Kermit Left Hopping Mad After Controversial Williams Defeat
By: Andrew Harrison
Category: Uncategorized
| Aperture: | f/2.8 |
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| Focal Length: | 24mm |
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| Shutter: | 1/400 sec |
| Camera: | Canon EOS 40D |
Last night’s big fight at light middleweight between Paul “The Punisher” Williams and “Killer” Kermit Cintron ended in unsatisfactory farce after Cintron exited the ring midway through the fourth round. After the fighters became tangled and then split from a clinch, the Puerto Rican flew through the ropes, breaking his fall on a ringside table and then things got a little weird.
After a tumble of just a few feet, Cintron was left holding the back of his head (yet later claimed to have hurt his back). Cintron was then attended to by the resident medical team, who he claims made him lay face down for an extended period and disallowed him the chance to continue. He was taken from the arena via stretcher.
It was a strange plummet indeed, replays show that Cintron made no attempt to break his fall against the ropes and instead, he appears to hop through the second and third strands. Odder still, his head appears to avoid colliding with the ring apron, yet he immediately puts his glove behind his neck to indicate an injury. Even more bizarre, the trussed up fighter, complete with neck brace was sufficiently able bodied to batter the ambulance door as he departed from the venue.
The three completed rounds saw both men booed after a quieter than expected start. Williams in particular took a more cautious approach than he has done of late, mitigating it by claiming that his mentor, George Peterson, “kept me on the choke chain”. Cintron was right in the fight and things were beginning to heat up just prior to the ending.
Under California rules, the fight went to the cards, with the judges returning a technical decision in Paul’s favour by scores of 40-36, 39-37 and 36-40. Cintron was left fuming at the decision and spoke of retirement post fight after claiming that he had been handed a defeat unfairly.
This strange anomaly of a fight joins the ranks of others from history which featured one of the combatants taking an unscheduled trip out of the ring.
Shannon Briggs pulled out a dramatic last round victory over Sergei Liakhovich in 2006 in Phoenix. The “White Wolf” from Belarus held a handy lead going into the final session, yet was stunned and dropped by the hard punching Brooklynite with less than half a minute to go in the fight. With mere seconds remaining, Liakhovich was bundled from the ring after catching a right hand, landing on a ringside table, where referee Robert Ferrara called a halt to affairs with just one second left on the clock.
There have been instances where fighters have been punched from the ring, only to return with a vengeance.
Jack Dempsey managed it against Luis Firpo in 1923. After flattening “The Wild Bull of the Pampas” seven times in the opening round, Dempsey himself was walloped through the ropes before the initial three minutes was up. Dempsey allegedly cracked his noggin on a ringside typewriter and had to be helped back into the ring (illegally) by up to a dozen ringsiders depending on which report you consult. “The Manassa Mauler” rebounded savagely in the second round however, flattening the big Argentine twice within its first minute, to win by knockout and record an historic victory.
A couple of years back, Joel Casamayor was able to regroup after Michael Katsidis punched him through the ropes with a left-left-right combination, stopping the Aussie hard man in the tenth. Nigel Benn suffered a torrid pounding in the opener of his war with Gerald McClellan in 1995. After being forced to squat low to avoid McClellan’s ferocious onslaught, he was thumped through the bottom ropes and onto the ring apron. Benn managed to scramble back into the frying pan on terribly unsteady legs prior to the third man counting him out and, like Casamayor, triumphed in ten.
Bernard Hopkins was sent crashing to the outer ring floor in his first bout against Robert Allen in 1998, however, the offender on this occasion was referee Mills Lane rather than his opponent. Lane attempted to split the pair from a clinch, only to shove “The Executioner” out of the ring and out of the fight. The bout was ruled a no contest and Hopkins went on to stop Allen in seven rounds less than seven months later.
Cintron should have been afforded the opportunity to emulate Dempsey, Casamayor and Benn or at the very least, been saddled with a no contest ala Hopkins, rather than a loss. A standardised ruling system throughout the various American States and indeed the sport, can help avoid similar controversies in future.
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