Erik Morales vs. Danny Garcia Saturday night fight thread

[Redhawk05]

There was nothing "dirty" about the stoppage. It's frustratig and leaves us unsatisfied, but there's nothing dirty at work and no reason to get on that "This is why boxing is dying" soapbox.

This was a classic case of letter-of-the-law versus intent-of-the-law that happens in EVERY sport: Flagrant fouls in basketball, roughing penalties in football, balk violations in baseball, etc. By the letter of the law, the ref was supposed to DQ Molina. His corner stepped into the ring; that's a DQ. Now by the intent of the law, the ref could have (should have) let it slide. But nobody would be all disgusted and upset if Molina was clearly losing the fight; it only looks like an injustice because he was winning.

My biggest problem is with Harold Lederman blaming the Texas ringside officials for not keeping Molina's corner out of the ring. Every cornerman knows they're not supposed to get in the ring before the round is over; so what were the Texas people supposed to do, physically hold them back?

I could swear I heard the bell n hence the end of the round

Exactly. It was a massive screw up.

Not exactly. On the replay where they kept the camera on Kirkland post-knockdown and we could hear the ref, you saw one of Kirkland's cornermen immediately started jumping up and down and -- what it looked to me -- calling out Molina's guy for getting in the ring. So that's at least one other person who knew a rule had been broken.

It's too bad that the knockdown happened right at the end of the round and it was such weird timing for everyone involved. It's too bad that we couldn't see a clean end to the fight. But I'm seeing everybody railing on the Texas officials and the refs, and nobody is blaming Molina's corner guy. Think about it: Why was he the only one to get in the ring? None of Molina's other corner guys got in the ring, and none of Kirkland's corner even moved toward the ring, because they all knew it wasn't the right time.