On Sunday afternoon, Pat
Russell was heading up to Santa Barbara to
celebrate his 21st anniversary with his wife. The night before, he
was the third man in the ring in what was just the latest HBO Pay-Per-View
snafu, as Chad Dawson won the WBC light heavyweight title by stopping Bernard
Hopkins in rather dubious fashion. The 46-year old Hopkins was essentially
lifted off his feet by Dawson near the end of the second round and in the
subsequent fall, he suffered a separated left shoulder.
Just when
you thought you had seen it all...
“That was a
roughhouse fight, two tough guys, very experienced. They know exactly what they
were doing. They were trying to gain angles at all times so they could throw
shots,” recalled Russell, while on the road. “And that happened in the first
round. The second round, just previous to this particular incident happening,
if you notice - and again, I have not seen any replays or whatever else, so I'm
just telling you what my recollection is and being in the middle at the time-
Dawson got pushed down because Bernard came in, I think, to throw a body shot
and Dawson got pushed down and he had a slip, very quickly, that was just prior
to when this fight ended. I dusted off his gloves. I tried to prevent that
stuff from happening.”
He
continued, “Here's how I see what happened: Dawson is coming in a little low,
apparently to throw a body shot. I see Hopkins over the top of him, literally
draped on top of him with one hand wrapped around. It appears to be on the far
side on Dawson's right side. I'm on the left side. I'm not seeing anything on
the right side, other than I see him draped. Now, I didn't see him land on his
shoulder. I saw him land on his hip hard. That's what I saw. So is that foul?
No, what it is is roughhouse tactics and inadvertent contact in an awkward
position and that's what I called.”
Russell is
a veteran referee and is universally respected by those in the sport. When you
ask those in the business if they would trust him in a big fight, they will
unanimously say yes. But in this particular occasion, many would disagree with
his ruling. It seemed as though as Hopkins threw a right hand that Dawson
slipped. Hopkins then smothered the left-hander and as Russell described it,
was draped on Dawson (this smothering is a familiar technique of “The
Executioner”) and it was at that point that Dawson seem to intentionally lift
and catapult Hopkins to the canvas. It was a maneuver more suited for MMA than
boxing but Russell's judgment call was that no infraction was committed.
“I've got
one set of eyes, my set of eyes,” he said. “You can have nine different camera
angles. I can't see any other side of what's going on and what I saw was a guy who
was in an inferior position at a disadvantage because a guy was draped over his
back and he did what any human being would do- he tried to straighten up. If
there's something else that went on that side, well, OK, that's why we have a
process and we could certainly look at that. I think that's what the issue was
and I know people were very upset about that but you could not be upset about
the fact that he could not continue because of an injury caused by inadvertent
contact or a roughhouse fight.”
Many will
disagree that what Dawson did was anything but “inadvertent” to which Russell
counters, “If there's a foul, you have to go back to the genesis of this thing,
is a guy who is draped over the top of another guy- is that a foul? So we want
to hyperventilate over all this stuff but at the end of the day, what it is is
this: it's incidental contact in a roughhouse fight.”
As Hopkins
was deemed unfit to continue, because Russell did not call a foul, Dawson then
became the winner by TKO. “That's it,” confirmed Russell who added, “and the
continuum of the story was [Hopkins] was in distress. He was obviously in pain.
I immediately called time out. It was a doctor’s intervention. That's a
doctor's issue. Candidly, all I can tell you is what I remember and what I
remember is the doctor kept asking [Hopkins] and wanted to examine him and
Bernard kept complaining that his shoulder was out of joint. And that's what I
heard, I don't know if there was an examination.”
When Dr.
Tony Hicks asked Hopkins if he could continue, Hopkins answered rather
incredulously, “Yeah, with one arm!” as if to say, “Hell, no, I can't go on.”
Russell says, “It was a doctor’s intervention and in their continuing dialogue,
I don't think he ever examined him. I really don't. I can't tell you that.”
Later on, Dr.
