The only real heavyweight low blow controversy from this past weekend has been addressed head-on by the guilty party.

Kazakhstan’s Zhan Kossobutskiy has openly expressed sorrow for his disgraceful performance in his August 26 disqualification loss to Efe Ajagba. The unbeaten heavyweight was deducted two points in round three and ultimately tossed by referee Chris Flores at 0:33 of round four in their ESPN-televised bout in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was a disappointing U.S. debut for the visiting Kazakh, who mentally folded the moment pressure was applied by Ajagba (18-1, 13KOs) and threw away his unblemished record in the process. While he insisted that Ajagba similarly acted in kind prior to the foul fest, he nevertheless acknowledged his role and the potential cost in landing meaningful fights moving forward.

“I hereby would like to [apologize to the] WBC, the American Boxing Authorizes and whole boxing sport fans all over the world for my non-sporting behavior,” Kossobutskiy said in a statement provided to BoxingScene.com and select other outlets. “I realize that I did not behave like a professional boxer and I took the wrong actions.

“After receiving numerous low-blow-shots by my opponent, I got out of control, lost my professionalism and tried to do vigilantism.”

Kossobutskiy (19-1, 18KOs) was granted a golden opportunity to shine on a day and night dedicated to heavyweight action.

Earlier in the day on ESPN+, Oleksandr Usyk (21-0, 14KOs) defended his WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight belts in a ninth-round knockout of England’s Daniel Dubois in Wroclaw, Poland. There remains an ongoing debate over whether the unbeaten Ukrainian southpaw benefited from what was ruled by referee Luis Pabon as a low blow in round five. A portion of Dubois’ glove landed under Usyk’s beltline to support the judgment call in real time, after which Usyk recovered and proceeded to twice drop and ultimately stop the Brit.

In the main event of the stateside show on which Kossobutskiy appeared, unbeaten contender Jared Anderson (16-0, 15KOs) earned a fifth-round stoppage of Ukraine’s Andriy Rudenko (35-7, 21KO). The opening bout of the undercard saw 2020 Olympic Gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov (13-0, 13KOs) score a first-round knockout of Nigeria’s Onoriode Ehwarieme.

Kossobutskiy was the only favored heavyweight among those four bouts to not only lose but act in such a manner where many viewers called for extensive disciplinary action to be taken.

“I know it had nothing to do with professional boxing and will assure you that such behavior will not be seen from me again in the future,” vowed Kossobutskiy.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox