Did Officiating Decide This Bout?

[Goodnight, Irene]

I just watched Hatton-Tszyu for the first time in a while. Great scrap --- rarely mentioned among great fights, & I don't understand why that is. Tszyu hadn't had a real hard, gruelling fight in a while, & though that did tell on him, it took a long time to do so. You could see he still had the instincts & fire to duke it out, & Hatton brought the heat better than he did on any other night in his career, IMO.

Anyway, my question is, with this fight being closer than people remembered (very competitive scrap until the last round or so), was referee Dave Paris a critical component in Hatton's triumph? The officiating on his part was pretty patchy throughout, & just dreadful in a few places. Would Hatton still have won without him? I can see a case in both directions with this one.

Thoughts?

[gambler49]

Dave Paris is a terrible ref. But in this fight I think time had caught up with Tszyu. Also Hatton prolly had his best fight ever. A prime Tszyu stops Hatton around the 8th round.

[jezzamundo]

This was a great fight, I had Hatton one point ahead going into the 12th round. Hatton had the best of the early rounds, but Tszyu took most of the middle rounds and had taken the lead by the time Hatton smashed him in the protective cup. From that point on Hatton won the rest of the rounds, and beat Tszyu to the point of quitting. I think that Paris should have deducted one or two points from Hatton for the infringement, but in the end it wouldn't have changed the result. He also allowed Hatton to get away with a lot of holding and hitting. Very good question, I think it's perhaps 50:50 considering what a close contest it was.

I don't think Hatton has had a better performance before or since, and it was still a very close fight - which says to me that Tszyu is clearly the superior of the two, particularly considering that the Hatton is bad for Tszyu stylistically.

[Goodnight, Irene]

I still can't decide how to vote

[Counter-puncher]

heh, on another forum once, someone who was shall we say well known for not being all too objective where hatton was concerned, tried hard in all seriousness to convince me that Hatton WASN'T fouling KT that night.

his 'reasoning' was, that Hatton wasn't holding AND hitting. no, apparently if you look really closely he would hold, let go very quickly, and THEN hit KT.

nope, didn't convince me, either

[Goodnight, Irene]

Split voting, which I can completely understand.

[allworld80]

I still can't decide how to vote

I don't have the strength to rip into Dave Parris tonight. I believe my stance on this is well documented though.

[allworld80]

heh, on another forum once, someone who was shall we say well known for not being all too objective where hatton was concerned, tried hard in all seriousness to convince me that Hatton WASN'T fouling KT that night.

I counted once. It was over 30 illegal blows when I stopped.

[Counter-puncher]

heh, on another forum once, someone who was shall we say well known for not being all too objective where hatton was concerned, tried hard in all seriousness to convince me that Hatton WASN'T fouling KT that night.

I counted once. It was over 30 illegal blows when I stopped.

you got bored after 2 rounds, right?