Throwing the towel

In boxing, the referee can stop the fight when a boxer cannot defend himself and obviously being turned into a punching bag by his opponent. It is a TKO. But there is the option for the fighter’s corner (coach, trainer or second) to throw in the towel as a form of surrender. Usually this gesture of surrender does not sit well with the boxer but the mere act of throwing the towel to the center of the ring constitutes a surrender that officially ends the fight. In the last fight of Gennady Golovkin against Kell Brook, it was an evenly fair match in the first few rounds with the exchanges of heavy shots by both fighters. But in the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] round, it was very clear that Golovkin had already taken the measure of Brook and is about to finish the fight when Brook’s corner threw in the towel. Kell Brook was mad with that and he was protesting. The corner reasoned that Brook is young and still has a career with his previously undefeated record. He was saved from further punishment, said his corner.

You are right and no boxer wants to admit that they are defeated and have their corner throw the towel in, but sometimes it needs to happen for the safety of the boxer themselves. Fighters will continue to fight even when it's a lost cause, they will never give in and that's why they are fighters in the first place, because they never know when to quit.

The corner as a responsibility to look after the fighter, and so if they feel he needs to come out of the ring then so be it. The fighter might complain but at the end of the day, they will only do that if there is a risk to the boxer himself. In those situations the corner and trainer can't do right for doing wrong because if they didn't pull the fighter out and throw in the towel and the fighter did get injured, it would be them that was to blame.

All of us think "NEver giveUp"

Pharmacom said:

All of us think "NEver giveUp"

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You're right...nobody ever wants to quit and give up but if the corner throws the towel in is that the same as giving up? I'm not too sure...While none of us want to admit defeat, sometimes we have to learn that winning the war is more important than the battle, and if we are in a bad way and aren't performing as well as we can, as fighters we should want and expect the corner to do the right thing and pull us out of their to be able to recover and fight again in the future.

Too many times recently we have seen boxers sustain bad injuries, sometimes even life threatening and I believe that if the trainers and corners didn't throw the towel in and do what the actual fighter wanted, there would be a lot more serious injuries and that isn't good for the boxers (obviously), or for the actual sport itself.