Holmes certainly wasn't ready for it to end. Yes, it was a premature stoppage. Snipes had nearly two minutes left to go in that round, and was wearing down anyways, but Rudy Ortega was wrong to stop it when he did. Snipes was given less of a chance than Lyle was against Ali, or Marvis Frazier and Leon Spinks got against Larry. In his post fight interview with Cosell, a very pissed off Snipes yelled, "Why wasn't it stopped when I knocked him down?" Maybe if Renaldo had immediately run to a neutral corner, instead of stupidly standing over Larry with his arms upraised, then Ortega's back might not have been turned to escort Snipes to a neutral corner when Larry got up, only to stumble face first into the nearest corner. If Rudy had seen that, then maybe he would have stopped it in Renaldo's favor. The bottom line is that Snipes didn't respect the title enough to deserve it, as witnessed by his self-destructive showboating. Whatever Holmes said about his challengers, inside the ring he treated them with respect, and generally fought his championship matches as if he was the one challenging.
Yeah it was stopped a bit too soon, but Snipes was definitely on his way to getting stopped. Smith was stopped on a cut.
I can never criticize a ref for stopping a fight too early. But that said Holmes has a lot to thank Ortega for, to get though the seventh.
Perhaps, but as I suggested in a previous post, he probably has more to thank the immature Snipes for.
The most extraordinarly detailed description of when to stop a fight I ever encountered was Stanley Christodoulu's fascinatingly well articulated account of why he stopped the first Pryor/Arguello match in Miami at the precise moment he did. He instantly squelched any second guessing on the part of the press that he allowed it to continue too long. (If anybody has seen the clip of Christodoulu explaning how he made that determination, then they know why he belongs in the IBHOF. It is the most perfect expression of when to stop a fight that I have ever encountered. I just wish I had the retention ability to recall it verbatim.)
Snipes was well on his way to being stopped anyway. IMO the stoppage of LeDoux was premature. Sure Larry was out classing LeDoux, sure he was taking it rather easy, but the ref shouldn't have stopped it.
Obviously, when protesting a stoppage that vigorously, it's clear that LeDoux hadn't been close to succumbing to Larry's attack. But the way they've reportedly been talking about each other since then, maybe they could be rematched as a tuneup for Holmes, prior to getting that long sought after contest with Big Gorge Foreman.
The referee knew that a handpicked opponent like LeDoux didn't have a chance of winning the heavyweight championship in a million years so he decided to save Scotts health a bit.
Too bad he couldn't protect Scott's eye from Larry's devastating single finger knockdown punch:good:!:
In your opinion he was, but there's been hundreds of occasions when this comment fits and all of a sudden BAM! I agree Larry would have almost definitely got him, but remember Snipes had already dropped Holmes heavily and therefore surely still had some semblance of hope while still in reasonable control of his senses which he was.
I've watched this fight many times over, and everytime I come to the conclusion that it was stopped early. They tried to make the arguement that Snipes arms were down when Larry was hitting him. Thus the stoppage. However, right when Ortega was to step in you can see that Snipes was about to fire back with a punch. I think that fight could have went two more rounds. Snipes basically shot his load after he knocked Larry down, but you never know when a fighter could find that heart to comeback.