Clearly, Alexander Munoz had a lot less left than I thought. I would say the loss to Koki Kameda officially inaugurates him into the unfortunate office of 'name opponent' for the remainder of his career. What's more, Kameda is the only Japanese fighter to ever beat Munoz and the new patriotic wave of appreciation is likely to help Koki a lot amongst older Japanese boxing fans.
I thought the fight was very dangerous for Kameda but he won by surviving the first four rounds. Good for him. His entrance into the bantamweight ranks in style means more possible strong match-ups after the Showtime bantam tourney is finished.
I do feel bad for Munoz. If he can afford it then he should consider retirement.
I'm looking forward to Agbeko-Mares I, to decide the bantam tourney. I'm also looking forward to Abgbeko-Mares II, Agbeko Mares III, Agbeko-Perez III, Mares-Perez II, and Mares-Perez III after the tourney. Take Agbeko and Mares' fights with Perez before the tourney (and Agbeko's smacking Darchinyan around), Mares' win over Darchinyan in the tourney, and Agbeko's huge rematch win in the tourney and these guys could make the division worthy of being on Showtime for at least five fights after the tourney is over. Regardless of what Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire do.
Right now I like Agbeko to win it, but Mares is a really tough guy who could prove me wrong. On top of that, he's a good boxer.
On the first non-bantamweight note, Arthur Abraham is taking a tune-up fight and then continuing in the Super Six. His twelve rounds with Andre Ward look very unhappy. Andre Ward is a much better boxer than Carl Froch and Abraham found a way to make Froch look like Benny Leonard. It will be painful to watch and will get boring fast because we expect Ward to do it. It won't have the entertainment power of novelty that Froch's win did.
Froch, on the other hand, may be biting off more than he can chew with Glen Johnson. He says he thinks he can hold Johnson off with his jab. Has he ever actually seen Johnson fight? The man is a buzzsaw. Even the people who convincingly outbox him don't succeeded in holding him off.
All in all, 2010 was a lot better year than boxing writers give credit. Maybe it wasn't as good as 2009 and maybe 2011 will be better. Yet what was really so awful about 2010? Some fights were cancelled. That happens every year. Some of them were really attractive. They nearly always are. It is very rare that someone cancels a tune-up between a name fighter and some anonymous journeyman. Klitschko-Chisora is an exception to the rule.
There is one reason we all flogged poor 2010 so hard. Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather didn't fight. When they didn't fight in 2009 a lot of people said 'they didn't fight, but the year was decent and they'll fight next year.' Now we are getting 'this year wasn't great, that fight might have made the difference, but they'll fight in 2012 even if they can't make it in 2011.'
I am going to give away, as promised, the secret that will allow every boxing fan to enjoy 2011.
Mayweather's legal problems means you should accept that Mayweather-Pacquiao is not happening until 2012. Period. So just enjoy all the fights that actually happen instead of pining for it. Period. Mayweather-Pacquiao isn't going to happen in 2012 either. Pacquiao's political career will interest him a lot more than his 2011 fights and he'll be retiring sometime in 2012.
Not only will this successfully enable you to enjoy 2011 but it also means that if, by some miracle, Floyd and Manny do go at it then the boring and razor-thin decision will be a lot less of a let-down. Instead, a fight you stopped stressing over happened when you could enjoy it.
I realize it is a bit early but there are a lot worse New Year's Resolutions.
Think about it.
First post of 2011 will be an explanation of exactly why it won't happen. That will help.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Why Pacquiao-Mosely may be a better fight than you think
As of Tuesday, it's official. Manny Pacquiao's next opponent will be Shane Mosely.
The prospective match-up was being criticized in some quarters before it was ever made. On this year's final episode of Ring Theory, guest Jim Lampley 'unfortunately'(his word for it) predicted a Pacquiao-Mosley match-up before the fact. He presented very solid arguments for on the business side, the precise arguments that surely factored into Arum's decision. This fight makes the most financial sense for Pacquiao, short of a Mayweather fight. It might even make better financial sense than a Mayweather fight. I realize that is counter-intuitive: certainly hard core fans would prefer to see the latter. However, as often as they may keep fighters like Mayweather and Manny working, it isn't the hard core fans who make fights big money fights and the casual fan or the general sports fan may be more aware of Mosley. They also might prefer to watch Mosley, for reasons we can all guess.
