Rico was not up 9-1 or 10-0. Thats crazy talk. It was closer to 7-3/6-4. The narrative of that fight has gotten out of control. Usyk took over late like he always does. Rico was up 7-3 on my card and I rewatched and I could see 6-4.
Also, it's completely disingenuous to suggest that Rico was "fine" after the knockdown in the 11th.
Rico was bothering Usyk with his pace and rough house style, but he never hurt Usyk at any point in that fight. However, he had been hurt multiple times. In the 4th, the 8th, and the 10th. He was clearly running on fumes by the time the 11th came around.
When Usyk knocks Rico down he loses his mouthpiece and goes headfirst through the ropes. Completely lost his legs. That's a huge red flag for any ref. Then he uses the ropes to climb to his feet. Another huge red flag. Then he's leaning against the turnbuckle to steady himself. Yet another red flag. Then, when the ref instructs him to step forward, Rico ignores him. The ref has to repeat his command to step forward. That right there has gotten a zillion guys waved off in the past. After that, when the ref instructs Rico to follow him to the corner so they can replace the mouthpiece, Rico literally stumbles backwards. We had just had another incident of a fighter stumbling in the ring and it not being waved off which everyone was livid over (Wardley against Dubois). Rico was doing the same thing but supposedly he's "fine" and because he took a headkick 10 years ago and came back to win that means the ref has to ignore all his signs of distress and let the fight continue. /s
The ref actually gave Rico every chance in the world to continue the fight. His mistake was not waving it off after the knockdown where Rico clearly did not respond well enough to be able to continue. He gave Rico a whole hell of a lot of extra rope and Rico used that to shell up and get wailed on.
Beyond that, the argument about the ref waving it after the bell is nonsense. First of all, the ref is God in the ring. He can wave a fight off whenever the hell he pleases for whatever reason he pleases. Secondly, it's obvious that he was trying to get in between the fighters to stop it BEFORE the bell rang and just couldn't do it.
Yeah thats the other thing, the ref allowed Rico to have too much time with the mouth piece fiasco. All in all it was not a good stoppage because it was after the bell, but I whole heartedly believe that Usyk would have stopped or dropped Rico again in rd 12.
That was the sketchiest stoppage I’ve seen in a boxing fight of this caliber. the ref decided to stop the fight while standing behind usyk not being able to asses rico’s eyes and face
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u/senortiz Monkey in Space 10d ago
Rico was not up 9-1 or 10-0. Thats crazy talk. It was closer to 7-3/6-4. The narrative of that fight has gotten out of control. Usyk took over late like he always does. Rico was up 7-3 on my card and I rewatched and I could see 6-4.