Trainer Robert Garcia is critical of the corner’s failure to stop the fight in the second round after Tim Tszyu suffered a cut in his fight against Sebastian Fundora last Saturday night.
Robert says that the cutman was unable to stop the bleeding from Tszyu’s scalp wound. the match should have been stopped and it would have been a no contest.
The fans at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas would have been unhappy, obviously, but Tszyu (24-1, 17 KOs) would still be the WBO junior middleweight champion.
Many of the fans that came to the event were there to see Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz, not Tszyu or Fundora. As far as the fans were concerned, Cruz was the one they came to see, so he’d won his fight, the main event between Tszyu and Fundora was less important.
So, if Tszyu had pulled out after two rounds because of his cut, many of the fans wouldn’t mind.
Early Stoppage Preferred
“Right away, second round, I would have stopped it,” said trainer Robert Garcia to ESNEWS about Tim Tszyu’s cut last Saturday night in his fight against Sebastian Fundora.
“‘My fighter can’t continue with all that blood coming out,'” said Robert, describing what he would have said as the reason to pull Tszyu out in the second round if he were his trainer. “All that blood coming out to weaken the fighter.
Protecting the Fighter
“The ref and the doctor, they don’t know. So, they have to go by what the fighter says. They have to protect the fighter. So, they would stop it and that would make it a no contest. Who cares if 10,000 people are going to be mad? They already had a good performance from Pitbull, so they were happy already.
“Tim Tszyu still would have been a champion right now. If it happens before the fourth round and it’s that bad, you don’t need a cutman. Stop the fight. It was a cut that they couldn’t stop,” said Robert.
We’ll see if Tszyu chooses to stay with his trainer and cutman after last weekend’s fiasco. He seems loyal, so he may choose to keep them on. If Tszyu suffers a similar cut in the future, his corner must stop the fight rather than leave him out there to bleed all over creation.
“It wasn’t that they had a bad cutman. They didn’t need a cutman. It happened before the fourth round. Stop the fight, and he’d be home as the champion. Now, he lost and now he has to start all over. Now his pay is probably going to drop. The corner should have done it because the fighters want to fight,” said Garcia.
