Fists were flying everywhere during a New Year’s Eve boxing match, with one referee being hit multiple times in the face.

Sina Karimian faced off against Rukiya Anpo in the opening bout of the main card for the combat sports event Rizin, part of the “Rizin 49 Decade” event in Saitama, Japan, which included 22 fights in MMA, kickboxing, and boxing.

Although this was the first boxing match for both fighters, they have extensive backgrounds in kickboxing, and in the sixth round, they abandoned traditional boxing rules.

Karimian threw a spinning backfist during the boxing match before the referee immediately stepped in and separated the fighters, while Karimian began celebrating and taunting the crowd after breaking the ruleset.

“Sina, not permitted under these rules, he has broken the ruleset,” a Rizin commentator said after the spinning backfist. “He knows it as well. It was only a matter of time. You know what, I think we can almost take a break here and let Sina be the commentator, he’s talking that much.”

After watching Karimian taunt him, Anpo put together his own combination of strikes, which he completed with a spinning backfist of his own.

Three spinning backfists were thrown in the span of just a few minutes as the referee attempted to regain control of the bout, but to no avail.

The mistake that the referee made was when Anpo threw a spinning backfist of his own, he was unable or was perhaps too slow to separate the two combatants.

After letting them continue, all hell broke loose as Karimian jumped in and began throwing combinations and a second spinning backfist.

The referee jumped in as the two got pushed into the corner and he took a hard left hand across the chin, which snapped his head back and made the intervention even more challenging.

When he made a second attempt at breaking the fight up, he took a hard right cross to the head from Karimian before other security members jumped in.

The fight was scored after the sixth round and Anpo won by unanimous decision.