Its become an Art for certain fighters, punch and grab and hold and clinch over and over why aren't points being deducted? Why aren't fighters being penalized and eventually disqualified for excessive holding? continuous holding or below the belt shots need be addressed quickly in a fight.
They do. It depends on the ref. Same as with every aspect of the job, some officiants have certain peeves and some things on which they are more lax.
See, he's brilliant though...Bernard doesn't clinch for long (which is where cautions & penalization usually do & ought to occur) - but he clinches with high frequency and opportune timing.
It really doesn't happen all that often. Its just one major culprit and Loma last week. Other wise excessive clinching isn't a problem. At least Hop hits out of the clinch. If you got a hand free its fair game to whack your oppponent.
Some Refs do warn for excessive holding. Usually, they just step in and break the fighters or verbally yell for them to punch their way out of a clinch. Some ESB numbskulls will ignorantly say that Ward and Hopkins clinch, but fail to understand when clinching is a real boxing strategy. For example, when Ward clinches, you had better be protecting yourself or you may end up eating many inside short hooks and uppercuts. As Kessler and Froch learned the hard way, this is called in-fighting. In Hopkin's case, the man is 49 years old. He's gonna clinch too, if his opponent allows him. Hopkins will clinch to; 1. Stop his opponent's offence 2. Work inside 3. Save his energy Notice in the Loma-Saildo fight that Loma lost rounds by excessive clinching without doing any inside work while also failing to stop Saildo from effectively working inside. This is a lesson on how not to clinch. I've seen refs take points for clinching. It all depends on the ref and who's fighting.
