Hearn talks about Brook’s holding of Porter

By Boxing News - 08/20/2014 - Comments

brook55666By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn doesn’t think his fighter Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) was holding Shawn Porter (24-1-1, 15 Kos) a lot in their fight last Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Hearn says what Brook was doing was he was tying Porter up rather than holding him, and he sees that as being different from regular holding. They both look the same, but Hearn is giving them different names.

“There’s a difference between holding and tying someone up,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “Andre Ward does it really well. If you watch the Froch-Ward fight, he tied Froch up brilliantly. That’s what Kell did. It was a case where when we get close I’m going to lock you down, and you’re not going to be able to do your work. He [Brook] got told once in the fight to stop holding.”

I don’t know that I can separate holding and tying someone up the way that Hearn is doing here. To me, holding is holding. You can call it a different name but it amounts to the same – it’s a fighter trying to stall another fighter by holding onto them so that they can’t get their offense going. You saw things like that in basketball before the 24 second shot clock was put into play in the 1950s after some NBA teams gamed the system by building up short lead and then looking to stall. It was painfully boring for fans to watch these games, and the NBA responded by installing the shot clock.

In boxing, they’ve got rules in play to keep fighters from gaming the system by holding each time their opponents get near them, but many of the referees ignore the rules and put up with the holding. As such, it leads to a lot of unwatchable fights due to one fighter holding the other in order to gain an edge.

We saw that last Saturday night with Brook, who doesn’t have inside fighting skills, holding Porter for each time he came in close. The referee Pat Russell chose to not to step in take points away from Brook for the holding, but you can make an argument that Brook should have been disqualified for the nonstop holding on the inside.

Hearn can come up with different names for the holding that Brook did and give reasons why he chose to hold, but it was still holding and it should have been stopped by the referee. It looked like Brook was holding to me in order to distinguish Porters offense on the inside.

I think boxing needs to outlaw holding completely in order to improve the game. They need to limit it to just when a fighter is out on his feet. Other than that, they need to abolish it completely and disqualify fighters that use this as a method to win fights. Unfortunately, we’re seeing too many fighters gaming the system with the use of holding to beat more talented fighters.



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