Mosley is not widely favored to win. On the episode before the one linked above, Ring Theory stars Bill Dettloff and Eric Raskin both suggested that they did not want to see Mosley take an awful beating from Pacquiao and didn't see another alternative.
I will present another alternative.
Yes, Mosely is on the downturn. I myself said that he got old very fast over the course of his fight with Floyd Mayweather. I also suggested that Mayweather had deliberately picked Mosley because of his own views of the likelihood that such a possibility would happen. With all due respect to the promoters Mayweather has done business with over the course of his career, in the final analysis only Mayweather decides whom he is to fight.
However, Oscar de le Hoya was on the downturn (in the very best analysis, I think I called him completely shot) when he fought Floyd Mayweather. Oscar gave Mayweather a much tougher fight than anyone expected.
I think that this situation is very similar to that of Mayeather-de la Hoya.
NutraSweet Shane is Arum's pick because of a very special combination: he is a recognizable name to casual boxing fans and even the general public knows that he beat Oscar de la Hoya twice. The general sports fan who does not understand that it is much harder to get hit in the face for a living at age 38 than to hit home runs for a living at the same age will probably think Mosley is a very attractive opponent for the Fighting Congressman. So Arum believes he can get a lot of money without risking very much for his meal ticket out of such a fight. Precisely why Mayweather originally picked de la Hoya.
Oscar surprised Floyd by coming into the ring for a prize fight. If Oscar had not been on the way down (or, as I prefer to call it, completely shot)when he fought Floyd, he would have won.
I am going to make two suggestions.
First, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a better boxer than Manny Pacqiuao. He has practiced certain old school fundamentals from the beginning of his career. Manny has only acquired a certain degree of polish relatively recently. I am not saying that Manny is not a complete fighter. He is. Nor am I saying that his combination of attributes does not make him more dangerous than Floyd or capable of beating Floyd. They might. What I am saying is that Mosley's big defeats against Cotto and Mayweather (and his rematch loss to Vernon Forrest and his draw with Sergio Mora, for that matter)all happened because he wasn't as good a boxer as the guy with whom he stepped into the ring. Manny and Shane may be closer in terms of pure fundamental boxing skill and Shane may be better on the basic fundamentals due to more experience applying them.
Second, more things are equal here than in some of Manny's other match-ups. Shane has to show us how much speed he really has left. However, if he is even at 75% then he is the fastest guy Pacquiao has faced in a long time. Pound-for-pound, if speed is considered relative to weight class and then compared based on this formula, he might be the fastest guy Manny has fought. Both guys have similar styles: they box soundly but look for the punches and like to fight.
I think Manny still wins. I think Shane might get beat up, but I also think he might not get beat up as bad as people think or at least give as well as he gets before finally being stopped. I don't think Shane has enough left in the tank to beat Manny.
I do think, if we have to watch Manny fight guys who can't possibly beat him for a little while longer (and I think we do), better Shane Mosley than Miguel Cotto.
I'm going to add a couple of random comments.
First, this is the next to last posting of the year. There won't be any year-end awards as there were in 2008. I haven't been back up and running at full strength for long enough. The last posting will just be some final thoughts for the year and the my thoughts on the results of the Koki Kameda-Alexander Munoz fight*.
I don't think I've seen anyone else write on this topic, so I'll briefly include it: I think Munoz is a tremendously dangerous choice for Kameda coming off his loss to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Munoz is definitely on the downside, but I think he is closer to the top of the slide than the bottom. Nor was Munoz ever quite in the same league as Fernando Montiel. What Munoz is, however, is what he always was. He is a hell of a puncher and an underrated boxer. I think Kameda-Munoz might turn out to be too much like Kameda-Wonjongkam for Koki's comfort. Munoz comes to fight, which Koki doesn't necessarily always do. I think Munoz is in a good position for the upset and that Kameda is in a good position to be seen as 'exposed' by a lot of people in the aftermath of successive big fight defeats. I hope the fight makes its way to YouTube and I am curious to see if my guesses are close to right.
*Kameda and Munoz fight on Boxing Day**. This has to make one smile.
**Boxing Day, traditionally, has nothing to do with actual boxing in most places***. The word 'boxing' refers to the tradition of boxing up the Christmas leftovers and giving them to the poor and the servants to celebrate the feast of St. Stephen on the day after Christmas.
***There are exceptions: Boxing Day is frequently celebrated by literal fights in many African nations (most notably in Sub-Saharan Africa's boxing capitals of Ghana and Nigeria), Guyana, Italy, and bar parking lots across the American South.
The prospective match-up was being criticized in some quarters before it was ever made. On this year's final episode of Ring Theory, guest Jim Lampley 'unfortunately'(his word for it) predicted a Pacquiao-Mosley match-up before the fact. He presented very solid arguments for on the business side, the precise arguments that surely factored into Arum's decision. This fight makes the most financial sense for Pacquiao, short of a Mayweather fight. It might even make better financial sense than a Mayweather fight. I realize that is counter-intuitive: certainly hard core fans would prefer to see the latter. However, as often as they may keep fighters like Mayweather and Manny working, it isn't the hard core fans who make fights big money fights and the casual fan or the general sports fan may be more aware of Mosley. They also might prefer to watch Mosley, for reasons we can all guess.
Mosley is not widely favored to win. On the episode before the one linked above, Ring Theory stars Bill Dettloff and Eric Raskin both suggested that they did not want to see Mosley take an awful beating from Pacquiao and didn't see another alternative.
I will present another alternative.
Yes, Mosely is on the downturn. I myself said that he got old very fast over the course of his fight with Floyd Mayweather. I also suggested that Mayweather had deliberately picked Mosley because of his own views of the likelihood that such a possibility would happen. With all due respect to the promoters Mayweather has done business with over the course of his career, in the final analysis only Mayweather decides whom he is to fight.
However, Oscar de le Hoya was on the downturn (in the very best analysis, I think I called him completely shot) when he fought Floyd Mayweather. Oscar gave Mayweather a much tougher fight than anyone expected.
I think that this situation is very similar to that of Mayeather-de la Hoya.
NutraSweet Shane is Arum's pick because of a very special combination: he is a recognizable name to casual boxing fans and even the general public knows that he beat Oscar de la Hoya twice. The general sports fan who does not understand that it is much harder to get hit in the face for a living at age 38 than to hit home runs for a living at the same age will probably think Mosley is a very attractive opponent for the Fighting Congressman. So Arum believes he can get a lot of money without risking very much for his meal ticket out of such a fight. Precisely why Mayweather originally picked de la Hoya.
Oscar surprised Floyd by coming into the ring for a prize fight. If Oscar had not been on the way down (or, as I prefer to call it, completely shot)when he fought Floyd, he would have won.
I am going to make two suggestions.
First, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a better boxer than Manny Pacqiuao. He has practiced certain old school fundamentals from the beginning of his career. Manny has only acquired a certain degree of polish relatively recently. I am not saying that Manny is not a complete fighter. He is. Nor am I saying that his combination of attributes does not make him more dangerous than Floyd or capable of beating Floyd. They might. What I am saying is that Mosley's big defeats against Cotto and Mayweather (and his rematch loss to Vernon Forrest and his draw with Sergio Mora, for that matter)all happened because he wasn't as good a boxer as the guy with whom he stepped into the ring. Manny and Shane may be closer in terms of pure fundamental boxing skill and Shane may be better on the basic fundamentals due to more experience applying them.
Second, more things are equal here than in some of Manny's other match-ups. Shane has to show us how much speed he really has left. However, if he is even at 75% then he is the fastest guy Pacquiao has faced in a long time. Pound-for-pound, if speed is considered relative to weight class and then compared based on this formula, he might be the fastest guy Manny has fought. Both guys have similar styles: they box soundly but look for the punches and like to fight.
I think Manny still wins. I think Shane might get beat up, but I also think he might not get beat up as bad as people think or at least give as well as he gets before finally being stopped. I don't think Shane has enough left in the tank to beat Manny.
I do think, if we have to watch Manny fight guys who can't possibly beat him for a little while longer (and I think we do), better Shane Mosley than Miguel Cotto.
I'm going to add a couple of random comments.
First, this is the next to last posting of the year. There won't be any year-end awards as there were in 2008. I haven't been back up and running at full strength for long enough. The last posting will just be some final thoughts for the year and the my thoughts on the results of the Koki Kameda-Alexander Munoz fight*.
