By William Mackay: I’m still stunned that Marcos Maidana was the one that was penalized in his fight with Amir Khan in December. It seems so wrong. Maidana gets penalized for throwing an elbow that hits referee Joe Cortez, while Khan gets away with repeatedly shoving Maidana hard when he was in close trying to fight, clinching frequently and pushing down on Maidana’s head.
I don’t know how Cortez allowed those things to occur over and over again by Khan without penalizing him. And Khan got away with murder by holding onto one of Maidana’s arms repeatedly in the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds. Maidana punished Khan when he made the mistake of holding onto his arm, but then Cortez broke them apart instead of letting Maidana continue to pound on Khan.
If you’re going to break them apart, then you got to at least give a warning or penalize Khan for this stall tactic. It was at a crucial part of the fight, and by breaking Khan apart from Maidana, it was like Cortez was rewarding Khan for holding.
The other stuff was just as bad. If you look at the fight again, you’ll notice that Khan frequently gave Maidana hard shoves when he was coming forward, causing Maidana to fly backwards off balance at times. That’s not boxing. You’re not allowed to shove your opponent around the ring.
Referees are supposed to stop this kind of thing and I don’t understand what the disconnect was for Cortez by allowing Khan to do this. Can you imagine what an advantage that is for a taller fighter like Khan? It means he doesn’t have to learn how to effectively in fight. If all he has to do is shove his shorter opponent really hard like he was doing with Maidana, it makes thing so easy.
Cortez was asleep at the wheel. He should have stopped Khan from doing that early on in the fight. And the clinching by Khan reminded me of watching one of Andre Berto’s fights.
Khan was all over Maidana, even hanging off his back at one point to get him to stop punching. That was when Maidana attempted to elbow Khan. Cortez should have taken a point away from Khan for the clinching, not taken a point from Maidana for an elbow that never landed on Khan.
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