Props to the Referee

Am I the only one who thought the referee Mike Griffin did a damn good job? I had Hopkins winning the fight but took no issue with his calls. A lot of people have been unjustly calling for this guy's blood and pegging him as corrupt. Regarding the first knockdown: at first it looked questionable, but upon seeing the replay it appeared to clip him a bit above (perhaps slightly above-behind) the ear, and so according to the letter of the rule was a legit KD (although about as lame as they come, like Paul Williams' Rd. 1 KD of Martinez). At the very least I don't think he can be blamed for ruling it as one given the angle of the punch (it seemed to be to the side of the head). The second KD, resulting from a left directly to the chin, should be entirely uncontroversial (the only surprising aspect was that Hopkins appeared totally unfazed by it). After that he called a great fight, correctly ruling against two other potential knockdown candidates and letting the inside action and clinch fighting go on for just the right amount of time. Personally I'd much rather see more of this guy then the generally awful Vegas crew.

Comments (6)

Miburo

he did ok. I thought he could have used better judgement on the first knockdown and ruled that it was an illegal shot or a push or whatever, but split second it's hard to do. I really question that this was the case. After seeing the replay I think the blow qualifies as "side of the head". When you saw it at full speed in the fight it looked very questionable though, which I think many people based their judgment off of. Perhaps someone can provide a gif.

15y ago

Taranazan

The Referee was OK. He could've been better, but in the face of all that corruption and hatred in Canada-- I think the Ref did the best job he could. corruption and hatred? When Alexander beats Kotelnik, when Williams beats Martinez, when Jones beatz Karass, do you call corruption and hatred upon the USA? No one in his right mind has it wider than 114-112 Hopkins. Are you saying that disagreeing on how to score one round in a fight makes the person disagreeing with you corrupted? I mean come on, some people act as though it's the robbery of the decade when in fact it wasn't even robbery of the day!

15y ago

Miburo

he did excellent who is giving griffin heat anyway? bunch of retards :nonono: I think a majority (at least initially, I don't know about now) were really on him about the first knockdown.

15y ago

PANDA

he did excellent who is giving griffin heat anyway? bunch of retards :nonono:

15y ago

Miburo

Yes, I was surprised that everything ended up going well. A Hopkins fight is hard to ref and he did a good job handling the clinches, the slips, and the hard knockdown calls. I also thought, despite thinking Hopkins won that the scorecards were not too crazy(I thought they were gonna give Pascal a wide UD). Also thought that the crowd was great, never disrespectful and were fine when the scores were given. Overall, I felt this was one of the best jobs done by an outside country, even if Hopkins deserved to get the W. Yeah, the crowd was great as well, and I think it's unfortunate that in his disgust Hopkins was caught up in the moment and sort of indirectly insulted them.

15y ago

EAGLE

yea the guy did very well IMO

15y ago