I don't think I've seen anyone else write on this topic, so I'll briefly include it: I think Munoz is a tremendously dangerous choice for Kameda coming off his loss to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Munoz is definitely on the downside, but I think he is closer to the top of the slide than the bottom. Nor was Munoz ever quite in the same league as Fernando Montiel. What Munoz is, however, is what he always was. He is a hell of a puncher and an underrated boxer. I think Kameda-Munoz might turn out to be too much like Kameda-Wonjongkam for Koki's comfort. Munoz comes to fight, which Koki doesn't necessarily always do. I think Munoz is in a good position for the upset and that Kameda is in a good position to be seen as 'exposed' by a lot of people in the aftermath of successive big fight defeats. I hope the fight makes its way to YouTube and I am curious to see if my guesses are close to right.
*Kameda and Munoz fight on Boxing Day**. This has to make one smile.
**Boxing Day, traditionally, has nothing to do with actual boxing in most places***. The word 'boxing' refers to the tradition of boxing up the Christmas leftovers and giving them to the poor and the servants to celebrate the feast of St. Stephen on the day after Christmas.
***There are exceptions: Boxing Day is frequently celebrated by literal fights in many African nations (most notably in Sub-Saharan Africa's boxing capitals of Ghana and Nigeria), Guyana, Italy, and bar parking lots across the American South.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Questionable Judging Mars the Year's Last Big Fight
Daniel Van de Wielle.
You may or may not know the name.
Followers of women's boxing will know van de Wielle as the referee who waved off Jeaninne Garside's brutal knockdown of Ina Menzer in the final round of their light welterweight title fight, then personally helped Menzer up again.
Hard-core boxing fans may or may not know that van de Wielle has been involved in a lot questionable fights in Germany, as referee and judge. His track record in either role is dismal.
Van de Wielle was the man, as the 'neutral judge', responsible for the balance in Bernard Hopkins-Jean Pascal Saturday night.
The fight itself started slow, heated up gradually, and ended with a lot of excitement. After first and third round knockdowns (and giving Hopkins the very close second round)The Boxing Geek had Pascal ahead by two points at the start of the fifth. Pascal also dropped Hopkins with a rabbit punch in the fourth, which was correctly waved off by referee Michael Griffin. Otherwise, Hopkins dominated the fourth.
Hopkins narrowly edged the 5th round and won the 6th by a slightly wider margin, helped out by a right hand that really shook Pascal up. The fight was even on the unofficial card of the blog.
Hopkins dominated the second half of the fight, with only a few of those rounds being close and only the eighth being close enough to give Pascal the benefit of the doubt that the champion should get. Hopkins made up for that in round nine by walloping Pascal with a right hand that had the champion very shaky. He had Pascal hurt several times in round eleven, this time due to excellent body-punching. When the final bell rang, after a twelfth round that got exciting after Hopkins dominated the first minute, the Canadian fans cheered Hopkins loudly.
US judge Steve Morrow scored the fight 114-112, which was a little closer than it looked on Showtime. Canadian judge Claude Paquette scored it a 113-133 draw.
Enter van de Wielle, whose score of 114-114 left one of the few satisfying performances by Hopkins in recent years a disappointing let-down. The Canadian fans who had cheered Hopkins at the end of the fight?
They booed the decision and booed Pascal a little as the belt was put back around his waist. That's not going to hurt Pascal in the long run, as long as he keeps putting in strong performances like his win over Chad Dawson to claim the title in the first place. It just demonstrates how spectators wildly partial to Pascal when the fight began thought Hopkins deserved the win.
The Boxing Geek had Hopkins winning 115-110 off Showtime.
As a casual aside, for fans of Ring Theory, the first clinch of the fight came with less than forty seconds remaining in the first round. Another win for Eric Raskin, whose chance to overtake William Dettloff in the Quick Picks competition was nixed by van de Wielle.
Why single out Daniel van de Wielle over Canadian judge Claude Paquette?
Well, as much as we often complain about hometown officiating, one really has to expect the French Canadian judge to score the fight a draw rather than a loss in Quebec City. He didn't go so far as to try to claim that Pascal won. Van de Wielle failed in his role as neutral arbiter of an honest decision for the right man. In the end it is who wins the fight that matters and one can forgive a little bit of stubborn pride in one's own.
Van de Wielle just had no excuse. Except that he is a bad referee too. His defense boils down to 'What else should you expect from my record?'
