BEFORE every fight I had during the second half of my career, I used to tell my trainer: “Whatever you do, no matter what happens, do not stop this fight! If I get hurt, then I get hurt, but, if it has to be stopped, let the referee do it.”
I meant it, too.
I can trace my thought process back to the morning after Muhammad Ali fought Larry Holmes in 1980 and I read in the paper before I left for school that Ali had been stopped. I was just 13 and I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that he didn’t make it the distance. I
