I was curious about the DQ and found out Buster got KTFO by Monaco after the bell. Video: This content is protected No commentary and you can't hear the bell. How late was it? It was right after Douglas' last punch too. Looks like Buster got KO'd by this dude for real. Illegal because it was after the bell, but they were still fighting. Unbelievable.
Buster wanted out and took the DQ when offered it. I honestly think Monaco should have been deducted a point but the fight should have went on.
Buster's comeback ended for me that night. The USA Network went to commercial as Buster was falling. When they came back, the fight was over. Douglas looked like he clearly could go on. He just chose not to. They would've given him five minutes to recover. He just said no. Actually, I thought Monaco should've gotten a win. It wasn't blatant. They were both throwing as the round ended. If you're fouled you're given time to recover. If you can't continue, you're supposed to lose. He wasn't badly hurt. He didn't suffer a physical injury that prevented him from fighting. He just said no. The no contest was just Douglas not wanting to fight anymore. Buster the quitter had returned. I couldn't see him beating anyone who was rated after that. And he didn't.
Not on a concussive knockdown/knockout. That’s how you get people killed. Not then, not now, not ever does anyone get over a concussion in 5 minutes. If a cornerman hits his fighter’s opponent with a tire iron, we gonna take a point and make the guy continue after 5 minutes? I recall it as a blatant foul, after the ball. Monaco deserved to be DQ’d.
Everyone who gets hit hard enough in the head to go down is concussed. That's what causes you to go down. Your brain hits the inside of your skull. The impact results in abnormal functioning. Whether you are momentarily concussed (seconds), or minutes or WEEKS varies. Every time someone "gets their bell" rung, to put it in boxing terms, and gets hit in the head and staggered, they have suffered a concussion. The staggering and not being able to control your body is a symptom of a concussion. When guys get hurt, and they keep fighting, and they say they can't remember a round, that's a concussion. That's why boxers don't fight every week like they used to and only fight a handful of times a year. Every time someone gets hit in the head in a boxing ring, goes down hard, and takes a count trying to regain their compusure and equilibriam/balance, you have witnessed them suffer a concussion and begin to recover from it. And fights aren't stopped every time that happens.
As long as it happens within the confines of the rules, sure. But to force a person with a concussion from an illegal blow to go on is completely different. You don’t walk off a concussion. If it knocks you down or out then you DQ the guy who did it. If someone is forced to choose between ‘you lose even though he broke the rules and it affects your career’ and ‘you go on and risk your life/health/well-being and risk brain damage,’ you’re not really giving them a choice — and if that guy ISN’T recovered and then dies because of it, you basically end the sport. What if it’s not one punch but a series. Fighter A slips and is prone on the canvas and Fighter B lands 10 unprotected shots on the guy’s head, knocking him cold unconscious? Do we start the 5-minute clock in that case? It’s essentially the same thing — advantage by incapacitating the opponent by foul. And besides that, what if an opponent comes out and front-kicks a guy in the knee and breaks every ligament? If he can’t stand and walk then the guy who landed the illegal kick gets a TKO win? You don’t reward cheating. You don’t reward rule-breaking. You penalize the rule-breaker and if his foul ends the fight then too bad, he loses. And hopefully gets fined and suspended. I got a better idea: follow the rules and you don’t get DQ’d.
Monaco didn't "cheat." It was an unintentional foul. Douglas threw after the bell, too. They were fighting. When you are fouled unintentionally, you're given time to recover. Then you're supposed to continue fighting. That rule was put in place because people used to cry foul all the time trying to "steal" wins. Regardless, Douglas was essentially booed out of the ring that night. (That's a lot of fake crowd noise in that clip. I guess they didn't have rights to the USA broadcast.) Douglas was handed a nobody to beat so he could get some air time. He got floored. And he said he didn't want to do it anymore. His career was essentially over at that point.
So was Monaco’s ... he won 1 of his next 15 fights and the rest of his ledger looks the same. Guilty conscience. The fact that he had to punch after the bell to do any damage underscores that he needed a foul to, if they did things your way, ‘win.’ You can’t reward rule-breaking. There’s no way to officiate intent. ‘Nah, I didn’t mean to hit him after the bell, wink-wink.’
I remember seeing it like Dubblechin describes. But I might have just been disappointed at the time that Douglas didn't want to fight on.
That was the consensus at the time. USA was giving all these former champs (Holmes, Buster, Bonecrusher, Tubbs) airtime to fight complete nobodies. The first time one fights back, Douglas pulls the ripcord and bails out. That clip doesn't include the whole postfight or the actual audio of the broadcast. Mostly fake crowd noise.
I remember first seeing Louis Monaco when he knocked unbeaten Irishman Kevin McBride out. That was a few months before this fight, and he'd outpointed an old Dokes in the meantime too, so it was an interesting little fight. Douglas's 5th comeback fight. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen him give it a go in round 2 .
Yeah, I'd like to see the original again. My (perhaps unreliable) recollection is that Douglas made the call, not his corner or a doctor. Which I suppose is fair enough.
This content is protected He dumped Buster but got flatlined by the Bean. Loved this KO back in the day. Bean lands the BOMB at 3:50, range finder jab then drops the howitzer. I still have the Tape haven’t pulled it out in awhile. My memory is that it was just barely after the bell and did NOT seem blatant. Buster clearly didn’t want anymore but could’ve continued. Monaco also smashed McNeely, and he (Monoco) was absolutely smashed by Jeremy Williams. He was another of the fun 90’s journeyman.