Steve Mullins bowed out of this year's ABA championship after a controversial points decision at the quarter-final stage in Liverpool.

The Witney light-middleweight, who boxes for the Penhill club in Swindon, made a promising start in his clash with Leicester rival Martin Concepcion.

Steve Mullins, left, connects with a left during his controversial points defeat in the ABA quarter-finals

The Belgrave ABC boxer started to bounce back in the second round, but the Oxfordshire man got behind his jab well during the third and fourth rounds, and looked to have done enough to claim the decision.

But it was Concepcion's arm that was raised after claiming a surprising 12-8 decision.

"I honestly do not believe how they scored that," said the dejected Mullins. "That result really took me by surprise."

Had conventional scoring - where the judges score on a round-by-round basis - been used, the Witney man would undoubtedly have won.

But major boxing championships are now scored on a computerised mechanism, with a point being scored each time three of the five judges press their consoles within the space of a second.