In McGregor vs Mayweather, they stopped the fight even though McGregor didn’t look that bruised and was never knocked down. But I understand they stopped the fight because it looked like Conor was tired and unable to fight back. Whether that was the case or not, that’s not my argument.
Rocky fights are visually dramatic, I get the artistic license. He has to rise up to the challenge of his rival.
But in real life, would the pummeling he takes from Creed, Lang, and Drago call for professional referees to stop fights in the first few rounds?
He was never knocked down, but he was pretty much unconscious on his feet for the last couple hits. The only thing that kept him off the mats was the ropes.
Given Rocky Balboa’s penchant for dramatic come-from-behind victories and reputation for taking a massive beating, a ref might give him a bit more leeway. However, the last couple Rocky movies were pretty clear on the toll his style was taking on his body.
Let’s be realistic, though. In a real match, Rocky follows Apollo to the morgue after fighting Drago, assuming the ref doesn’t stop it first.
There was a time they wouldn’t. I was watching an ESPN historical fights episode. The fight in question was Sugar Ray Robinson almost killing Jake, Raging Bull, La Motta. It was their second or third fight. Ferociously filmed in the movie. You never knocked me down Ray. Remember, I’m not watching a documentary, I’m watching the actual fight. La Motta was getting pasted throughout the ring. But he was a monster and wouldn’t quit. He was a mess. Around the 10th round, I will be corrected here shortly, he was a staggering, bloody mess. But he kept coming. And the announcer, a guy I remember from those days, was saying, paraphrasing here, This is a disgrace. This is (something close to murder). This fight should be stopped now. BUT, under the rules of the [boxing commission] the fight will continue until one fighter cannot return to the ring. The ref stopped it in the next round when Jake literally couldn’t see to swing, or even find Robinson. In those days, they would have let him get killed. Nowadays fighters, some of them anyways, are too valuable to be abused like that.
They allowed fights to continue a little longer in the old days. The death of Duk Koo Kim on live television changed things forever. No more 15-round fights, a little more medical supervision (though it’s still a joke), and more controversial referee stoppages (though in almost all cases, they refs make the right calls). In fact, the referees probably do a better job protecting fighters than the medical personnel before and during the fight and are probably the difference between a fighter living and dying. Again, one punch kills.
[nitpick]Actually it was their sixth fight. Robinson won the first in a ten round decision, Lamotta beat him in the second, Sugar Ray then beat him four more times, stopping him in their last fight, aptly named the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. [/nitpick]
Lamotta cultivated a reputation for being a granite jaw - he was never knocked down until one of his last fights (against Danny Nardico), and commonly would wear his opponent down by outlasting him. So he got more leeway than a regular fighter would. But yes, Sugar Ray beat the bloody shit out of him in their last fight, and I suspect nowadays it would not have been allowed to go on. But referees are still prone to believe rather than see - the referee let Larry Holmes beat Ali into a cripple for ten rounds, and it took Angelo Dundee to finally say Enough. Everybody thought Ali was going to come back one more time.
Longer fights make for more knockouts thru exhaustion, although taking more punches for more rounds wears a fighter out. But -
Deuk Koo Kim gets knocked out in the fourteenth, and dies. So they change the rules to make twelve rounds the championship distance instead of fifteen. That was in 1982. In 1983, Alberto Davila knocks out Kiko Bejines in the eleventh. Bejines dies of his injuries.
At the time Rocky I was made the fight probably would have continued. I haven’t seen it for a while so I don’t recall every detail but as long as he was responsive to the referee it would have gone on. The damage to his eye may have resulted in a stoppage. Cutting his eye like that (was that in the first one?) was unlikely to have been done, wouldn’t help him, and more likely to result in the fight being stopped. Based on the timing of the later fights relative to the death of Duk Koo Kim the situation would have changed.
Jake ‘The Raging Bull’ LaMotta was mentioned above, in his era and before stoppages were rare as long as a fighter could stay on his feet. Even the concerns about the long term effects of numerous punches to the head were ignored at that time despite being somewhat known.
Today, it’s hard to say if you try to work the movie fight into a real fight. It was a title fight, Rocky was fighting back and responsive, Creed was taking punches too, at particular moments it may have been stopped.
Benny Paret vs. Emille Griffith was a notorious example, especially since it was televised. Griffith had Paret pinned against the ropes, and Paret wasn’t even raising his arms to defend himself. The ref finally stopped the match after 29 straight punches from Griffith. Paret fell into a coma, never awoke, and died ten days later.
It wasn’t an average fight. Griffith was an amazingly fast and hard puncher, those 29 punches were unleashed very quickly. He was also angry, Griffith was known to be bisexual and Paret had called him a ‘faggot’ before the match (in Spanish).
It would take an attentive referee to stop the same thing from happening today, Paret was fine just before that flurry of punches and it was over quickly. A good ref today would step into the middle of that pounding, but with someone so strong and quick it could still be too late.
I’m not a giant Rocky fan, but if I recall, the fights are basically non-stop haymakers to the face for both opponents? I remember thinking that Rocky vs Apollo wouldn’t have made it out of the first round.