Sam Thurber at the California Hospital
Medical Center diagnosed that Hopkins suffered a separation of the A-C (acromioclavicular) joint which connects
the collar bone to the shoulder blade. Of course, perhaps based on Hopkins',
let's say, checkered history inside the ring, this hasn't silenced those
who insist that he found the easy way out of what was looking like a very
difficult fight.
“I’m not
going to speculate about anyone's physical condition. I'm going to believe the
fighter. I'm going to believe the doctor and I'm going to believe the medical
evidence. I'm not a doctor and if some guy’s complaining that he can't continue
a fight, I'm not going to let him continue with a fight,” said Russell. I've
got to believe him. He knows his body and he's in pain and I'm not going to cast
aspersions upon any fighter on that. This is a tough business. They're in that
ring and they get to make that assessment on themselves. I'm not going to do
that for them.”
HBO’s Larry
Merchant says that boxing is the theater of the unexpected. It's also the
theater of the absurd. The night of October 15th at the Staples
Center in Los Angeles was a lot of both.
“Who'd have
come up with a scenario like this?” said Russell, laughing at the thought. “At
the end of the day, we live in a glass house and I'm loath to throw rocks.
There was a rhyme and reason for doing it. If in fact it is a foul and
[Hopkins] cannot continue, then it's a no-decision, OK? But if I don't see a
foul, how can I call a foul?”
Russell had
a deep and illustrious history in law enforcement having spent 31 years in the San Diego District Attorney's office. Geez, who
would've thought patrolling a 20-by-20 patch of canvas would be more
troublesome than looking over a whole city? The thought brings a chuckle to
him. “Let's just talk very candidly. These are two forces in dynamic action,
OK? That's exactly what's going on. There's going to be things going on in the
ring that are unbelievable. It's an awkward position. Think about it this way;
if these guys would've got their feet tangled and they would've fallen down and
sprained an ankle, what would the call have been then? If in fact, [Hopkins]
would've draped on [Dawson] and he fell down to the ground and he was on him
because he was on him low, we have to go back to the chicken and the egg
argument somewhere down the line.
“These are
roughhouse tactics,” Russell continued. “These guys are some of the best
fighters ever- certainly you can say that about Hopkins- and I think Dawson is
a terrific talent and they're going to look for every deal where they can land
a punch and not get struck. That's the name of the game. So they did what they
did and I think if this fight would've settled down without the injury, I think
we would've solved it out and had a better resolution.”
PROTEST
You may
have not liked the first edition of Dawson-Hopkins but guess what? If it were
up to Hopkins and Golden Boy Promotions, we might see a second edition. When I
asked Richard Schaefer if they would file a protest over this result, I
received this email reply:
“Yes we file a protest and ask the California Commission to overturn the decision.
This is not wrestling- it was a foul no question about it.
We will ask both the WBC and THE RING to keep Bernard as their champion.”
And there
is a precedent for this in the Golden State. In the past few years, fights like
James Toney-Hasim Rahman and Tim Bradley-Nate Campbell have had the original
verdicts changed from TKOs to no-contest rulings.
There is
also the chance that the WBC can call for an immediate rematch. For all the
heat some are heaping on Russell (I assume mostly from those who bet on the
fight), even if he would've called a foul on Hopkins, there was a very good
likelihood of Dawson-Hopkins II taking place.
THE FLIP
Many of you
out there asked just how in the world was “Believe It or Not” a pay-per-view
show. Well, it turns out that this was what is called a “Flip.” No, not a
Homansky or a Wilson but a move where the network (in this case, HBO) who makes
a deal with an agreed upon license fee has the option of putting it on
pay-per-view.
A boxing
insider explains it: "So basically,
let's say you and I made a contract for $3 million for a fight on HBO. I just
owe the content holders $3 million and then I can do whatever I want with that
fight for the revenue. I can off-set revenue, I can put it on air, I can do
whatever I want.”
As for how
the money is split, “If the domestic
rights came in at a million dollars, then they get a million dollars against
three- and it cost them $3 million to do it. If they get $4 million dollars,
then they make a million bucks. On the upside, I assume, they probably work
something out so they can get everyone to participate, because if not, they
would just take their $3 million. So maybe they did some revenue sharing over their
cost production, everything like that, marketing and such. And they had to
agree to something on the undercard, what they did on the undercard.”
