Teremoana Teremoana Jnr is adamant he won the first round and applauded his super heavyweight rival for "running like a cat" after the Australian boxing hope fell short of a historic medal.
Uzbekistan's defending Olympic champion Bakhodir Jalolov won the much-hyped quarter-final in Paris on Friday on all five judge's cards.
The Australian was adamant he'd at least taken the first round, in which four judges gave the points to Jalolov, who appeared on the back foot and barely landed a blow.
Unbeaten in six years, Jalolov pipped Teremoana 3-2 in a second round in which the Australian landed two clean, late head shots.
That left the bout evenly posed ahead of the final, three-minute stanza but the Uzbek champion had more gas in the tank in a comprehensive 5-0 round.
The loss left Teremoana short of what would have been only Australia's seventh Olympic boxing medal - and first in the division - given there are no bronze-medal bouts at the Games.
"Good on him for having a good game plan and running like a cat," Teremoana said of the first round exchanges.
"I don't know what the judges were watching, to be honest.
"You can never be robbed; it's just the game, you've got to take it into your own hands.
"I thought I did, but oh well. My saying going into the Games was 'Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be'."
Teremoana had talked up the revenge match, unbeaten since losing to the Uzbeki in Tashkent's world championships last year.
They touched gloves and the challenger said: "you're time's up".
"That's the first time I haven't back up my word," Teremoana said.
"He was a little bit upset but at the end of the day he won."
Australia's boxing coach Santiago Nieva agreed his fighter had won the first round.
"How could he win the round, based on what criteria?," he said.
"I think we also won the second round but okay, that's close."
Proud of his grandfather's Cook Islands roots, Teremoana said his goal in Paris was to show it was possible.
"My whole thing being here is to prove we can do it ... be the best in the world," he said.
"For someone (like me) to come out of nowhere and put on a show, give him a hard time, that's a testament.
"Give me a bit more time and I'm going to take him out."
Tina Rahimi, the first female Muslim boxer to represent Australia at the Olympics, was well beaten in her 57kg round-of-16 clash by Poland's Julia Szeremeta.
The Sydney product wore her hijab under headgear at the Paris Nord Arena, thn tearfully labelled the French move to prevents their country's athletes from participating at the Olympics in religious head scarfs as "discrimination".
"I'm speechless," she said of her loss.
"I really, really saw myself standing on the podium. I just knew I was going to prove so many people wrong.
"I was so confident that I would win. I'm in complete shock.
It leaves Charlie Senior and Caitlin Parker as the two surviving Australians of a 12-strong squad, the pair to fight quarter-finals on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
