preposterous and utterly untrue.”

Boxing is, as its fans might gently put it, a complicated sport, which explains why the fallout from the BBC investigation was minimal. (An AIBA report cleared AIBA of any wrongdoing.) The next month, AIBA continued, as scheduled, with its championship tournament, which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the super-heavyweight final, Magomedrasul Medzhidov, from Azerbaijan, won a close (and, in some quarters, disputed) comeback decision against Anthony Joshua, a young Briton. Above the ring, Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, applauded, and accepted a congratulatory handshake from Ching-Kuo Wu, the president of AIBA.

By the time the London Games began, Azerbaijan was no longer a hot topic among boxing fans. That changed yesterday during the third round of a fight between Satoshi Shimizu, from Japan, and Magomed Abdulhamidov, from Azerbaijan. With just over a minute left, Shimizu started coming on, and Abdulhamidov began to wilt. As Shimizu chased Abdulhamidov back into the ropes, Abdulhamidov waved his right hand in the air, and the referee stopped the action to make an imperceptible adjustment to Abdulhamidov’s headgear. After another battery of punches, Abdulhamidov crumpled forward onto his knees; instead of ruling a knockdown, the referee merely asked him to stand up, and then let the fighting continue. This happened four more times in the fight’s final minute: Shimizu would beat Abdulhamidov down into the canvas, the referee would ask Abdulhamidov to stand up, and the fight would continue.

Bob Papa, NBC’s relatively calm play-by-play announcer, was incensed. “This referee never administered an eight-count for an injured boxer. He should be eliminated from the Olympics.”

Teddy Atlas, NBC’s absolutely un-calm color commentator, concurred: “Immediately!”

Then came the decision: Abdulhamidov seemed barely conscious, but the judges deemed him to have dominated the final round, and they named him the winner. “That’s what the referee wanted to do,” Atlas shouted. “He wanted to save that fighter!”

The announcers’ outrage was widely shared: the Japanese team filed a complaint, and connoisseurs of boxing scandals immediately set about comparing this travesty to the ones that came before (like the robbery of Roy Jones, Jr., at the 1988 Olympics)—and, for that matter the one that came after. In the next fight, an Iranian boxer, Ali Mazaheri, was disqualified, after a puzzling flurry of warnings.

All of this was too blatant to be ignored: last night, AIBA overturned the result of the Abdulhamidov fight and declared Shimizu the winner. Today, AIBA announced that the referee who ignored the knockdowns— Ishanguly Meretnyyazov, from Turkmenistan—was expelled, and already “on his way home.” It also suspended Frank Scharmach, the referee in the Mazaheri fight, for five days, although Mazaheri’s disqualification was not overturned. And, for good measure, AIBA announced the expulsion of a technical official from Azerbaijan, Aghajan Abiyev, whom it accused of committing unnamed “breaches of the AIBA code of conduct.”

Boxing fans, being just about unshockable, are unlikely to be unduly upset by any of this. And Olympics fans, being much more interested, judging from the NBC coverage, in synchronized diving, are unlikely to care. Even the boxing boosters of Azerbaijan, so energetic and resourceful in support of their athletes, need not despair. Five boxers from Azerbaijan have been eliminated from the 2012 Olympics—and, amid more mysterious circumstances, so has one technical official. But three remain. Here’s wishing them good luck, whether or not they need it.

See our full coverage of the Games at The Olympic Scene.

Photograph by Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images.