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Eric Raskin thinks so.
And I agree with him.
By Eric Raskin
By the time Nate Campbell is done having his hearing with the California commission on Aug. 24, his TKO loss to Timothy Bradley will likely have been turned into a no-contest, and you’ll hear a lot of talk about how justice was done. After all, replays clearly showed that the cut above Campbell’s left eye was caused by an accidental clash of heads. Referee David Mendoza got the call wrong, a mistake that instant replay can correct.
Unfortunately, a no-contest isn’t necessarily justice. It’s the correct result according to the rulebook. But it rewards the fighter who was being dominated in the ring, who believed he had one option to escape without a loss, and who immediately dismissed the notion of battling on like a true warrior in favor of that easy-way-out option.
Yes, the Bradley-Campbell controversy has re-opened discussion about the need for boxing to adopt instant replay. But that discussion has unfairly overshadowed an equally important issue: whether fighters are abusing the accidental-foul rule and, in turn, whether it’s time to modify that rule.
Campbell was justified in repeatedly screaming “This is wrong!” after Bradley was named the winner by TKO on Aug. 1 because the ref did indeed blow the call. But Bradley will have every right to scream the same thing right back in his face if he ultimately has to settle for a no-contest.
Rewarding a fighter for quitting the first chance he gets? That is wrong. And it’s been happening far too often lately.
Last July, Hasim Rahman claimed he was having trouble seeing after clashing heads with James Toney, and after a commission hearing, the result ended up a three-round no-contest. This past March, Robert Guerrero followed the same path in the second round of his fight with Daud Yordan, which also was ruled a no-contest.
What did Rahman, Guerrero and Campbell have in common?
For starters, all three were struggling in their fights. Campbell was being shut out through three rounds, the third stanza bordering on a 10-8 score; Rahman was getting dominated in the third round; Guerrero was having problems with the speed of Yordan, and the fight, which Guerrero was favored to win, was about even through a round-and-a-half.
And all three went out of their way to tell the refs and/or doctors that they couldn’t see. These weren’t fighters wanting to fight and officials overruling them for health reasons. These were fighters tying the officials’ hands with the words that came out of their mouths.
Obviously, a man’s eyesight is serious business, and if these boxers truly were having vision problems, then the fights should have been stopped. So there’s a part of you that wants to give each the benefit of the doubt.
But it seems awfully coincidental. Three separate fights, three separate cuts that don’t look bad enough to end a fight, three separate fighters who weren’t doing as well as they’d hoped, and three separate fighters who knew just what to say to give the doctors no wiggle room.
“Everyone knows [Campbell] quit,” Bradley’s promoter, Gary Shaw, told RingTV.com’s Michael Rosenthal last week. “He didn’t want the cutman to close the cut. He didn’t want to fight. He was getting beat by a bigger, stronger, faster man. He just plain quit.”
You don’t have to look too hard to find contrasting examples of fighters in similar situations behaving like fighters (to borrow a Teddy Atlas-ism).
In June, Miguel Cotto was stuck in a tough challenge against Joshua Clottey when he got cut over the left eye by an accidental head butt in the third round. He had plenty of opportunities to hint – or flat-out insist – to the doctor that the fight should be stopped. Instead, he insisted on winning or losing honorably and went the 12-round distance.
Back in March, Marco Antonio Barrera suffered a gruesome gash in the opening round of his bout with Amir Khan, was clearly bothered by the blood, and soldiered on until, conveniently, the British officials stopped the fight once enough rounds were in the book for Khan to win a technical decision.
Prior to the Bradley fight, Campbell, who calls himself “The Galaxxy Warrior,” had never been anything but a warrior. He’d lost some fights, but he’d never lacked for heart or looked for shortcuts. So you want to believe him when he says he’s seeing spots.
But the T-shirt he wore into the ring for the Bradley fight bore the name of the late Arturo Gatti. And you’d better believe spots in his eyes would never have kept Gatti on his stool. Boxers are held to a high standard for toughness – especially boxers who dedicate their fights to Gatti. It’s not that Campbell isn’t tough by normal human measures. But his determination to get the Bradley fight stopped was a galaxy away from what a warrior would have done.
So between Campbell, Guerrero and Rahman, any or all of whom were arguably abusing the system, is it time to consider modifying the rule that allows fights to be stopped this way and go into the books as no-contests?
“You can never force a fighter to continue, and even if you would try to do that, if he’s right and he does get hurt, you’re a dead man, legally. You can’t take that type of responsibility,” said Greg Sirb, the executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and former president of the Association of Boxing Commissioners. “But you should be able to say to the kid, ‘Hey, that’s fine. You’re allowed to call it quits right here. But it will go down as a loss by TKO.’ I’m talking about a situation where the doctor comes to me and says, ‘Greg, he’s fine, he can continue.’ As a commissioner, I can say, ‘If you want to quit at this time, you’ll lose by abandonment.’
