No standing 8 counts in ANY championship fights. Froch - Groves related.

[Tam Seddon]

A lot of people have said about Groves should have been given at least a count, but the rules state that in championship boxing there are no standing 8 counts and this is with all top sanctioning bodies. I'm not trying to defence the premature stoppage because I would have let it carry on. But Groves did take a lot of punches and Froch should have been allowed to follow them up, with over a third of the fight to go I think Froch would have had him out of there.

On a side note I think they should allow a standing 8 count in championship level fights as the referee could properly judge weather a fighters head is clear to carry on or not. That would have been better than would the referee did on Saturday and stop is like he did.

[bradlee180]

No standing 8 counts ever.

[bradlee180]

Standing 8 counts can take away a victory.
A guy works to get the other guy right here he wants him: in big trouble! Then just when it's sure as $#!t that he's gonna finish him, the ref steps in and breaks it for a standing 8, sending the man to the neutral corner.
It gives the hurt man a break, and prevented the knockout victory. It stole victory from what rightly should have been a KO win.

You know what else: very often, all standing 8 counts did was cause the injured man to take more cumulative damage and delay the knockout as the guy gets a few extra seconds to clear his head, and then the attack resumes, and he takes a bunch more damage... at which point, he's given another standing 8, is able to clear his head a bit at which point the fight resumes and then he takes even more damage...

[Tam Seddon]

On the basis of no standing 8 counts this does defend the referee a bit though IMO.

[bradlee180]

Well, the ref is the real problem here. Ref howard foster is an incompetent; rule changes ain't gonna help that any. And there's LOTS of nincompoop refs in Boxing. Very few decent ones.

[IamInuit]

Yeah I mentioned it in a response only because of the way things turned out. I mean on the one hand Carl gets one because he was decked and got up with happy feet and on the other hand Groves gets the fight called when he was still fighting back. Perhaps Groves should have taken a knee or touched his glove on the canvas.

[Silkeyjoe]

On the basis of no standing 8 counts this does defend the referee a bit though IMO.

Bute got a standing 8 count in the Froch fight right before his corner through in the towel. Another example of shit refereeing in England

[TheMacMagician]

I'm not down with rule changes at all. It is referee changes that are necessary. Will Howard Foster have to stand in front of someone and explain his actions now the mood has calmed after fight night??

In my opinion, inexperience beat Groves on Saturday. He boxed tremendously and made Froch look even more silly than Dirrell and Ward made him look. He didn't stick to the game plan that was working, using footwork and sharp counters, and rather than duck out from the ropes as he'd done earlier in the fight, beautifully I might add, he traded with wide shots against the ropes. He also could have taken a knee to gather his thoughts, rather than let pride get in the way of a great game plan and go toe to toe. Groves IMO also looks to be the hardest hitter at 168, so in combination with his boxing skills he'd take most if not all. Only other guy I see him struggling with, Ward aside, is Bika.

So all in all, I think groves will have learned an incredible amount from Saturday, comes out with his head held VERY high indeed, and I would like to think he won't make the same mistake again, but saying that, he does like to go toe to toe in pockets in the fight, so maybe that's just in his make up and will always have that vulnerability. He just needs to learn that that vulnerability will cost him fights against a guy like Froch who is near damn impossible to get out of there and will still come strong in patches in the championship rounds.

[superheavyrhun]

On the basis of no standing 8 counts this does defend the referee a bit though IMO.

Bute got a standing 8 count in the Froch fight right before his corner through in the towel. Another example of shit refereeing in England

I think the ref has the discretion to administer an 8 count if he thinks that the ropes were the only thing keeping a fighter upright. That wasn't the case in the Groves fight, but for Bute the ropes were sagging under his weight. Just saying the the ref's counter to that is that he thought Bute would have gone down without the support of the ropes, which is a marginally different thing to a standing 8.

Nonetheless, I reckon Groves should have had more time considering the fact that he was winning the fight, but he was in a position where he could have taken a knee and if he rallied for two out of the last three would still have won. I think he deserves a rematch, and his style would cause Froch further problems again. Ward seems keen on a Froch rematch, but I don't think Ward's style is good for Froch either.