It's a judgment call. He was up at 9. That much is clear from the replays. If the referee decided that he was not in a condition to defend himself, I can't fault him for stopping the contest. However, I didn't see the referee examine him at all to see if he was in a condition to defend himself. Further, from where I was sitting he appeared ready to defend himself. He got up fast. He had never been knocked down in the fight. He doesn't have a history of stoppages. I would have let him fight. But, I wasn't the third man in the ring.
I thought the announcers and referee were arguing that he wasn't up at 9, which clearly was the case, not that he wasn't in a condition to defend himself. If that was their argument, they were wrong.
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