SACRAMENTO — What news outlets reported as a wild shoving match between Oakland police officers and another group at a law enforcement boxing match Friday was really just a verbal showdown between two men, exaggerated in onlookers' perception by the density of the crowd that surrounded them, a fight organizer said Sunday.

As the "Badge vs. Badge" event progressed at the Sacramento Radisson hotel, an Oakland Police officer and an Oakland Housing Authority officer were both beaten in their three-round bouts; so by the time OPD's last man on the card entered the ring, tensions were high between his supporters and others in the crowd, organizer Steve Fosum said.

When Oakland's Casey Johnson lost a three-round fight by decision to Larry "Psycho" Ward, a corrections officer at a prison in Vacaville, that tension peaked as an unidentified off-duty OPD officer got into a sharp argument with one of Ward's supporters, Fosum said.

"No chairs were thrown, though some got pushed out of the way by people trying to stop it," Fosum said. "No punches were thrown. It was not even a shoving match. There was lots of grabbing of shirts, but it was guys who were pulling their own guys away from the argument. You just had a lot of people in one confined area, which made it look like a big riot."

While the incident was "absolutely overblown," off-duty OPD officers in the crowd were instigating Ward and others all night and their refusal to listen to event security prompted a temporary suspension on OPD members attending events organized by International Amateur Boxing, said Fosum, who is also IAB's president.

"I've had fights in crowds before and it took only two seconds to break it up," he said.

"These guys didn't want to talk to anybody. This was for minutes. It doesn't sound like a long time but it is. They were ignoring hotel security, ignoring private security, ignoring all the officials."

Neither Johnson nor Ward were available for comment Sunday. OPD officials said Saturday they would conduct an internal investigation, but had no updates to give Sunday.