HBO, Fire Lennox.

I'll tell you what the bottom line is. IF Paulie fires his corner, then yes, I'll say the corner made a mistake. Until then I'll consider this along the lines of "friends don't let friends drive drunk". Judgment is the first thing to go sometimes.

I remember a Pride event where a combatant was furious his corner threw in the towel, however, one camera angle shows him waving for his corner to do just that.

Someone pointed out Paulie was told in the corner what would happen if he didn't fight back. He could have said something THEN. Instead he went out and did exactly what he was told would get the fight stopped. His mouth said NO, his body said YES?

 

Oh for sure.

Steward knew Lewis would make a good commentator.

 

You can't expect fighter to have an objective view of their health when they're in the middle of a fight. With that mentality we may have seen Vitali fight until he was blind. Wow what a warrior he would have been, a blind warrior.

Part of the job of a trainer is to protect a fighter from himself. And I guarantee you no trainer wants to live with the death or permanent injury of one of his fighters because he let the fight go on too long.

The trainer is also in the best position to know what a fighter has left, in terms of power, and their ability to come back from a particular situation. No trainer in his right mind is going to simply sacrifice a fighter for your enjoyment. If a fighter has no chance of winning, stop the fight and let him live another day.

This is pretty basic stuff, you must be young.

 

based on some of the stuff I read on here sometimes, I fear a day will come when all fighters are wearing head gear and protective gear under their trunks that are pulled up to Paul Williams standard. In future press conferences we'll see them all divided by plate glass while surrounded by ultra-buff security guards. Oh, I forgot to mention-they'll be wearing headgear at the press conference as well.

 

Maybe, but it's really not that difficult of a balancing act.

If two fighters are competive let them go at it. If one dominates to the point of potentially permanently injurying the other guy, stop it.

If it's never competitive to begin with, stop it before anyone gets permanently hurt. It's not the fighters fault he was put into the ring with someone with far better skills, it shouldn't have to be a career or life threatening decision, considering he has pretty much no say in the matter.

A Ward-Gatti fight is a perfect example where two evenly matched guys when at it until someone prevailed, that's far different than one fighter getting a sustained beating for 12 rounds, especially if he doesnt have a punch that can equalize the situation.

 

For the record, Pavlik's father would have stopped Kelly's fight with Bhop. Even though Kelly has knockout ability, he knew it wasn't going to happen.

 

Look, Paulie has the balls to take the punishment. We all know this from the cotto and now the Hatton fight. There is nothing for him to prove, he was getting pasted during that fight. WE ALL KNOW HE COULD HAVE GONE ON. I know boxers have pride, ego, whatever you want to call it and they don't want to see a KO on their record. The fact of the matter is, Buddy just saved him from an even worse wipping and in the end we know Paulie can handle the beating like a man. To me, in reality, it is no different if the fight got stopped in the 11th round, or if it went the distance. I am pretty sure we can all agree, Malinaggi got whooped and yes he could have probably made it to the end of the fight but at what cost?

Buddy did the right thing!

 

spot on.

 

First, gotta commend you on the great reference. Gatti-Ward was awesome. But Dude, Paulie showed no physical signs of bein' out of it to any degree. Yeah, he was in there gettin' stuck by what looked to be an improved fighter (making reference to Ricky's patience, skill and accuracy) but if nothing else, he could have developed upon this fight better so had they let him finish it. Now, because of what happened, he's likely to look back at this footage prior to his next fight and take less responsibility for the outcome. I don't wanna see anyone get ****ered up or die either, Dude. Trust me. But I'm stickin' to my guns in that I think the sport has become just a little too vaginal.

 

its true generally that a higher profile fighter will be given more leeway than the underdog he's fighting if the heat is on, but paulie wasn't going to win that fight and even though some fans might have wanted to see more of it, you have to ride with common sense sometimes.

 

I'm just talking in generalities, I haven't seen this fight, so I'm not commenting on this one specifically, just making general guidelines. But I'm in my 40's so I've seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of fights and I love boxing. But I almost feel ashamed to have watched and enjoyed a fight that eventually either killed or permanently injured a fighter..that's a little too perverse for my liking.

As a general rule, I'm reluctant to second guess doctors, ref's or trainers in these situations, cause they're the one's who have to life with the decisions they make, not me, and there's in a better position to know how a fighter is responding to the punishment they are receiving than I am. A fighter might look fine on tv only to be non responsive when being asked questions, or he may be glassy eyed, or both, might even be injured.