LAS VEGAS — Shawn Porter pounded the mat with anger and frustration after Terence  Crawford knocked him down for a second time Saturday night. He got up and was ready to get back in there — the WBO welterweight title had been close and evenly matched before this 10th round — when he saw referee Celestino Ruizlook over Porter’s shoulder and wave his hands that the fight was over.

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Porter’s trainer and father, Kenny, had thrown in the towel.

Kenny Porter has been viewed by some as the latest in a long line of overbearing and attention-seeking boxing fathers. His comments in the ring after the fight, with his confused son next to him, only perpetuated that. Kenny Porter said he stopped the fight because Shawn “didn’t prepare like I wanted him to prepare.  So that makes me say, you know what? I don’t want him in that situation.”

Most of the 11,568 fans in attendance at Mandalay Bay booed him when he said those comments.

The thing about sports is that the post-event microphone in the face really doesn’t do anyone any favors. The adrenalin is still flowing and emotions are high, especially in boxing, where in this case Crawford was literally trying to knock Shawn Porter’s head’s off.

Thirty minutes later, Kenny Porter did a much better job of explaining his mindset, and his son looked like he totally agreed with him. What everyone else didn’t know before the bout was that Shawn Porter had long ago decided this was his last fight. The two-time former champ (31-4-1) surprised reporters when he officially retired at the post-fight news conference.

“Someone said I was criticized,” Kenny Porter said. “Please, criticize me. Go right ahead, I love it. Because at the end of the day — this is where we at right now, we are at the end — tomorrow morning I will be able to look out of my window at his house right across the street from me. I will be able to play with my (grandsons), I will be able to walk my dog over to his house, I will be able to hug my daughter-in-law, and I will be able to love my son.”

Kenny Porter said he decided well before the fight to throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble.

And though that may not seem like a fair decision for his son, who had been able to keep Crawford at bay with a series of flurries in the first nine rounds, Kenny Porter played the ‘Father knows best’ card.

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“Already knew (I was going to stop the fight),” Kenny Porter said, “If I saw what I saw, that was my plan. No knock against Shawn in terms of who he is, but he thought Errol Spence would be the last fight. I’m his father, I knew that. So I knew everything that was gonna happen with him before it happened.

“Not to be negative towards him, but because I’m his father I could see these things. I can see it in the training, I can see it in the movements, I can see it in (him) looking at the clock ‘how long I gotta be here today?’ I can see it.”

And if the booing fans and angry sportswriters could take a step back at the moment, they might have seen it also. Despite being Crawford’s toughest challenger to date, all three judges had Crawford winning (86-85, 87-84, 86-85) before the 10th round. And Crawford was admittedly mad at himself for giving some rounds away early to Porter and had increased the multitude of punches — both in terms of number and violent intent.

Though Porter had never been stopped before in his career, Crawford had knocked out eight straight opponents before Saturday night. He started looking for the big left uppercut in the eighth round, and it landed clean two rounds later to send Porter to the mat. Moments later, a left hook and a right hook forced Porter down again.

Kenny Porter said he has never seen his son go down like that. And Shawn Porter later agreed he was in different waters from what he had normally navigated in.

”The punches he was catching me with were too clean,” Shawn Porter said. “My timing was off and he wouldn’t allow me to get my rhythm. … He’s the best out of everybody I have been in the ring with. That man hit me with more than anybody I’ve been in the ring with.

“On ‘Jerry McGuire’ they call it ‘The Quan.’ And that’s what he’s got, so good for him.”

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Crawford applauded Kenny Porter.

“(Shawn) was real hurt and his dad did the right thing by stopping it because I was coming with a vengeance,” Crawford said. “Shawn Porter is a slick fighter. He was doing some things in there and made me think. I can’t say nothing bad about him.”

The undefeated Crawford will go on to find a new promotion company and likely fight Spence as he continues to make a case for himself as the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighter. But the biggest winner may have been the man who was booed Saturday night.

“We won before we got here,” Kenny Porter said. “We were already winning. It’s just what’s expected in the ring, but in the biggest part of this picture, when this thing is over with, I’m still his father, he’s still my son, and we get to do that part. That’s a long life of that, there’s a whole bunch of that to go on.

“So I just saw things that told me that it was time.”

(Top photo of Shawn Porter and Terence Crawford: Mikey Williams / Top Rank)

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