Breaking down the Jacobs-Quillin stoppage

This past weekend was filled with some excitement and a bit of controversy as Danny Jacobs defeated Peter Quillin in a shocking 1st round TKO victory to retain the middleweight title. Jacobs landed a huge right hand early in the fight that had Quillin stumbling. He went in for the kill after realizing Quillin was hurt and referee Harvey Dock stopped that fight at 1:25.

The big question following the fight was should Dock have allowed Quillin to continue? He was never actually down in the fight. Jacobs had Quillin badly hurt on the ropes as he landed punch after punch. Jacobs hit Quillin with a combination that had Quillin stumble back but then Dock oddly broke them up. That was his mistake. The referee should not step in when it comes to that type of situation unless someone is holding, knocked down, or he is stopping the fight. When Dock originally separated Jacobs and Quillin, none of those three things were happening. That left Dock with two options. Continue the fight, which would have been questionable because he would have allowed Quillin a 10 second break for no reason. Or stop the fight, and have people wonder if the stoppage was legit. Dock was about to let them fight again however when he looked at Quillin he saw that something was off. Once he evaluated the situation he stopped the fight.

Quillin did nothing to oppose the stoppage after Dock stopped the fight giving light to the fact that he may have been badly hurt. However, Dock's mistake was not with the stoppage but with separating Jacobs and Quillin at a time that Jacobs was about to score a knockdown. Either way, it worked out in the end making the stoppage ok with me.