I've just re-watched that fight and what does everyone think of the ending after the "cheap shot", was Dirrell in genunine bad shape or was he acting? A lot of the Youtube comment seem to think he was acting.
It's impossible to know from just reviewing the footage. The effects of a punch are not always directly correlated to the apparent force behind it. Across all sports serious injuries sometimes occur from seemingly innocuous incidents, where pressure is applied to the wrong place at the wrong time. When watching boxing we often ignore this and expect punch effects to have this consistent, linear pattern that just doesn't exist in reality. The punch didn't look to have a huge impact, and the reaction was delayed and unusual. However, there are enough mitigating circumstances to give Dirrell the benefit of the doubt. He was kneeling on the floor and in no position to brace for any punch, much less one that he didn't even see coming. It landed on the side of the head near the temple which can often have a dramatic effect, and Abraham was a notably heavy-handed guy. Abraham certainly put plenty of weight behind the punch, and it came late on in a fight where Dirrell appeared to be tiring and becoming more vulnerable. There seemed to be legitimate concern in the Dirrell corner, unlike say Coggi-Randall II where the celebrations were underway while their guy was still getting medical attention. All in all it wasn't controversial as the foul was so blatant, and the onus shouldn't really be on the victim to justify how badly he was hurt.
Whether Dirrell was faking or not Abraham still deserved to be DQ'd because he intentionally hit his opponent when they were down which is totally against the rules.
I don't see what reason Dirrell had to fake it, he was winning the fight easy, he wasn't out in his feet or in any serious trouble before the punch (although he was put down in the previous round but wasn't really hurt) and I doubt he took 2 years off boxing just to try and prove he wasn't faking. That punch more less ruined Dirrell's career IMO.
He was faking it. Yes, Abraham clearly clocked him while he was down - and deserved a points deduction at minimum...but you can clearly see Dirrell think about it for a second or so and then decide to take the dive, pretending he was poleaxed in order to get the DQ win (nice use of twitching on the canvas by the way). Then he clearly forgot what part of his head Abraham hit, as when he was back in his corner, he was holding the top of his head as if that was hurt, whereas Abraham hit him on the jaw. I liken it to footballer holding the wrong part of their leg that got lightly touched when they pretend they've been injured by an opponent.
It's absolutely nothing like that. It's undeniable that he was punched in the head and punched pretty damn hard. His guard was down as he was already on the floor and wasn't preparing himself to take a punch at that point. He caught one in a potentially very dangerous part of the skull so it's entirely possible that a delayed reaction could have occurred. To say he was "faking it" suggests he wasn't punched or at least punched very hard. Neither of those things is true.
