Boxer Rau'Shee Warren Lost Bout Because He Thought He Was Winning

One of the U.S.A's best hopes for a boxing gold medal went down in flames as Rau'Shee Warren lost his opening bout against Korea's Lee Ok-sung.

Warren is the first US boxer since 1976 to compete in consecutive Olympics. He was 17 years old in the Athens Games when he lost in the first round. He fought off pro offers just to win a gold in Beijing. The sad part is that it was preventable.

Warren thought he was beating Lee on points, so he stopped punching and danced away from any contact. Turns out, Lee was winning and Warren's lack of offense didn't allow him to catch up:

"There was so much going on in the crowd," Warren said. "When I just stood there at the end, I thought I was up. To wait this long, and then to lose after one fight ..."

Warren broke into sobs again.

"I was confused about why he stopped (punching)," [US coach Dan] Campbell said. "He said he heard somebody saying to him to move (and avoid Lee). He was looking up in the stands. I don't know what he thought they were saying."

This also brings together another question: Why aren't fighters allowed to know the score of the fight?

If Warren knew the score, he'd know that he needed to make up the points. Imagine any other sport that didn't show the score? Let's have no scoreboard at the basketball game and then show up the score after the game is over. Let's take down the leaderboard in golf, turn everyone's cards in and then reveal the winner. This isn't Survivor ... it's sports.

I know that they want a little guessing at the score so fighters keep competing. Uh ... obviously that doesn't work since Warren had no idea what the score was, thought he was up and stopped fighting. We've seen the same thing in many fights this week (though most of them were actually winning when the did so).

Just another bad moment in a poor showing for the US Boxing team.