You are refereeing what appears to easily be the greatest fight of the century. They've been throwing down hard from the opening bell. Suddenly boxerA gets caught with a hook and withers to the canvas. Boxer A gets up at the count of 3 doe, you look him over and determine that he's good to go. You command the boxers to box as boxerA stumbles forward and again falls to the canvas. If you do not just stop the bout right there, what would the proper action of the referee be at that point?
Stopping the bout right there is the only proper action for a ref. It means your initial assessment when he got up was incorrect … he was not good to go. His very life is in your hands. Wave it off and get the doctor in the ring and let him do his thing.
Call it off, he held it together well enough to pretend he's okay, but he couldn't keep it up and is out
Where did I say that? In the case you described, the ref should stop the fight. If your question is, ‘When should a referee pick up the count where he left off,’ that should have been what you asked in the OP. A good for instance: If the count is interrupted by a guy who leaves the neutral corner, the count should be interrupted and resumed when the fighter who knocked the other down returns to the neutral corner. When a fighter stands up and keels over and falls again, he’s in no shape or position to continue; his health, well-being and life are at stake. So you stop the fight. You don’t say ‘he was down for three, then the got up, then he fell down again so I counted 4-5, then he got up again, then he fell down again so I counted 6-8, then he got up but he fell down again and I counted 9 but he got up quickly so he beat the count.’
I never stated that you did say it, it was an assumption. Ok, assume that the ref saw him fit to continue. You answered the question, well actually I did. But whatever, fergitaboutit.
Berbick/Tyson, where Berbick was falling down and kept getting back up after getting dropped? The guy maybe stumbling around, but the rules give him 10 seconds to recover.
This is not what you described at all. 1) Mills Lane did not look Berbick over and determine that Berbick was good to go after getting up at three. 2) He did in fact stop the fight before any resumption of the bout. YOU described a guy getting up at three, the referee looking him over and determining he was OK, and then waving them to continue — which is a full five seconds later because he has to complete a mandatory eight count — and then the guy pitching over again … which is an obvious sign that he cannot continue, that he’s likely in neurological distress. So the fight should be stopped at that point. That’s a different scenario than Berbick getting up but immediately falling back down without ever gaining his balance, without the ref looking him over, without completing the mandatory eight count, without waving them to continue. As soon as Berbick was finally actually upright, Mills Lane assessed that he was NOT fit to continue.
