Check all referee counts against a clock. It’s usually slower. Count 1 to 10 by a watch and imagine a referee counting that fast. They’d call it a fast count.
A ten count =/= ten literal seconds on the clock. It's the ref's count of ten. Nobody was expecting human infallibility when the rules were created.
Buster went off the referees count, Buster has already said he could have getting up sooner, how many times must this ludicrous subject come up.
Actually, when Douglas went down, the referee was supposed to direct Tyson to a neutral corner and then "pick up" the count from the timekeeper who had already begun the count. The referee directed Tyson to the corner, and then, instead of picking up the count, which, I believe was at three (you can see the timekeeper with the white gloves on - so the referee can find him - in the frame counting). Instead of picking up the count at "three", Meyran just began his own count at "one." That is what violated the rules. That was the controversy. And that's what they complained about. Could Douglas have gotten up at the actual count? By the looks of Douglas, no. At Meyran's count of seven (actually nine), Douglas was just beginning to pull himself up. But, referees make mistakes. No one had seen Tyson take more than a couple punches in a fight up to that point. He steamrolled just about everyone. Meyran was just as shocked as everyone else as to what was taking place. Douglas really beat him up. And Meyran didn't pick up the count when Tyson went down, either. So, there is that. This content is protected The referee in the Dempsey-Tunney Long Count fight actually played favorites. When Dempsey floored Tunney in the seventh, he told Dempsey to go to a neutral corner and didn't start his count until Dempsey did. However, when Tunney scored a flash knockdown over Dempsey in the eighth round, the referee immediately began counting, even though Tunney hadn't gone anywhere. So, that was shady. Tyson's camp's complaining was spurred on because they wanted to get one of the orgs to say an injustice was done and to order an immediate rematch (because Tyson was such a huge favorite there was no rematch clause). But some reporters who didn't really follow boxing thought and reported that they were trying to overturn the call, and then all the reporters picked up that storyline, and people became outraged and everyone went crazy. But it was more about getting Tyson a quick rematch. All the other stuff were just people choosing to bash Tyson or King or the orgs, when all they would do was have a meeting and say Douglas has to fight him again, which they often do when someone files a complaint. But the outcry from readers and media in the U.S. caused the orgs to step away. Frankly, it would've been nice if the media was similarly outraged with other fights where officials clearly screwed up. Greg Page knocking out Gerrie Coetzee and taking his title in a round that ran FOUR MINUTES was more of an outrage to me, and the WBA didn't order Page to give Coetzee a rematch. Meyran screwed up a couple seconds. The officials in Page-Coetzee screwed whole minute. And in the Page KO, the WBA officials even altered the official time of the KO, because it came at 3 minutes and 57 seconds into round 8. Just ludicrous. This content is protected Same with the WBO officials in the Liakhovich-Briggs fight. Briggs knocks Liakhovich down with 26 seconds left in the round. The clock freezes on the screen, so the Showtime broadcast removes the counter. But on YouTube you can still follow the count. Liakhovich gets dropped at 1:05:44 on the video. Gets up. Gets knocked down a final time and falls out of the ring, and the referee tells Briggs to go to the neutral corner and waves it off at 1:06:15 (or 3 minutes 5 seconds). But the bell didn't ring after 3 minutes elapsed. The timekeeper screwed up again. This content is protected And Jimmy Lennon Jr. announces the time as 2:59 seconds in the 12th round. But that was not true. Again, Liakhovich should've protested. Because, on the cards, he was three points ahead going into the last round on two cards. Had the bell rung, they wouldn't have scored the second knockdown at even with a 10-8 round, Briggs would've lost by one point on two cards. And even if they had scored the second knockdown and awarded a Briggs a 10-7 12th round, Sergei would've retained the title with a draw. But media in the U.S. just seemed to be pleased Page and Briggs won titles, not that guys whose names they couldn't pronounce from other countries lost their crowns to American heavyweights under suspicious circumstances. So, those were more damaging screwups, to me, than Octavio Meyran in Tyson-Douglas.
But they expect them to PICK UP the count from the guy counting at ringside, when those ARE the rules. Sort of Refereeing 101.
LOL. No. It shouldn't. Or they'd call it a 15 count. (LOL) When a guy goes down, the referee is supposed to count and gage the fighter's condition at the same time. If he's in bad shape, that's when referees tend to stop counting after only a few seconds and wave it off. If they don't know if a guy is okay they keep counting. If he's up by eight, they are supposed to stop counting at eight and determine if he is okay (usually by asking him if he is) and resume the fight. The fight is supposed to resume within 10 seconds of someone going down. You have 10 seconds to get up and prove you are okay to continue. If they are taking longer than that, they shouldn't. If Joe Frazier got 15 seconds to recover after every knock down in the first Foreman fight, he may have recovered. The fight certainly would've lasted longer than two rounds by denying George 45 seconds of "hitting time" in each round.
What bothers me more than some of these so called long counts, are the short counts where the ref counts to 9 and waves the fight off, they don't even count to 10. Zack Clayton was guilty of this on more then one occasion.
I've always thought Buster was more badly hurt than people appreciated over the years, but he definitely was following the ref's count so I give him the benefit of the doubt. I do think today if he got up with his hands down like that at his sides, the fight might be stopped. At minimum he would be asked to take lateral steps. But to the point, he absolutely kicked Tyson's ass every which way from Sunday. It was a schooling for most of the fight and then a beating at the end.
It seems you didn't understand my post. Are you not clear on the usage of = / =? (serves the same function as ≠) We are in full agreement. Ten counts should be a reasonable count of ten by the ref, and that will have a slight variance from individual to individual. Ten 'real life' seconds is probably too fast, while double that length, twenty seconds, is probably the upper limit of how slow is acceptable. Sweet spot is I'd say smack in the middle, approximately 15 seconds, but the most important thing is that the referee in question keeps their count consistent (from beat to beat within a count, and from count to count within a fight) to the greatest possible extent.
