Rees’ trainer almost stopped the fight in the 3rd

By Boxing News - 02/17/2013 - Comments

broner12By Scott Gilfoid: Gary Lockett, the trainer for the beaten Gavin Rees (37-2-1, 18 KO’s), says he was thinking about throwing in the white towel of surrender in the 3rd round when Rees was getting drilled by WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) late in the round while trapped against the ropes.

Lockett said “I was going to pull him [Rees] out in the fourth. I considered pulling him out after the third.”

In hindsight, I don’t think anyone would have made much of a squabble if Lockett had pulled the plug on Rees after the 3rd because he looked like a little 5’4” punching bag in that round, and I saw enough in the last 20 seconds of that round to know that nothing good could come of leaving Rees in there from that point.

Broner had stepped up his power in the 3rd, and Rees was reeling. It was a completely different Broner from the one that Rees was dealing in the first two rounds. Rees was able to kind of hold his own in those two rounds, but things changed when Broner started sitting down on his shots in the 3rd as he went after the fighter from Wales.

Lockett definitely should have stopped the fight in the 4th after Broner knocked Rees down with a peach of a fight hand. I mean, if you looked at the way Rees’ eyes rolled inside of his head after getting with that shot, there was just no point in letting Rees soak up any more punishment.

This wasn’t going to be his night because he wasn’t facing the right opponent. Had this been a Euro level guy like Derry Mathews, Rees would have been blasting him apart, but Rees was facing the best of the World class competition in Broner and he clearly didn’t belong in the same ring with him. Lockett obviously realized that a lot sooner than other people did, and he would have done Rees a huge favor had he sailed the white towel of surrender in the ring in the 3rd when Broner was really giving it to Rees.



Comments are closed.