Does anyone feel any sympathy for Joe Cortez?

[amat]

Every referee has their hiccups and bad fights, all of them. I had no qualms which his job in the Calzaghe-Hopkins fight, didn't see anything wrong there. I recently watched the Hatton-Mayweather bout for the first time since the week of the fight and I can see where Hatton had a legitimate case against Cortez.

What happened last night was a joke. He looked completely flustered and I think the only way he could have handled it worse would be if Lorenzo had his jaw broke and didn't want to continue but made him anyways. That's what it reminded me of, absolutely bizarre.

Cortez isn't a bad guy, I know one person who is friends with him and says he's a great guy. But he's had a mini-run of bad officiating. I don't think he had any sort of a slant against Soto I think he just overthought that fight. He stepped in, pulled out, stepped in, pulled out then the hit happened, it should have been ignored especially since you couldn't blame Soto for not respecting Cortez stepping in when Cortez had already stepped in and then let it continue. He overthought things, should have realized that Lorenzo wasn't continuing not because of the grazing hit behind the head but because of the other punches that rearranged his nose and tore his skin to shreds. But in a big moment on HBO, he probably got flustered and we got a DQ. A bad call I would hope Cortez would admit it today if he had a chance to rewatch the fight.