The saying ‘throwing in the towel’ has become known worldwide as meaning to retire in defeat, but one referee, Steve Gray, didn’t get the memo.
In boxing it is not uncommon for a fighter’s corner to throw in the towel in order to protect their man from a dangerous fight.
Gabriel Rosado’s corner stopped his fight with Gennady Golovkin out of fear Golovkin would kill Rosado, proving just how serious boxing can be and how important a decision it is to throw in the towel or not.
However, it is true that only man can stop the fight, the referee, and on one occasion in British boxing, the referee saw the towel come in, but refused to stop the fight.
Lewis Ritson was dropped and hurt after the referee disregarded his corner’s towel
In 2021, in an IBF super-lightweight title eliminator, Lewis Ritson took on 27-0 Jeremias Nicolas Ponce.
Ritson had just one split decision loss at the time, and held a win over Robbie Davies Jr, who retired recently. The fight made it into the tenth round before Ritson found himself in a world of trouble.
In the beginning of the tenth, Ponce unleashes on Ritson, moving forward with an onslaught of punches and sending Ritson to the canvas. The Brit got to his feet but was quickly backed up again by the pressure of his opponent.
It was just seconds into the round when Ritson’s corner had seen enough and threw in the towel, with Ponce raising his hands in celebration of the victory.
However it was not quite over, as referee Steve Gray not only motioned for the fighters to resume fighting, but picked the corner’s towel up and threw it back out of the ring.
Ritson was dropped again, and Adam Smith can be heard saying in the commentary: “The referee has not stopped this fight and this is where Ritson could get hurt.”
The Newcastle-native was dropped for the third time before Gray finally stopped the contest.
Referee criticized after 6ft lightweight ‘Diva’ suffers serious punishment in front of home crowd
In another highly criticized moment of refereeing, Gary ‘The Diva’ Cully, who was facing Jose Felix on the undercard of Katie Taylor vs Chantelle Cameron in Ireland, fell victim to a poor stoppage decision that came after an unnecessary amount of punishment from the smaller man.
Cully was rocked by Felix in the third round and backed him onto the ropes, before rocking him again, unleashing on him as he fell back into the support of the ropes.
The towel was thrown in but the referee didn’t see it, and allowed Cully to take more punishment before finally stepping in to end the fight.
Referees make mistakes, with one ref raising the wrong fighters hand recently, though when it’s a matter of life and death, as it was when a ref saved Tony Bellew’s life, the job of a referee is extremely important to a fighter’s safety.