Was Cortez interfering too much in Mayweather-Hatton?...

Exactly why this is important. People hear what the popular belief is, and don't bother to do the research themselves.. Plenty won't listen, but if you open the eyes of a few people you've done more good than bad. People need to be educated on boxing details, not just the obvious casual fan view!

Teach em Rico! Teach em!

 

Cortez was shockingly awful in this fight

Compare his refereeing techniques to that of the Hopkins Calzaghe fight. Completely different

Clearly a hometown ref and shouldn't be let near the squared circle ever again

 

Why help? This topic has been thoroughly dissected already... Floyd outfought him on the inside, wouldn't matter if Cortez was **** or good... Floyd would have won nevertheless.

 

If your numbers are correct, and they correctly portray what was happening in the fight (i.e. not just taking numbers at face value), then yes it would indicated that Bayless was also interfering too much.

The reason why no one comments on that is probably because the fight was over before people had time to get annoyed by it. I don't remember being irritated by Cortez in the first couple of rounds in Mayweather v Hatton, it was only when it continued throughout the whole fight that it began to suggest to me that the officiating was favouring Floyd.

I believe that Floyd's inside game was heavily underrated prior to that fight, and it turned out that he was able to apply his skill and rough tactics enough to get the better of Hatton. However, I also feel that Cortez's choices of when to break the fighters, and who to admonish for it, nullified certain aspects of the inside game that Hatton would normally have been able to use to his advantage. Hatton stood no chance on the outside, so having the inside fighting essentially eradicated from the fight because of Cortez, it shifted Hatton's chances from slim, to essentially none.

 

I think that the nature of the clinches were different. In the Pac-Hatton clinches, they were often holds at awkward angles where no work could really be done. There were plenty of those in the Mayweather fight as well which Cortez was right to break, but there were also ones where they were directly in front of each other with their arms not entirely bound, and they'd get split up.

 

Actually, it would indicate that both refs were doing their jobs properly.

 

Makes sense :thumbsup

 

Yeah, that's basically what I was saying, but I think you may be overplaying the link to the Pac fight. Pac wasn't given favourable treatment on the inside (or at least I don't remember that) and he managed to close the show well before any of that was relevant. The gulf in class, plus clash of styles and attributes, made that a terrible night for Hatton. They could have had Smoger in there and nothing would have changed. I don't think that can necessarily be said about the Floyd fight, and therein lies the difference.

Floyd was better than Hatton on the inside (and obviously way better on the outside!), but as we see time and time again boxing is not always as simple as simply being better automatically equalling victory, hence why people feel annoyed by Cortez making it even more difficult for Hatton. Cortez let Floyd's rough tactics slip, while simultaneously admonishing Hatton for his. He should have been more consistent, either force the fight to be on the outside, or allow both fighters the same leeway in close.

 

A common misconception. If anything Mayweather bested Hatton at his own game. He worked Ricky on the inside. I thought Cortez did a good job of separating them when their arms got hooked.

Hatton fans and Floyd haters would love nothing better than to see a repeat of that disgraceful showing against Tszyu when the fact is Hatton was being battered on the inside in the Mayweather fight.

 

People tend to overlook the most brilliant part of that fight: Floyd's game-plan to use Hatton's bully tactics against him. Floyd was never known as a clincher but in this fight, not only did he fight Hatton's fight, he allowed Hatton to think he had control until he took it all away from him. He drowned Hatton with his own tactics. That's psychologically and physically damaging.

Because he knew Hatton liked to grapple and clinch ever since his fight with Tszyu...Floyd seemed to decide to "saturate" the fight with Clinching. In other words, one fighter doing the clinching can sometimes continually get away with it...but if two are doing it...the ref is more likely to break them up as soon as they start.

I used to think if Floyd was fighting at 130-140, at his best athletically, he would have danced circles around Hatton and whooped him with combinations. And I didn't think Floyd looked that good in this fight. I thought of himself as a declining fighter athletically/AGILITY.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is Floyd. Someone who likes to adjust and toy with his opponents Mentally more so than anything. Allowing them to think they are in the fight, makes them feel in control, makes them feel comfortable, before he pulls the rug out from under them.
Then again, Athletically/Speed/Agility/Energy...I still think he was better below 147. He was overall faster, more agile, threw more punches (and in combinations), etc.

 

Here's a breakdown of the clinches of round 1;

Clinch 1 - Head lock
Clinch 2 - Head lock
Clinch 3 - Arms barely locked, quick break up by Cortez
Clinch 4 - Arms locked, Cortez yells "let em out", clinch continues, then broke up, no punches thrown during clinch
Clinh 5 - head lock
Clinch 6 - Floyd initiates, grabs both of Hatton's arms, Cortez breaks it up
Clinch 7 - head lock
Clinch 8 - quick break
Clinch 9 - Floyd initiates, head lock, wrestling, then broke up by Cortez
Clinch 10 - head lock, armbar
Clinch 11- Lasts 12 seconds, punches thrown, Cortez doesn't break it up until Hatton hits Floyd in the back of the head again after he was warned not to do so earlier in the clinch
Clinch 12 - brief headlock, not broken up, fighters fight way out of it
Clinch 13 - Hatton has Floyd in a headlock, then throws a punch, Cortez then breaks it up

This is just the first round. That's 13 clinches, and only 2 did he jump in quickly. The rest of the time, the fighters either weren't fighting in the clinch, but rather wrestling, or an illegal punch was thrown.