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I've seen this touted a lot lately, and partly I suspect it's because of the lack of UK bouts that get screened in America, leading to a misconception.
I actually saw an idiotic thread on here recently suggesting that Nigel Benn was almost actively encouraged to rabbit punch McClennan, and we all know that Ricky Hatton is a bit rough and ready.
Yet are these a "lower standard" of strict refereeing in England or just isolated examples?
For instance, these past couple of weeks I've seen the following from America: Bernard Hopkins repeatedly headbutt Jermaine Taylor, while Taylor himself did a "power rabbit" (c. Slipx) on the back of Hopkins's head. On the undercard was a guy who hit a man on one knee without being penalised for it. And, as we all know, biting off your opponent's ear only gets a point deduction.
So I'm sure these "incidents" happen as a minority regardless of location, and it's an ignorant myth to suggest it's "customary" for English bouts.
What made me think of this (apart from all the obligatory Brit-bash threads that are thankfully not appearing as often lately) is that I was reading that Marciano special in the back of the latest Ring Magazine. It described Marciano hitting a man while he was down, with the retrospectively amusing line (written by Nat Fleischer in 1952) of "he risked disqualification if the bout had been held in England".
So... has the American perception of UK bouts fallen, has the standard of UK bouts fallen, or is it just ill-informed fallacy?
I actually saw an idiotic thread on here recently suggesting that Nigel Benn was almost actively encouraged to rabbit punch McClennan, and we all know that Ricky Hatton is a bit rough and ready.
Yet are these a "lower standard" of strict refereeing in England or just isolated examples?
For instance, these past couple of weeks I've seen the following from America: Bernard Hopkins repeatedly headbutt Jermaine Taylor, while Taylor himself did a "power rabbit" (c. Slipx) on the back of Hopkins's head. On the undercard was a guy who hit a man on one knee without being penalised for it. And, as we all know, biting off your opponent's ear only gets a point deduction.
So I'm sure these "incidents" happen as a minority regardless of location, and it's an ignorant myth to suggest it's "customary" for English bouts.
What made me think of this (apart from all the obligatory Brit-bash threads that are thankfully not appearing as often lately) is that I was reading that Marciano special in the back of the latest Ring Magazine. It described Marciano hitting a man while he was down, with the retrospectively amusing line (written by Nat Fleischer in 1952) of "he risked disqualification if the bout had been held in England".
So... has the American perception of UK bouts fallen, has the standard of UK bouts fallen, or is it just ill-informed fallacy?
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