MANILA, Philippines – Veteran referee Samuel Viruet of New York City said he stopped the fight between defending WBO flyweight champion Brian Viloria and Mexican challenger Giovani Segura at 0:29 of the eighth round at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City last Sunday morning to avoid a life-threatening situation.
?I didn?t want Segura killed,? said the 65-year-old Viruet who worked the Fernando Montiel-Z Gorres fight for the WBO superflyweight crown in Cebu in 2007. ?I wanted Segura to go home alive to his wife and kids. If I didn?t stop it, Segura would?ve been seriously injured. I felt the lump on his head. It was hard so I suspected it was a fracture. If it were a hematoma, it would?ve been soft like jelly.?
A hematoma would?ve burst and spewed out blood with the pounding that Viloria administered. Segura was brought to the Medical City for observation after the fight and initial findings pointed to a fracture of the orbital floor of the facial skeleton. He was scheduled to leave Manila last Monday but postponed the departure because of his condition.
Viruet came in with over 60 world title fights under his belt as a referee. He said last July, he worked a fight in Atlantic City where Cuban Erislandy Lara had a similar lump on his forehead. Viruet said he allowed the bout to continue because the swelling didn?t get bigger. Lara eventually lost a majority 12-round decision to Paul Williams in a WBC lightmiddleweight title eliminator. In Segura?s case, the lump emerged on the right temple in the second round and by the sixth, it had swelled to the right forehead and right cheek, obstructing vision in the right eye. The damage could be like what Antonio Margarito suffered in losing to Manny Pacquiao on points in Dallas last year.
