Arthur Mecante Jr - Cotto v Foreman

It was weird, and he should have stopped the fight just based on the towel. That said, Foreman was in pain due to the knee but hadn't taken much punishment to that point otherwise since he was constantly on the backfoot focusing on staying away from Cotto's power so Cotto was just landing single shots on him. And if Foreman himself wanted to stop the fight, he could have easily but he chose to continue. So pretty much a non-factor in this case, but the ref should not be overruling the corner in my opinion, so the fight should have been stopped.

 

He gave Foreman every opportunity as the champion. Foreman was never going to stop Cotto, and was very unlikely to recover from the injury...but the chance of the unexpected was given.

As far as I know, the ref had every right to throw the towel out of the ring, whether it was from the corner or not.

He maybe could have stepped in a little earlier than he did, but like I said, he gave the champion every chance to defend his title.

 

I've seen on at least one occasion, the ref throwing the towel back out the ring after the corner wants it stopped. And as far as I am aware, the ref's are allowed to do that if they feel the boxer is capable of continuing.

 

Bad call. Yuri could barely stand on his leg, and Mercante Jr. even let it continue after Foreman slipped AGAIN. Overruling the corner may be legally viable, but in this situation forcing it to continue was doing nothing other than endangering the man's career.

 

Not sure if he asked for it to be stopped, wasn't that at the point when there was confusion, and everyone thought the ref had stopped the fight, but in fact he was allowing Foreman to 'shake it off'...?

 

The corner themselves didn't help, because they claimed they didn't throw the towel in either (from what I remember, havn't seen it since live).

Like I said, I thought it was good he gave Foreman a chance to regroup and try fight through it...he gave him every chance as the champion to defend his belt. Maybe could have stepped in at the point when Foreman's movement was severely restricted, and Cotto was really going for it.

 

Ordinarily true, but with an obviously crippling knee injury and no punching power, I don't think Yuri's fans would have turned against him for retiring from the match at that juncture. You keep a guy in there when he has a puncher's chance of winning, and Yuri didn't have that chance, once he lost his legs the fight was effectively over. Ortiz's case was different because he didn't have such an injury, he was taking some punishment but still had that puncher's chance to turn things around against Maidana and simply didn't want to risk taking anymore punishment to attempt such a comeback.

 

It was a very bad decision, yuri could have been permanently injured because of him, imagine what would have happened if yuri got lucky and knocked cotto out then it would be one of the most controversional fights ever. when that towell came in the ring it should have ended. Foreman proved he had great heart in that fight.

 

who cares? Yuri is small potatos...not like he was getting punished or anything.

 

Even by average human standards Mercante is too dumb.

 

That was absolutely insulting, Foreman was crippled and defenseless, and the ref failed to do his job which is to protect the fighters health when they cannot do it anymore. Throwing back the towel and people out of the ring was just the final insult, Mercante should've stopped it long before. I wonder why he wasn't banned, this is the referee equivalent of loading gloves.