When To End It

Gary Andrew Poole reflects on when to stop a brutal boxing match:

On Saturday night, referee Pat Russell stood in the middle of the ring after he had stopped the best boxing match in recent memory. His decision didn't win him much popularity in fight nation. The light welterweights Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios had been beating each other senseless, and everyone watching seemed to want it to continue, indefinitely if possible. "I will take 'em into deep water, but I won't drown 'em," Russell said.
As in most sports, it's not traditional for a boxing referee to be interviewed after a bout, but Russell wanted to explain himself to the television audience and the sellout crowd at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. He had stopped the fight in the seventh round after Rios had thrown a straight right and then delivered a series of unanswered combinations to Alvarado's head. Russell had seen enough, stepped in, and Rios was given the TKO win....
Until the stoppage, Russell had watched Alvarado and Brandon Rios land a lot of power punches (Rios 144 and Alvarado 132). Within the three minutes of each round, each man was absorbing about 24 well-delivered punches. This was, as they say in boxing, a war. Both men are accomplished fighters, but their style is to come forward and brawl. Among the sport's cognoscenti, Saturday night had long been pegged as a possible fight of the year, and it easily lived up to its billing. At ringside, bloody spittle sprayed off of both men almost constantly. The two men were so evenly matched that they inflicted an enormous amount of pain on each other. And they seemed to respect each other for it. So did the people watching. And there was a purity to the violence. Rios admitted that during the fight he had been "a little stunned," and Alvarado said the same thing.
Russell, who stood within inches of both men, called it "brutal." And it was. And as a person who writes about the sport, these are the moments that I wonder about myself, and that I find most compelling. Boxing is the most ineptly run sport in the world, but a championship fight has more drama than any major sport. It's the finality of it. I hadn't wanted last night's fight to end so early. I hoped the fight would unfold more naturally. But I was relieved when Russell stepped in and stopped it. It was an act of courage.

The most exciting boxing is also the most dangerous.  When both boxers are landing lots of hard punches, it is tremendously entertaining.  But the danger level increases exponentially when both boxers continue to absorb such punishment.  I love the sport, but even at its most beautiful, it can be extremely ugly, too.  Sometimes I wonder if the danger is worth the beauty.