To be fair, screwing something up at the workplace happens to the best of us, and we’re sometimes very hard when referees do it.
After Timothy Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) won nearly all of the first 11 rounds of his fight with Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KOs) at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, the 31-year-old native was wobbled by a right hand that seemed to put his unanimous decision victory at risk.
Vargas, 26, eagerly went for the kill, but Bradley had been in enough wars to survive such a punch.
Then, in a weird twist, referee Pat Russell separated the two and said “the fight’s over,” mistakenly thinking he had heard the final bell.
Vargas, a Los Angeles native who now calls Las Vegas his home, ran to the corner and threw his hands in the air, genuinely believing he had won the fight.
However, Russell clarified to the ringside judges that it was not a stoppage, and that fight would have to go to the scorecards.
It was then announced that Bradley had won the interim WBO Welterweight title with scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 115-112. RBRBoxing.com scored the fight 117-111.
Check out the weird ending here:
“It sounded like the bell to me,” said Russell, referring to the way he abruptly stopped the fight as the two were engaged in a clinch.
“What I thought I heard was the bell,” said Russell, who had actually heard the ten-second mark instead of the final bell.
“I made the call that I made based upon what I heard. It was an honest call from an honest individual,” said Russell.
Vargas believes he was on the verge of a stoppage and wants a rematch, but it isn’t clear if he did enough in the first 11 rounds to merit a rematch.
“You caught me, you hurt me,” Bradley told Vargas as he spoke to HBO’s Max Kellerman, “but I would have finished.”
“Come on, Max,” Bradley continued, “I survived Provodnikov.”
Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank
As for the first 11 rounds of the fight, Vargas didn’t have the power or skill to keep Bradley off him.
Bradley went to the body in Round 1, and after being backed up by a left hook from Vargas in Round 2, he continued to pressure Vargas for the rest of the fight.
Vargas tried to establish a jab and managed to land right hands, but Bradley’s aggression, his work the body, and his overhand rights won him most of the early rounds.
Bradley seemed to take his foot off the pedal in the final rounds and tried to outbox Vargas, but was instead wobbled by the right hand that caused the bizarre ending.
What do you think of the fight’s ending? Was Vargas on the verge of a stoppage? Or was Bradley going to survive that final assault?
