Can't make my mind up about the stoppage, I do think IJL pannicked though, which is weird because he didn't seem to worry when Vitali Klitschko was giving Shannon Briggs a huge beating
Another shite British stoppage. Ian John Lewis is ****ing awful and premature stoppages like this are ruining British boxing
How anyone can say thats a good stoppage I just do not know. Theres one thing seeing a shitty stoppage in a fight where a journeyman has no chance of winning... Theres quite another stopping a guy in an important fight like this where he's clearly edging back into it, if not ahead, and had already been hurt previously and recovered. The guy was on his feet, and solid. Should have let it go and see what happened if Corley followed it up, now we have the 'what if' questions. Even Corley thought it was shite. Our refs are embarrassing the sport.
Reminder that Jim Watt literally raged and cried robbery when a fight he gave to Martin Murray by one(1) round was declared a draw.
I missed bits of the fight because made the mistake of watching it in the pub.To be honest I thought McCloskey was on a loser and was ready to be stopped pretty early on.I had no comentry to listen to and thought it looked fair enough.McCloskey looked out of sorts and unlike in the Prescot fight he was not getting into it at all as it went on.He will be gutted but can come back from it.
He was allover the shop for **** sake, a stiff fart would have floored him after corley caught him with that shot,just a shame he wasn't actually starched properly, dislike the little **** immensely. And ofcourse Corley thought it was ****, he wanted to knock him the **** out. And he would have if the ref had let it continue.
I don't understand it whenever someone says "he would have been stopped in ___ seconds anyway". Stop a fight when it deserves to be stopped, not because you think it will deserve to be stopped in a few seconds. A fighter deserves the chance to defend himself and if he gets hit unanswered a couple of times, so be it, stop it then. We're far too overprotective. I'm not saying it would have, but McCloskey could have held on, escaped the round and then gone on to win the fight. We simply don't know but the fighter deserves the chance to show what he has left. A referees job isn't just to protect the fighter. That's not their sole job. They're also there to ensure it's a fair fight and also to make sure the fans get entertained. The referee is certainly protecting the boxer but I don't think the other two are even being considered when you have an early stoppage. Our bad stoppages are infamous around the world. They're an embarrassment. How many truly great fights would have been allowed to happen with one of our pathetic refs? Castillo/Corrales? No. Gatti/Ward? No. Zale/Graziano? No. Bowe/Holyfield? No. You can go on and on with this but the point is simple: Our referees are overprotective and not only is it unfair to the fans, the fighters are also being punished by bad officiating.
McCloskey tweeted earlier he lost and had no excuses. Appears he doesn't see it as that bad a stoppage.
Michael Watson's shadow will always cast itself over Brit referees. The fear of letting someone get serious injury must go through their minds every fight. They don't want to be the ref who 'let that guy get killed/injured'. We criticise IJL for stopping this fight, but have a go when he let Vitali-Briggs continue. In honesty, is there a perfect ref TKO stoppage? It is split second judgement.
His face looked like a used sanitary towel and he was on shaky legs, that punch nearly took his head off and he clearly didn't want it despite having a whinge ( Made no fuss atall when sat in his corner ). Ref made the right choice stopping it IMO, no point in letting the poor lad get sparked infront of his fans/risk further injury.
When McCloskey turned to jelly, Corley didn't take advantage and steam into him. It seems to me the ref jumped in when McCloskey had returned to earth.