So in
instances like this, would HBO have more leverage in forcing a better
pay-per-view undercard?
“If I was HBO management, I'd say, ‘OK, guys, here's a
half-million dollars for the undercard, right? I get X-million dollars in
marketing, expenses and all that kind of stuff, I'm flipping it, I'm in for $4
million. I get the first $4 million- or whatever it is- and then we'll do some
revenue share on the back end. That's what I figured they did.”
I can't
lie; I had never heard of “The flip.” It's not used often.
“No, it used to be done only in multi-fight agreements,” said the source. “The
genesis of the flip is the multi-fight agreement because in the multi-fight
agreement, they typically offer fighters two dates and that's how it works.”
JMO
- I know
boxing fans can be a cynical lot (and I don't blame them, to be honest) but I
think much of the derision leveled at Hopkins is not because of what took place
this past weekend but really (his past, which started with his initial contest
with Robert Allen way back
in 1998- a fight I also covered) but other incidents like his exaggerated
reaction to borderline low blows from Joe Calzaghe and his Fred Sanford-like
reactions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stdi-1tIUhM)
against Roy Jones last year. Honestly, I do think he was legitimately hurt against
Dawson but maybe at this advanced age, he's no longer that guy who can go on
with one arm like he did against Antwun Echols back in 1999.
- Only two
rounds were in the books between Hopkins and Dawson but I think it was as clear
as day that Dawson was going to pose big problems for Hopkins all night with
his speed, quickness and ability to move. Above all, Dawson looked like the
bigger, more natural 175-pounder who controlled the center of the ring.
Meanwhile, Hopkins looked very slow in comparison.
- OK, let's
say Dawson-Hopkins is overturned into a no-contest and a rematch is mandated,
just who in the world will buy it this time around? The joke on Saturday
night was that we should
actually thank Russell for not subjecting the viewers to ten more rounds of
this fight.
- Instead
of replaying Dawson-Hopkins next Saturday night, is there any way that HBO can give
us another viewing of Antonio DeMarco's dramatic come-from-behind 11th round TKO of Jorge Linares for the WBC lightweight title? (The answer is: Of
course not) Down big on all three scorecards, DeMarco just kept at it and
stopped Linares in stunning fashion. Linares is a talented fighter but there
just seems to be something missing. As for DeMarco, he overcame Linares' skill
with his own overwhelming will.
- As for
how Hopkins was “TKO'd,” it's happened before. I was reminded on Twitter of
when Rene Jacquot lost to John Mugabi way back when the Frenchman sprained his
ankle in the middle of their contest. More recently, you had Odlanier Solis who
was unable to continue after blowing out his knee as a result of getting
wobbled by Vitali Klitschko.
FINAL
FLURRIES
Just my
opinion but I think Michael Perez might be the best East Coast-based
prospect...Freddy Hernandez came up with a big win over Luis Collazo at the Staples Center this weekend...A crowd of over 8,300
was announced on Saturday night at the Staples Center but I wonder what
percentage of those patrons actually paid full price for those tickets...The
IBF has ordered an immediate rematch between cruiserweights Joan Pablo
Hernandez and Steve Cunningham for their title, with the winner having to face Troy Ross within 120 days of the rematch...Tickets
for Abner Mares-Joseph Agbeko, which takes place at the Honda Center on Dec. 3rd go on sale at Ticketmaster on Monday.
They are really well priced at $150, $100, $50 and $25...OK, forget Dawson-Hopkins
II; I really wanna see Jim “The Wolverine” Harbaugh against “The Motor City
Coach” Jim Schwartz-- they could do it at the Silverdome...Doesn't Clemson just have the look and feel of a team
of destiny this season?...It's really too bad Baylor isn't
good enough as a team to give RG3 a legitimate shot at the Heisman...The Dallas
Cowboys are really an enigma. They are so close to being an elite team...
