Taylors stoppage vs. JCC..One of the greatest tragedies

Agreed. Not to mention Chavez is still coherent and smart. He shows now sign of being Punch drunk and I think its amazing considering how many of his previous foes do.

 

He was not entirelly up on his feet. He was holding on to the ropes and could have been DQ'd before the time was over because Lou jumped unto the canvas. Rules have to be obeyed even if there is only .00001 second left in the bout. If you are not fit to continue then you are not fit to continue and Steele was the one in there and knows better than any of us when enough has been enough.

 

There is no "reason" for anything. You're just jumping to Chavez's defense when I'm not even criticizing him.

Chavez probably peaked in the late 80s (Rosario fight) and is considered by many to be out of his best weight class at 140, but I wasn't even discussing his or his opponent's prime. When these rematches should have taken place has nothing to do with it. The Taylor rematch should've been in 1990 or 1991, and the Randall rubber match should've been in either 1994 or 1995, or even early 1996, when Chavez was still WBC champ.

 

Exactly.

 

The controvery on this one will never cease.

Bottom line, Steele did what he had to do within the guidelines.

If the guy gets KO'd and is unable to respond properly- regardless of wether he has 1 second or 2 minutes left- the fight should be stopped!

Further more, had Steele played favorites by letting the fight continue just because there was only a few seconds left, then he would have CHEATED Chavez of a great come-from behind victory!

And the controversy would still rage-onatsch

 

Chavez won within the alloted time, the ref is not supposed to say "I think you cannot continue, but I will let you continue cause theres only a few seconds left".

JCC won fair & square, props to Meldrick for fighting like a man though and going out on his shield.

 

What you've got to take into account though is how much time Steele can take examining Taylor. If he takes to long he is unfairly taking away Chavez' advantage of having Taylor out of his consciousness. Bottomline, he had about 3 seconds to make a judgement...he made the right call. Its pretty much guaranteed that Chavez wasn't going to hit Taylor again, but he couldn't justifiably let it continue with Taylor like that.