BTW..... no props for Gino Rodriguez? C'mon!

[Majesty]

We (myself included) are only too quick to dump on a ref when he screws up. But how about Gino Rodriguez last night? I thought he did a remarkable job. I thought the point he deducted from Wlad in Round 7 was dead on. Wlad WAS pulling Haye down behind the head, and Gino had warned Wlad on repeated occasions. But THEN.... when it became obvious that it was more Haye's flopping than Wlad's pulling, Gino turned his attention on HIM.

Here again, he warned Haye on numerous occasions. "Quit doing that!" And to everyone's surprise (including Merchant and company), and my delight..... he counted a flop in Round 11 as a knockdown!! Genius. Some Haye fans may have said, "That was a questionable knockdown". Hell.... it wasn't even a knockdown. But if you're going to throw yourself on the ground like that, then take the 8-count. That made Haye fight more than anything Wlad did.

So props to the ref on this one.

No props to the ref whatsoever.

IF you are going to call going down a knockdown, you don't pick the one that looks the most obvious like Wladimir pushed him down.

The one prior to that when Haye went down because Wladimir barely touched him was one to take a point in, but not one where Wladimir pulls him in and dumps him down all that does is encourage it more if you already got the ref on your side in that situation. Haye flopped the one where Wladimir touched him, but Haye shouldn't lose a point in a situation he was actually guided by Wladimir's hand. Even when they played it on instant replay and made Roy Jones look like an idiot by saying "see here the flop..well Wladimir was pulling him in a little bit..but still.." Yeah.. that's why no one else said anything.

So the ref taking a point away on THAT particular one was bad form. I hate seeing refs trying to implement themselves too much into a fight and I would have been fine with counting going down as a knockdown had Haye kept doing it when Wladimir barely touched him, but calling it in a situation where it actually looked like Wladimir pulled him down is bad on the ref's part. So no kudos for that.