The stoppage of Jono last night

Terrible stoppage, the commentators hugging of Murray was unberable to listen to.

 

i'd say the ref jumped in when thaxton was wobbled, and stopped it early.

my take is, it prevented murray from putting in a devastating finish - and the post fight reaction is more focused on the ref, on thaxton, than the man who went in there and dominated - john murray.

thaxton said the plan was to beat murray late. not a great plan. i don't want to 2nd guess pros like thaxton and his team, but if it had gone late, things would have got really, really bad for thaxton.

 

too soon imo although he was definetly gonna get stopped last night at some point,at least he didnt get battered

 

Terrible stoppage. Imagine if the ref had stopped Marquez in round one of the Pacquiao fight! There would be a few people saying that he was obviously saving Marquez from a beating but the ref did the right thing because Marquez was able to continue. How many other great fights would we have missed if the ref jumped in as soon as someone wobbled. This is boxing.

 

but let's put things in perspective. murray's british title opponents/challengers have been beaten in very one sided fashion. there is no match for him in the uk. if his last 4 fights had been any more one sided, they might have been akin to cotto-jennings and pavlik-lockett. we can cry for thaxton, but he was getting owned in there.

 

Much too early, but we all know why

You cannot castigate a referee for making an honest decision with a fighters safety in mind

 

Too soon.

To get a gauge of where Murray's at, give him Katsidis next. If not, Rees will be a decent domestic tussle. Mezzache is awkward as Hell, can Murray keep the patient approach he showed last night, which is what done Thaxton in after hurting the Frenchman so early.

I think Murray was in great shape last night and kept his hands high. Jono showed that with fast flurries and in-and-out movement Murray becomes plodding and uninspired, so keep him away from Guzman if he goes up to World Class :good

 

dont really think katsidis is a kind of see where your at fighter. hes too intense powerful and fit for 95% of the lightweights out there and holding the WBO interim belt will see him get another couple big fights on HBO. hes outa murrays league at this stage i think

 

It was too early.

But i can forgive a referee making an early stoppage once in a while. What I dont like is the overblown justification and ranting on about how "spot on" it was from the ITV team.
They knew instantly it was early and controversial, hence their protestations to the contrary before anyone had said so !

Why dont they just say, "That was an early stoppage for a title fight, we sympathise with Thaxton, but Murray was almost certainly going to win and we think Thaxton would get beat up in any rematch" - you know, a two-sided honest assessment.

 

Yeah they started defending it before any one criticized it.

 

I think the stoppage was as bad as Calzaghe vs Manfredo, if not worse.

Murray hit Thaxton with a solid punch, which wobbled him - there wasn't even much of a follow-up flurry, or anything, the ref just jumped in!

It was unfair on Murray as well..... he was taking over the fight pretty well and to have it taken away from him.... just not right.

Might persuade Thaxton to have one more - which isn't good.

Clearly you would rather have an early stoppage than a repeat of McClellan or Watson incidents, but that was cautious in the extreme.

In summary, bull**** stoppage.

 

Poor stoppage. Thaxton deserved the opportunity to get himself out of that spot. Yes, he was rocked, but that's all and a fighter of Thaxton's ability, even faded, deserves the chance to fight on.


Rawling and McKenzie might have gone OTT last night but I'd much rather listen to them than Jim Watt and Adam Smith any day.

 

of course he can, and he already did this to mcallister, a more awkward and talented boxer than mezaache.