Robberies or Bad decisions

Anyone that thinks B hop beat Calzaghe knows nothing about boxing

 

Dude so what? whos arguing the validty of the call? we have the gift of hindsight being 20/20 and thats something he'd like to change. thats it.

 

Bingo!
Whitaker won two rounds big after he low blowed Chavez twice in a round, most of the other rounds were fought competitive and quite aq few where Whitaker did'nt even attempt to land effectively.
I scored it a draw when I watched it live and have gotten alot of flak on this board and others for it.

People need to realize that winning two rounds big does'nt merit you getting others because of it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgenYK7VaxY

there are 4 or less seconds at the time of stoppage. taylor answers steele and is steady. steele asks him the same question again AFTER he checks his gloves and decides to stop the fight anyway WITHOUT checking his corners even though taylor had answered him around the ten second mark

and yeah in a huge fight when one guy has fought his heart out and IS very close to the end (steele must have known the round was pretty much over), benefit of the doubt should be given if he gets up especially considering taylor got up relatively easily considering the pressure he had been put under

 

Lara vs Williams and Abril vs Rios are two of the worst recent decisions that had me confused and angry, Lucas vs Devon was very bad as well.

 

Whitaker-Chavez
Pacquiao-Bradley
DLH-Sturm

 

He uses the ropes to pull himself back up and doesn't answer Steele after taking some big shot through the fight, if that stoppage had happened at any other point in the fight there would be no controversy - it isn't Steele's job to be a timekeeper there. He had a hurt fighter who wasn't responding to what he was saying - the timing is an irrelevancy.

Taylor put on one hell of a performance in that fight but he couldn't close the show, that is long and the short of it. Nobody ever thinks to give Chavez any props for staging a great comeback.

 

to be fair, chavez gets a lot of credit from fight fans, no one would argue that he fought his heart out and did all he could to keep his 0.

however taylor does answer with a nod and in a documentary i saw it is believed he answered verbally to the first question (i'm not sure about that one though). but he does nod at the 7/6 second mark

in terms of steele being the timekeeper or not- fair enough that's a good point. but it could easily be argued that the ref is the foremost authority on everything in the fight. this has been proven throughout history especially in relation to time keeping (see tyson-douglas, bute-andrade for off the head examples).he should be aware of how much time is left and what is going on around him i.e. duva being almost in the damn ring. steele failed in both of those departments. lets not forget the flashing red light either which indicates the round almost being over which incidentally was right behind taylor

but honestly one could clearly argue either side and win- maybe it was a stoppage, maybe it was a mistake, who knows

the op asked what would I change personanlly and I chose that. to quote larry merchant (you won't see me do this often): "he had fought his heart out. he had earned the right to those last 2 seconds"

 

Meehan - Brewster ,absolute robbery

 

Just rewatched it, 5 seconds were on the clock as Steele waived it off.

Taylor never answered Steele, in fact he looked away.

In subsequent interviews by Steele he's gone on to explain that all throughout a count he is analyzing the state of the fighter. Taylor was zoned out and unresponsive and that contributing to making his decision easy.

A ref knows that a fighter thats gone down but is fit to continue will make some form of gesture toward the ref informing him he wants to go, without the ref himself having to ask him "are you ok!"

As far as I'm concerned, Steele threw Taylor a bone even by asking him if he was ok, he could have waived it off without even asking that, merely on observing the glassy eyed zoned out state of Taylor as he counted.

Also, of note, Taylor was holding himself up by the ropes.
When Steele waived it off, Taylor starts to complain, but notice that Taylors arms never left the ropes or he likely would have fallen straight back to the canvas.

Next time you watch a knockdown, look how fighters who are good to go, immediately make gestures to the ref that they're good without the ref having to ask them anything.
Taylor never did such thing. He was out of it!

 

Pac/Bradley fight was sick, one of the judges even resigned after that fight.........

 

107-2(Taylor), 105-4(Chavez) and 108-1(Taylor) meaning a 10-8 12th on all cards for Chavez would have let to a Taylor split decision.

 

i know its a bit off topic but re- the chavez taylor fight:
when you sit ringside at a pro fight you realize just how hard these fighters hit, its frightening.
when youre in the corner (just a few feet from the action) its so much more so and when youre the referee (though ive done no refereeing) and youre standing inches away, im sure the effect would be even more magnified.
Ive been at fights or worked corners then watched the fight back on tv and its crazy how much power is lost in translation when watching on tv.
I wasnt at the chavez taylor fight in person but even on tv the beating taylor took looked terrible, so severe.
I can only imagine what this looked like from the corner and from the referees standpoint it must have been almost unbearable to watch.
No one but steele and chavez saw the true extent of the punishment taylor suffered. Here was a man beaten almost to death i believe steele made the only call he could and was absolutely right in stopping that fight no matter what the clock says.
Taylor couldnt and didnt answer the referee. there were five seconds left not 2 and look what don curry did to milton mcrory in about 1 second following that first knockdown. Steele mightve saved taylors life.