I honestly believe that cortez was not impartial for this one. Pre-fight he was showing signs of favouritsm towards floyd by patting him on the back etc. It seemed like he was protecting floyd in this bout and intervened everytime the fight was going hattons way. totally ruined hattons game plan and most there were a lot of instances when they were seperated for no apparent reason, other than hatton was flurrying on floyd. i think hatton could have damaged floyd more if he was allowed to get on with his job. i take nothing away from floyd as no doubt he's the best boxer anywhere, nut hate the help he seems to receive. here's an example of him being sheilded from punches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS35JAplxyw
He didn't let them fight inside early on, but he got better as the fight went on. I would have preferred Kenny Bayles.
People are complaining way too much about the ref in this fight. Everyone knows Hatton holds way too much. He gets away with that in the U.K, but not in Vegas. People keep saying "he should've let them fight". He was letting them fight. Holding and grappling is not fighting. I had Floyd way up on the scorecards, it didn't matter though. He made sure the judges weren't going to decide the fight.
maybe cortez was making the mistake of thinking that this was boxing match and not wrestling. that could be why he broke them up.....
He was calling for breaks waaay too quickly w/o letting them fight out of it. That was my only beef woth Cortez last night.
I will say this: it didn't make a difference who the ref was in the fight - Hatton still would have been KO'd.
i would have said mayweather was holding more than hatton, when they got close, and yes the ref was biased. that's not sour grapes though, floyd was excellent.
Cortez was breaking them early on when they did NOT need breaking, ie. when both had both hands free. Cortez was being too eager with that, and definitely unfair to Hatton. Having said that, I believe it made NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER to the outcome of the fight.
Look Cortez did a great job. He cleaned up the fight. The first few rounds was all holding and pushing mostly Ricky, Floyd was also doing some himself and it was getting really annoying. If Cortez didnt do what he did, it would've been one ugly fight to watch.
Floyd deserved the win, was far better, would have beaten Hatton anyway but early on I agree Joe was too eager to break. A couple of instances spring to mind (although I was loaded with lager, and Beer Goggles may have been in effect) early doors where Cortez broke before the fighters were even together, was quite bizarre. In any event as Cortez let the fight progress inside Floyd dominated so it didn't materially alter the outcome anyway.
