If you agree with the Mares stoppage, youmustagree with Steele stopping Chavez Taylor

He should have been given a full count, he was trying to get up. As the defending champion, he earned that. I agree, this is exactly how I felt about the situation.

It was a good stoppage, Mares would have been out also on the second, Johnny is a great finisher and he would have gone out to kill him in the next round

Well, a few very obvious reasons that should be clear to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of boxing. First, it happened in the very first round, not the twelfth and last. Second, he was knocked down twice, both worse than Taylor's single knockdown. Third, he had about ten seconds left in the very first round along with the extra 33, yes, that's thirty three, more minutes left in the fight compared to the two seconds left for Taylor. If you need more than that, get your head checked. First and last rounds of a fight are very different. That's your first clue. It should be obvious from there on out. Well let's check out this scenario. Fighter A knocks down fighter B three times in the first round. After the third knockdown, fighter B struggles a bit to get up. The ref let's the fight continue by giving fighter B a chance to get up a third time. Fighter B survives round one and continues to make a memorable legacy by going over 40 more rounds with fighter A. You might want to check out boxing sometime, it has some amazing comebacks from adversity. The ref didn't even give Mares a chance to get up the second time. He jumped right on him as Abner was starting to get up at the count of three. But dont mind me, my knowledge is rudimentary.

Mares should've at least been given the chance to stand up. I'm not sure what the ref saw that made him stop the fight.

I agree with Taylor - Chavez. : Steele was looking after the fighter health, and he wasnt responding. Its not right that the ref also had to try to weigh up who was ahead on the score cards, and how much time was left. There isnt enough time to consider all that when a fighters life is at risk. Mares, im not sure. I think he could have continued, but he also was just taking shots after he got up the first time. I didnt know how much time was left. He did look like he could continue. Not a bad stoppage, but at least let him get to his feet first to check how stable he is. So yea, i guess it was early.

It was early. It should have been up to the corner after that one minute break to see if their fighter is fit to continue fighting. We're really being deprived of epic FOY comebacks with these type of stoppages. I've seen fighters come back from worse. Bradley after his KD in the first round against Prov seemed more hurt than Mares to me and went the full 12.

I was at the fight live, and we didn't know how much time was left on the clock. I just saw the replay, and at the time of the stoppage, there was 5 seconds left. The ref counted to three and didn't really give Mares a chance to get up. Had he allowed him to continue and get up, the bell would have rung and Mares would have had a minute to shake the webs. Does anyone agree with the Mares stoppage while disagreeing with the Taylor stoppage? If so, why? Well, a few very obvious reasons that should be clear to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of boxing. First, it happened in the very first round, not the twelfth and last. Second, he was knocked down twice, both worse than Taylor's single knockdown. Third, he had about ten seconds left in the very first round along with the extra 33, yes, that's thirty three, more minutes left in the fight compared to the two seconds left for Taylor. If you need more than that, get your head checked. First and last rounds of a fight are very different. That's your first clue. It should be obvious from there on out.

The fight should have been stopped after the first knockdown MAres was finished

It was two different situations one happened in the last second of the last round and one happened at the last seconds of the first round leaving 11 more rounds for him to take punishment (i doubt it would go that far) but the ref said something to Mares about Mares' eyes as if the ref could see he was not all with it when he stopped counting. I think that the Mares stoppage may have been a little premature because the bell was about to ring and he had a minute to recover but he would have got stopped in the second round imo by the looks of it. The Chavez - Taylor stoppage was a poor choice by Steele IMO

The Mares stoppage was early. The guy had his bearings together. However Mares should blame himself for not holding and instead choosing to bang hurt.

Chavez - Taylor was a horrible stoppage. He was winning the fight. The fight was in the last round with a few seconds to go and he deserved the opportunity to finish the fight and have it go to the scorecards. He took one flash knockdown and got up immediately. This idea that next punch would have been killed with the next punch is Highly speculative and just justification for those who wanted Chavez to win. Flash knockdown.:lol1:

He should have let him get up and then see if he couldnt continue. The 2nd KD wasnt devastating and abner looked fine IMO. I had no idea there were only a few seconds left until i entered this thread tho

Mares was stupid at the end there. After the first KD he needed to clinch and hold for the last seconds of the round......instead he's trading and gets sent down again. I know he's a warrior and has a big heart, but you can't do that at 126 where the guys are all bigger than you. Hopefully he learns from that.

htey aren't at all alike, but i agree with both. one was in the first round, the other at the end of a war. the ref is just a few feet away from a fighter. he can hear him. he can see exactly what's going on. in the steele case, he asked taylor if he was OK, and he didnt' answer. in mares case, he wasn't even looking at the ref. he was looking glazed, a bit confused, and badly hurt.

Round 1 ( 11 rounds left to go). Round 12 ( 0 rounds left to go). I don't actually blame the referee for waving the fight off, in the Chavez vs Taylor fight, but your comparison is ludicrous at best.

There is no comparison. The fight last night was in the first round. You could clearly see in Mares eyes that he wasn't ok. The Taylor fight had a few seconds left in a fight he was winning. He jumped up as soon as he was KD. This was one of many gifts from Don King to Chavez. If Steele was trying to protect Taylor he could have had the Dr come in and evaluate him. Two completely different situations. The Mares stoppage was ok, the Taylor stoppage was a black eye on the sport.

its not like back in the day. refs these days are poosies. mares shouldve been given a full count. Posted from Boxingscene.com App for Android I sort of agree with the 5'2 aesthetic midget, refs suck **** these days but that was an alright stoppage

OMG you literally got this totally backwards. Taylor fought 12 hard rounds against Chaves and should have gotten his W, there was 3 seconds left. Mares got caught in the 1st round and was not gonna survive 11 more. This is a purely biased opinion. Exactly... You don't "protect" a fighter by letting him fight his ass off for 12 rounds, taking a vicious beating... If the fight is that close, but one guy's taking a beating, you have to let it go on... You don't wait till the 12th round... I mean, look what happened to his career afterward... Steele didn't protect anything but Chavez's record

BOTH stoppages were lame....Reese is normally legit....one of my favorite refs but he pulled the plug on this one too early IMHO

protect the fighter is the rule of today. mares was one punch away from being hurt. as a philly/nj guy I know taylor and he was really hurt from the chavez fight. he was never the same. that fight destroyed him and his career. how many times was he ko'd after that fight. chaves a second time, terry Norris, chrisanto espana. all brutal ko's. after the chaver fight we could see his health not the same. he never looked well even seemed like he was sick. now here's my opinion and everyone is going to disagree with this. unless you were actually at the fight sitting in the corner you have no clue. the fight should have been stopped around the 8-9 round. yes he was winning but you have to let a guy fight for another day. we were begging for the corner to stop it with our body language because none of us had the GUTS to just tell the corner to wave it off. real ****