Continued at ringtv.com
And I agree with him.
By Eric Raskin
By the time Nate Campbell is done having his hearing with the California commission on Aug. 24, his TKO loss to Timothy Bradley will likely have been turned into a no-contest, and you’ll hear a lot of talk about how justice was done. After all, replays clearly showed that the cut above Campbell’s left eye was caused by an accidental clash of heads. Referee David Mendoza got the call wrong, a mistake that instant replay can correct.
Unfortunately, a no-contest isn’t necessarily justice. It’s the correct result according to the rulebook. But it rewards the fighter who was being dominated in the ring, who believed he had one option to escape without a loss, and who immediately dismissed the notion of battling on like a true warrior in favor of that easy-way-out option.
Yes, the Bradley-Campbell controversy has re-opened discussion about the need for boxing to adopt instant replay. But that discussion has unfairly overshadowed an equally important issue: whether fighters are abusing the accidental-foul rule and, in turn, whether it’s time to modify that rule.
Campbell was justified in repeatedly screaming “This is wrong!” after Bradley was named the winner by TKO on Aug. 1 because the ref did indeed blow the call. But Bradley will have every right to scream the same thing right back in his face if he ultimately has to settle for a no-contest.
Rewarding a fighter for quitting the first chance he gets? That is wrong. And it’s been happening far too often lately.
Last July, Hasim Rahman claimed he was having trouble seeing after clashing heads with James Toney, and after a commission hearing, the result ended up a three-round no-contest. This past March, Robert Guerrero followed the same path in the second round of his fight with Daud Yordan, which also was ruled a no-contest.
What did Rahman, Guerrero and Campbell have in common?
For starters, all three were struggling in their fights. Campbell was being shut out through three rounds, the third stanza bordering on a 10-8 score; Rahman was getting dominated in the third round; Guerrero was having problems with the speed of Yordan, and the fight, which Guerrero was favored to win, was about even through a round-and-a-half.
And all three went out of their way to tell the refs and/or doctors that they couldn’t see. These weren’t fighters wanting to fight and officials overruling them for health reasons. These were fighters tying the officials’ hands with the words that came out of their mouths.
Obviously, a man’s eyesight is serious business, and if these boxers truly were having vision problems, then the fights should have been stopped. So there’s a part of you that wants to give each the benefit of the doubt.
But it seems awfully coincidental. Three separate fights, three separate cuts that don’t look bad enough to end a fight, three separate fighters who weren’t doing as well as they’d hoped, and three separate fighters who knew just what to say to give the doctors no wiggle room.
“Everyone knows [Campbell] quit,” Bradley’s promoter, Gary Shaw, told RingTV.com’s Michael Rosenthal last week. “He didn’t want the cutman to close the cut. He didn’t want to fight. He was getting beat by a bigger, stronger, faster man. He just plain quit.”
You don’t have to look too hard to find contrasting examples of fighters in similar situations behaving like fighters (to borrow a Teddy Atlas-ism).
In June, Miguel Cotto was stuck in a tough challenge against Joshua Clottey when he got cut over the left eye by an accidental head butt in the third round. He had plenty of opportunities to hint – or flat-out insist – to the doctor that the fight should be stopped. Instead, he insisted on winning or losing honorably and went the 12-round distance.
Back in March, Marco Antonio Barrera suffered a gruesome gash in the opening round of his bout with Amir Khan, was clearly bothered by the blood, and soldiered on until, conveniently, the British officials stopped the fight once enough rounds were in the book for Khan to win a technical decision.
Prior to the Bradley fight, Campbell, who calls himself “The Galaxxy Warrior,” had never been anything but a warrior. He’d lost some fights, but he’d never lacked for heart or looked for shortcuts. So you want to believe him when he says he’s seeing spots.
But the T-shirt he wore into the ring for the Bradley fight bore the name of the late Arturo Gatti. And you’d better believe spots in his eyes would never have kept Gatti on his stool. Boxers are held to a high standard for toughness – especially boxers who dedicate their fights to Gatti. It’s not that Campbell isn’t tough by normal human measures. But his determination to get the Bradley fight stopped was a galaxy away from what a warrior would have done.
So between Campbell, Guerrero and Rahman, any or all of whom were arguably abusing the system, is it time to consider modifying the rule that allows fights to be stopped this way and go into the books as no-contests?
“You can never force a fighter to continue, and even if you would try to do that, if he’s right and he does get hurt, you’re a dead man, legally. You can’t take that type of responsibility,” said Greg Sirb, the executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and former president of the Association of Boxing Commissioners. “But you should be able to say to the kid, ‘Hey, that’s fine. You’re allowed to call it quits right here. But it will go down as a loss by TKO.’ I’m talking about a situation where the doctor comes to me and says, ‘Greg, he’s fine, he can continue.’ As a commissioner, I can say, ‘If you want to quit at this time, you’ll lose by abandonment.’
Continued at ringtv.com
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