Welterweight Blair Cobbs believes that referee Harvey Dock did a poor job of officiating the Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia fight last Saturday night by some of the calls he made.
Missed Knockdowns and Point Deductions
Cobbs feels that the fight should have been stopped in the seventh round when Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) knocked WBC light welterweight champion Haney (31-1, 15 KOs) down four times. However, referee Harvey Dock only counted one of them and took a point away from Ryan for hitting on the break.
As Cobbs mentions, Haney was holding excessively to keep from getting knocked out after being dropped hard and badly hurt by a combination from Ryan.
Surprisingly, the referee, Dock, didn’t warn Haney for his excessive holding until the final seconds of the round. By then, he was in safe territory due to the limited time.
Three missed knockdowns, the point deduction of Ryan with no prior warning, and the failure to penalize Haney for his excessive holding allowed him to escape the round without getting knocked out.
Haney’s Excessive Holding
Had things been done differently, Haney wouldn’t have escaped the seventh round. It would have been worse if Ryan had lost the fight by a 12-round decision. As things turned out, the fight was scored a 12-round majority decision, with one judge scoring it a draw 112-112. It was lucky for Ryan that he didn’t lose because of the referee’s failure.
“I didn’t like the way Harvey Dock was contributing to the fight. He was doing a whole a lot of things because he [Ryan] punched him [Haney] on the break [in round seven],” said Blair Cobbs to the Fighthype YouTube channel, when asked about the referee, Harvey Dock, who worked the Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia fight last Saturday night in New York.
Cobbs’ Perspective on Dock’s Officiating
“Even the point deduction. “He’s [Haney] holding excessively. He gets punched in the face because he’s holding excessively. That’s fair trade. If he’s excessively holding, then you should probably be taking a point from him, but because he got smacked because of it, then you should probably let that slide with a stern warning and continue.”
It was obvious that Haney should have been docked points during the fight because he held like mad not only in round seven but in other rounds as well, and the referee, Dock, didn’t do anything about it. He was just there in body only, standing around, blocking the view of the fans, and doing nothing to control the holding. The seventh was shocking to see how poor of a job Dock did.
“A lot of the knockdowns were real knockdowns [of Haney in round seven]. A lot of the knockdowns early on were knockouts. A lot of times, people could have waved that off. I feel like there needs to be regulations for people that are not in the fight [referees], but have something to do with the fight like referees,” said Cobbs.
There needs to be a review of the referees for their performances to be looked at, and then moving out of the sport if they don’t show improvement. In other jobs, if a person messes up, they don’t stay in their position for long. It should be the same for referees.
“When Tyson Fury got knocked out by Deontay Wilder [in first and third fights], he was knocked out. You can’t change the rules just for that one person. ‘We’re not counting seconds, though. We’re counting a ten count.’ That don’t make no sense at all. The man [Fury] was down for 15 seconds. Will you stop playing games. Those type of people are hurting boxing,” said Cobbs.
The first and third fights between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury were clear examples of the British heavyweight escaping being knocked out due to the actions of the referees. Fury was knocked cold in the first, and referee gave him count.
In the third fight, there was what many believe to be a slow count when Fury was knocked down and would have been counted out with a quicker count by the ref.
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