Rough... did his eyeball fall-out?.... and this guy won the fight. All be it on one of the worst refereeing decisions we have seen to date, by the man in charge, the "fair but firm", Joe Cortez.
After being physically mangled for four rounds, Francisco Lorenzo was awarded a very, very controversial victory due to the disqualification of his opponent, Humberto Soto.
In the midst of delivering a beating, Soto clipped Lorenzo on the back of the head when his knee had just reached the canvas. Immediately Cortez stopped the action for a five minute time out. Lorenzo used this time to lay on the canvas and hold the back of his head in pain, obviously trying to buy some time and make sure his nose was still attached to his mug (see here).
After a few minutes, Cortez made the decision to disqualify Soto for the single punch. Now this type of thing (hitting and opponent while down) happens in about 1 out of every 5 fights and we rarely even see a point taken away. He gave no warning, no points were deducted and he had no grounds what so ever to stop this fight. If he had not given the victory to Lorenzo, who was clearly losing, the fight would have surely been stopped by the ringside physician, Lorezno's corner, or the Francisco Lorenzo himself (refer to picture - top of page).
The decision was in fact so herendous that the WBC refused to give Lorenzo the belt after the fight. They later announced that the bout is ruled a draw. And thank god, at least this shows that they care about the integrity of the sport.
Cortez has been surrounded by controversy since the Ricky Hatton - Floyd Mayweather fight, in which many felt he involved himself far too much and cost Hatton a fair chance. May be time to hang it up Joe, especially after the events that occurred over the past weekend. See him below try to stand by one of the worst decisions made in recent history. It's fair to say that he was firmly mistaken on this one.
1 comment:
That's pretty insane. How do referees like that keep jobs?
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