Call off the boxing bloodhounds. Tell The Ring Detective it was just a false alarm.
Towelgate it was not.
There was confusion and chaos aplenty Saturday night at Yankee Stadium but, once you looked below the surface on a steamy June night in the South Bronx, you knew there is really no basis and no need for any state or federal investigation.
The start-stop and start-stop conclusion which left Puerto Rican icon Miguel Cotto’s fading career revived and gained him the WBA junior middleweight title was not marked by any corruption.
If you’re looking for skullduggery, this was not the circumstance here.
As you know by now, champion Foreman was boxing nicely, moving adroitly and using his jab and a few right leads to seemingly open up a points lead. I had Foreman ahead 5-1 after six rounds but, admittedly, they were all close and, after taking a three round breather, Cotto was ratcheting up the offensive pressure.
In the seventh round, Foreman, who wore a brace on one leg entering the ring (possibly because of a teeanged bicycle mishap in Israel), lost his footing due to a small pool of water in one corner. His legs went out from under him and he spent the remainder of the bout gamely hopping around like a wounded kangaroo.
Aside from sloppy housekeeping by a ring inspector, I see no need for any blame game. Cotto won, fairly and squarely and Foreman lost due to a freak accident.
Anyone trying to pin the tail on referee Arthur Mercante Jr. is dead wrong.
Now referee Arthur Mercante calls it off for wounded Yuri Foreman, giving Miguel Cotto the WBA junior middleweight title under chaotic, confusing circumstances at Yankee Stadium (Top Rank/Chris Farina Photo)
If Mercante shoved Foreman to the canvas twice, I didn’t see it, did you? What happened to Foreman was an accident, a preventable one, but strictly an accident.
Mercante finally halted matters in the ninth round as it became apparent that Foreman was a spent bullet.
Here’s the dramatic personae and who did what to whom amidst all the confusion:
LEYLA LEIDECKER : Yuri’s modelesque wife, seeing her hubby unable to stand and box because of the fall, screamed for the match to be halted. Only bitter, ex-wives scream for more onesided punishment.
MURRAY WILSON: Solid fight guy, the manager responded to the wife’s impassioned plea by telling the head trainer to toss the white towel of surrender into the ring.
JOE GRIER: The chief second, in complete agreement that it was time to save Foreman’s career if not keep his title, fired the flag of no mas in the direction of Mercante.
MERCANTE: Intently watching Cotto and Foreman, the ref was not sure who the towel hurler was and, anyway, he can override a towel toss. He asked Foreman if he wanted to battle on and, of course, Foreman said yes.
MICHAEL BUFFER: Ring announcer, who just repeats what he is told, informed the live and HBO TV audiences, that the bout continued because the towel was fired into the ring by an “outside source.” Yes, that’s true as Grier was certainly outside the ring when he pitched it in.
MANNY STEWARD (in the Cotto corner): The Kronk guru later said “mistakes were made” and that Grier’s towel throw should have caused Mercante to immediately call the bout off. If he’d been in the Foreman corner, of course, Steward would flip that script.
Action was spirited if not scintillating in Miguel Cotto-Yuri Foreman title bout at Yankee Stadium before leg injury ruined Foreman’s realistic chances of victory (Top Rank/Chris Farina Photo)
FOREMAN: When it appeared the bout had been stopped and people from both camps filled the ring, Foreman angrily asked who threw the towel. Smartly, Grier denied being the towel tosser even though a big screen replay revealed that he did it.
MERCANTE: He got no medical input or advice from a commission doctor. He decided the fight should continue and it did.
In the ninth, Cotto really hurt the stumbling Foreman with a wicked body shot. Mercante then called it off. In an nutshell and without emboridery, that’s what went down after Foreman went down, not once but twice.
Foreman’s camp wanted to protect their guy but did not want to end the bout prematurely.
Mercante wanted to be fair to the fans and the paying customers, all 20,000 of them and he probably did exactly what his famed referee father, Arthur Sr., would have done.
Just before the bout started, the son paid tribute to his legendary Dad, saying into the microphone at the end of the final prefight instructions, “Rest in peace, Dad.”
I’ve no way of knowing but nothing that occurred would be any cause to disturb the eternal sleep of the quintessential referee.
Except for that sloppy housekeeping but that is all.
Let’s not make a molehill out of a molehill.
