Quote Originally Posted by miles View Post
I think the responsibility is that of the referee at the end of the day. Someone who is meant to be independent and in control of proceedings. It was awful the way Margarito was being asked to count the fingers with his one good eye wide open. Of course he could still count, duh! It was an awful injury and he clearly couldn't see for the majority of the fight. Sometimes fights get stopped too early, but this was quite the opposite and ridiculously so.
This is always a tough thing to get to a clear answer on. The ref's first job is to protect the safety of the fighter (within the context of boxing of course). It may be better said, protecting the life of the fighter. The ref is handicapped to some degree by only having a limited familiarity with each fighter. He simply may not recognize deterioration quickly enough.

The corner should be the first to recognize issues their fighter is having as they know him best. But they often have a conflict of interest or in other cases will not overrule the wishes of a fighter (a terrible abdication of responsibility).

In my view, the corner is really the first line of defense for a battered fighter and they have in some sense failed if the referee is forced to stop a fight.

But as I noted above, this is a very difficult dynamic and question.