Did public scoring cause the ending?

I see your point, but I think deep down in a situation like that a fighter already knows he'll need a KO to win. In theory, it should make for better fights because the losing fighter should fight more urgently. When a fighter chooses not to continue after hearing the scorecards, I think that that's just a sign of lack of heart or that he's already so demoralized, there's no self confidence he can actually come back and win. So he just says "screw it".

Peter felt that he didn't have a good enough of a chance for the KO to justify the beating he took and just didn't want to be there. I can't say I disagree with his assessment, but it would've been nice to see him go out on his shield and at least go balls out for 1 or 2 rounds to at least try to win first.