BoxRec

The saddest thing about the whole affair was this poignant interview Dawson gave recently:

"Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Flintoff." You remember that? "This ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Flintoff apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it."

Tomasino wrote:

Old Jack J wrote:Of course it was publicity but if we HAVE to find complimentary things to say about his venture......

Why do you HAVE to? The whole thing was a fraud.

We don't HAVE to. The 'if' is an intrinsic element of the sentence.

As a cricket fan I love Flintoff, but he won 39-38 even though he was knocked down in the 2nd round. The fight was a fix.

The matchmakers had a difficult job to do I think. They couldn't really trust a British journeyman to not take a liberty and bang Flintoff our, or roll over and then sell the story or similar.

Boxerbeetle wrote:The saddest thing about the whole affair was this poignant interview Dawson gave recently:

"Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Flintoff." You remember that? "This ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Flintoff apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it."

Batley18 wrote:As a cricket fan I love Flintoff, but he won 39-38 even though he was knocked down in the 2nd round. The fight was a fix.

That was baffling,did we ever find out the reasoning behind the refs score that night?

handsofstone wrote:

Batley18 wrote:As a cricket fan I love Flintoff, but he won 39-38 even though he was knocked down in the 2nd round. The fight was a fix.

That was baffling,did we ever find out the reasoning behind the refs score that night?

Are you sure that's right?

If he won three rounds to one with the knockdown scored the scores would be 38-37 Flintoff.

SNG wrote:

handsofstone wrote:

Batley18 wrote:As a cricket fan I love Flintoff, but he won 39-38 even though he was knocked down in the 2nd round. The fight was a fix.

That was baffling,did we ever find out the reasoning behind the refs score that night?

Are you sure that's right?

If he won three rounds to one with the knockdown scored the scores would be 38-37 Flintoff.

Yeah definitely I remember wondering how the ref managed to balls up the score of a 4 round fight,unless it was the MC

SNG wrote:

handsofstone wrote:

Batley18 wrote:As a cricket fan I love Flintoff, but he won 39-38 even though he was knocked down in the 2nd round. The fight was a fix.

That was baffling,did we ever find out the reasoning behind the refs score that night?

Are you sure that's right?

If he won three rounds to one with the knockdown scored the scores would be 38-37 Flintoff.

Exactly!

It's right.

MarkMcBurney wrote:

SNG wrote:

handsofstone wrote: That was baffling,did we ever find out the reasoning behind the refs score that night?

Are you sure that's right?

If he won three rounds to one with the knockdown scored the scores would be 38-37 Flintoff.

Exactly!

It's right.

You could argue that Flintoff recovered so well from the knockdown (as Dawson didn't throw another punch as he was terrified he might Ko Flintoff) that the ref only scored it a 10-9 round!

Didn't the ref score the 2nd round 9-9 - i.e. would have been 10-9 to Flintoff, minus 1 point for the knockdown? Pretty sure that's how Rawlings & Jones tried to spin it on commentary anyway.

Boxerbeetle wrote:Didn't the ref score the 2nd round 9-9 - i.e. would have been 10-9 to Flintoff, minus 1 point for the knockdown? Pretty sure that's how Rawlings & Jones tried to spin it on commentary anyway.

It would be 10-10 then!

Coco wrote:

Boxerbeetle wrote:Didn't the ref score the 2nd round 9-9 - i.e. would have been 10-9 to Flintoff, minus 1 point for the knockdown? Pretty sure that's how Rawlings & Jones tried to spin it on commentary anyway.

It would be 10-10 then!

I thought it would've been 10-9 Dawson then instead of 10-8?

handsofstone wrote:

Coco wrote:

Boxerbeetle wrote:Didn't the ref score the 2nd round 9-9 - i.e. would have been 10-9 to Flintoff, minus 1 point for the knockdown? Pretty sure that's how Rawlings & Jones tried to spin it on commentary anyway.

It would be 10-10 then!

I thought it would've been 10-9 Dawson then instead of 10-8?

But doesn't the round get scored as normal first, with any deductions taken off afterwards? So if the ref felt Flintoff would normally have won the round 10-9, then deducted the point for the knockdown, he would score it 9-9? (Not trying to start an argument here as I don't really remember, just vaguely recall Jones saying something similar)

I'm not sure either beetle,either way the guy who gets put on his pants needs to be really dominant to reclaim a round and Flintoff wasn't that great ,infact he was awful,just busier and boxed whilst nearly doing the splits

Sklar wrote:The matchmakers had a difficult job to do I think. They couldn't really trust a British journeyman to not take a liberty and bang Flintoff our, or roll over and then sell the story or similar.

I thought this too, maybe 'kiss and tell' when the journeyman got beat. There are enough boxers in this country to fall for Freddy, an ideal opponent would have been a African with no punch and some of the Kenyans ive seen over the years were bloody hopeless. But putting in an american made it look tougher. I certainly think it was a 'fixed' fight in some kind of way. Maybe the promotor or the Team Flintoff told Dawson if you win you get a wage, if you lose you will get a wage plus a tip. Im sure Dawson has the nouse to know he is never going to be a world champion so why not take the 'tip' and have a loss on a record, who gives a shit about 1 loss anyway?

Freddy came out like a scared rabbit, his chin was up in the air and his technique was pretty poor, he was never stable or steady. He threw anything he could it was a bit like a playground fight with 2 pubic teenagers fighting for the slag in class 4!

To be fair though to Freddy, yes im slaging him off to but he had the bollox to get in the ring and have a go. You have to give him credit for that at least.

I wish I had to the same scoring and refs when I held a Bbbc licence. Lets hope the MBC dont treat me like I have been in the past. The Flintoff fight was horrendous for pro standard. Woukd rather watch journeymen all day entertain.

Trying to work it out is pointless really, the whole point of the event was for Flintoff to win the fight. It would have been a 10-8 round, but Flintoff was so world class in the next round that the ref went with an unprecedented 11-9 round, the first of its kind.

There is no such thing as an automatic 10-8 round. Never has been - is one of boxing's great myths. This point has arisen loads of times in the Current Scene and British & Irish forums - a search under "automatic 10-8 round" brings up the threads. Given that Dawson landed next to no punches apart from the knockdown punch in that round, that would account for a 10-9 round (although frankly if a boxer clearly wins the remaining 2:45 of the round apart from the knockdown punch, there's a good case for 10-10 - see McAuley v Blanco 1 for examples of that).

It's an unwritten rule, Oli. You know that. What was the mental PF score IJL gave once? I'd love to hear the excuse for that one.

mickey1975 wrote:It's an unwritten rule, Oli. You know that. What was the mental PF score IJL gave once? I'd love to hear the excuse for that one.

Thanks Mickey - I don' t agree, but maybe I'm swimming against the tide these days, as I know a lot of people see it your way. In Britain, BBBofC principles of scoring are in the Referee's Guide and expressly state that there is no such thing as an automatic 10-8 round, but I appreciate that document isn't published. At European level, the EBU has a good guide at http://www.boxebu.biz/#!judges-pocket-reminder/c49t which indicates that you have to win the round (they call it "advantage") and score a knockdown to get the 10-8, so again no automatic 10-8. But I take your point.