Agreed. People always talk about the Tyson-Ruddock stoppage being bad, but the Ruddock-Morrison stoppage was much worse. Especially considering that Ruddock was beating Tommy up until the stoppage, whereas against Tyson he was getting his ass kicked every round.
I think 80% of the stoppages today are premature. Todays referees are without a clue. I know, I know, "better to stop it too early than too late" Thats what Joey Curtis said.(Referee for the Weaver/Dokes heavyweight title fight)
Exactly :bears: Hut hut is usually pretty sound of mind, but you seriously have to have a screw loose to think Ike - Byrd was an early stoppage.
That is if you listened to Cossell who was blind as a bat in that fight. The towel came in from Benevenuti's corner and even though referee doesn't have to stop it in that situation they almost always do
Wait a second, Chris Byrd thought it was an early stoppage! I remember him arguing with the ref that he never tasted canvas even though he went down face-first twice::
Which further perpetuates the fact that it was a good stoppage. Similar to Sharon Taylor against Mosley. In cloud coo coo land in his corner after getting planted hard into the canvas "he didn't knock me daun, he didn't knock me daun".
Judah v Zoo. Nady panicked, but really it was just idiot Judah jumping up too quick and riverdancing as a result. The round would have finished, Judah would have cleared his head and may have lasted till mid-late rounds before being stopped.
Oh...Ugo covered it. :: Damn, Ugo, you KNOW about this fight?!? You realize this is almost a black & white fight and outside of the current "era" of 2000-2008, right? :tease: ::
Could have been...but that's not one of the worst ever, IMHO...not when Judah fell like he was shot, got up, did the jive/electric slide while talking to Jesus, fell down again, got up, and was held up a bit by Nady and the ropes. :: Borderline. I can see good arguments for both sides. Peace.
Probably borderline, but if Judah had taken a knee this would not even be controversial. I still think Nady panicked a bit.
Shit, I remember that, his corner did throw in the towel. Too soon yes, but hey, it was his own corner that did it.
I'm not backing down on this one!:tease: He was slobbering immediately after the KD - he was BADLY hurt. Hell, if It had been stopped there you could have few complaints. But he did EVERYTHING right from there. He came back as well as you could expect any great fighter to - got up had the self-command to forcefully tell the ref he was fine, steadied himself and the went out and defended himself effectively. By the time of the actual stoppage his head was clearing and he had just slipped EVERY punch of a 9 punch salvo that Ike threw. He takes one on the chest, the ref stops it and with it being 3 or 4 seconds from the end Byrd assumes it's the end of the round. When he realizes the ref has stopped it he goes spare remonstrating, and quite rightly. If your not gonna allow fighters to come back from being hurt why not just make it first knock down wins? He did everything right, there were 4 seconds to go and he was defending himself effectively - SHIT stoppage.
:: Ah the funky Chicken dance! Recalling that one never gets old! Gets up, starts clucking his arms at his side like a rooster, put his hand up to his ear with a concerned look as if answering an important call then collapses to the ground again.:laughing: :laughing:
so what? He was still off balance, he was hurt. But he wasn't taking shots. The point in a stoppage isn't to reward the guy who's put on the hurt - it's to protect the guy that is hurt. That's the crucial distinction. If he isn't taking shots then there's simply no reason to stop it. If Ike had managed to land one more heavy shot the stoppage would have been justified, but Byrd defended himself excellently and did everything he needed to survive the round. Stopping a fighter in the process of recovering, who is taking no head shots and has 3 seconds to go in the round is unjustifiable.
He defended himself excellently by falling down on his own? They stopped the fight because Chris Byrd was ordering a junior whopper while the ref was counting. He was done.
The ref wasn't counting when he stopped it. The ref was watching Byrd evade 9 consecutive shots when he stopped it. Byrd was taking no punishment & was in no danger ergo ZERO justification for the stoppage.
was he taking punishment? Was he in danger? No to both. Are there any other grounds for stopping an important, competitive fight? No to that as well. Therefor was the stoppage justified? No. End discussion.
Man, he was almost as done as one can be while still on his feet. The stoppage was just. Glazed eyes, slobbering, unsteady, barely knew where he was.
If he could have taken a knee....he would have. :: But he couldn't he'd just have keeled over again. :crafty:
Well, I generally agree with most of what you say, so I went back and rewatched it to check if I was wrong here,,,,,(which on my shit stink modem takes quite a while....NEVER sign up for Virgin media, Im telling you - first they're significantly overcharging for a 10m modem while point black refusing to admit it and the actual modem speed I'm getting is barely 56k and they refuse to fix it. Needless to say their getting the heave ho ASAP) STILL gotta disagree though. He was hurt, but thats only a problem if a guy isn't defending himself well and is taking more. Great fighters get hurt and they come back, sometimes they get real hurt bad and they come back. Nobody could ask anything more of Byrd than what he did, he got up and he immediately knew his task - to convince the ref he could continue (which he did, forcefully) and then to avoid taking any more shots. He did both perfectly. I can even understand stopping it immediately as he got up - that'd be conservative but reasonable - but the timing as it was, was unjustifiable. He was recovering visibly, he was defending himself and there were just moments left. You say he didn't know where he was but check his reaction when he realizes the ref has stopped it - he's outraged, and IMO quite rightly. I think people basically have their minds made up by the drool that was coming out his mouth, with all the connotations that has. That's the defining image of the fight but why should really influence the stoppage? Spit and drool fly out of fighters mouths all the time, they have gum shields in for chissake, it happens - drool came dangling out my mouth in sparring the other night, nobody called the paramedics. Seriously just watch the last ten seconds in isolation and tell me thats a good stoppage - it was just typical Byrd ducking and dodging - effectively at that. But I seem to be the lone voice on this one though so I'll drop it.opcorn:
