Douglas manhandles Tyson

[JazMerkin]

The great fiction of this fight is that Douglas got a "long count." First off, ref's counts are rarely ten seconds, they are instead ten counts. Second the fighter's job is to follow the ref's count, whatever it is. Third, Buster pretty clearly could have gotten up 6-7 seconds (by a clock) after he got dropped. Lastly, the Douglas count was 14 seconds. But guess what Tyson's count was? The same 14 seconds.

As for Tyson not being "mentally prepared?" As irrelevant as Dempsey's mental condition before Tunney, Ray Leonard's before Duran or Robinson's before Turpin. Part of the game. The guy who handles the outside pressures better as an edge.

Still shocking to see.

In amateur boxing the count is based on seconds. When a fighter gets dropped the time keeper starts a timer, the ref looks to the timekeeper to get where the count is and carries it on. I think youll find it is supposed to be actually 10 seconds, otherwise whats stopping Steven Hawkins becoming a tef and giving a 2 minute 10 count

Its all to do with incompetant refs or a time keeper not doing his job.

This happens in the pros exactly the same.

Yep, well the difference is, in amateur boxing, you have a fair sport, where rules are adhered to and fights are fair with evenly matched opponents. Where as professional boxing is a business. Rounds are won based on who the judge "thinks" looked better and everything is interpratation, the refs interpratation of the rules like allowing some fighters to hold and not doing the count properly and again, the judges interpratation of what deems a fighter the winner of a round.

If Ward were fighting another pro but with amateur judges and ref, first, he wouldnt win many rounds, or not as many as he does and second, he wouldnt get away with all that holding and mauling. Hed be warned, have points deducted and made to actually fight.

Alot of refs and judges are in promoters pockets and get treated very well, when in town to work a fight.

The part in bold I agree with. The rest I don't. Scoring is subjective as well in the ams, I'm either on or at shows regularly & not one goes past without at least one or two dodgy scorecards. Like the pros this normally gets overruled by the other two, but you see whole shows where the home boys get the benefits & you see it all the way up to the ABA finals where the boys on the GB Squad get beneficial scoring. Ward is a terrible example, he was a truly exceptional amateur. He's just learned to take advantage of the pros.