Presumably, the WBC knew van de Wielle's record when selecting judges. He's officiated plenty of WBC fights as referee or judge. So why is he still working?
The fight was a lot better than Bernard Hopkins fights ever are, with the exceptions of Hopkins-Trinidad and Hopkins-Pavlik proving the rule. Hopkins actually outworked his younger opponent for eight rounds straight leading to an edge in punches thrown on the final tally. When has that happened before? He connected with more punches over the entire fight. Pascal looked like a beaten man in the corner as early as after the sixth round but managed to keep trying to mount a rally.
Unfortunately, van de Wielle deprived of us of an ending as good as the fight.
You may or may not know the name.
Followers of women's boxing will know van de Wielle as the referee who waved off Jeaninne Garside's brutal knockdown of Ina Menzer in the final round of their light welterweight title fight, then personally helped Menzer up again.
Hard-core boxing fans may or may not know that van de Wielle has been involved in a lot questionable fights in Germany, as referee and judge. His track record in either role is dismal.
Van de Wielle was the man, as the 'neutral judge', responsible for the balance in Bernard Hopkins-Jean Pascal Saturday night.
The fight itself started slow, heated up gradually, and ended with a lot of excitement. After first and third round knockdowns (and giving Hopkins the very close second round)The Boxing Geek had Pascal ahead by two points at the start of the fifth. Pascal also dropped Hopkins with a rabbit punch in the fourth, which was correctly waved off by referee Michael Griffin. Otherwise, Hopkins dominated the fourth.
Hopkins narrowly edged the 5th round and won the 6th by a slightly wider margin, helped out by a right hand that really shook Pascal up. The fight was even on the unofficial card of the blog.
Hopkins dominated the second half of the fight, with only a few of those rounds being close and only the eighth being close enough to give Pascal the benefit of the doubt that the champion should get. Hopkins made up for that in round nine by walloping Pascal with a right hand that had the champion very shaky. He had Pascal hurt several times in round eleven, this time due to excellent body-punching. When the final bell rang, after a twelfth round that got exciting after Hopkins dominated the first minute, the Canadian fans cheered Hopkins loudly.
US judge Steve Morrow scored the fight 114-112, which was a little closer than it looked on Showtime. Canadian judge Claude Paquette scored it a 113-133 draw.
Enter van de Wielle, whose score of 114-114 left one of the few satisfying performances by Hopkins in recent years a disappointing let-down. The Canadian fans who had cheered Hopkins at the end of the fight?
They booed the decision and booed Pascal a little as the belt was put back around his waist. That's not going to hurt Pascal in the long run, as long as he keeps putting in strong performances like his win over Chad Dawson to claim the title in the first place. It just demonstrates how spectators wildly partial to Pascal when the fight began thought Hopkins deserved the win.
The Boxing Geek had Hopkins winning 115-110 off Showtime.
As a casual aside, for fans of Ring Theory, the first clinch of the fight came with less than forty seconds remaining in the first round. Another win for Eric Raskin, whose chance to overtake William Dettloff in the Quick Picks competition was nixed by van de Wielle.
Why single out Daniel van de Wielle over Canadian judge Claude Paquette?
Well, as much as we often complain about hometown officiating, one really has to expect the French Canadian judge to score the fight a draw rather than a loss in Quebec City. He didn't go so far as to try to claim that Pascal won. Van de Wielle failed in his role as neutral arbiter of an honest decision for the right man. In the end it is who wins the fight that matters and one can forgive a little bit of stubborn pride in one's own.
Van de Wielle just had no excuse. Except that he is a bad referee too. His defense boils down to 'What else should you expect from my record?'
Presumably, the WBC knew van de Wielle's record when selecting judges. He's officiated plenty of WBC fights as referee or judge. So why is he still working?
The fight was a lot better than Bernard Hopkins fights ever are, with the exceptions of Hopkins-Trinidad and Hopkins-Pavlik proving the rule. Hopkins actually outworked his younger opponent for eight rounds straight leading to an edge in punches thrown on the final tally. When has that happened before? He connected with more punches over the entire fight. Pascal looked like a beaten man in the corner as early as after the sixth round but managed to keep trying to mount a rally.
Unfortunately, van de Wielle deprived of us of an ending as good as the fight.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Mike Tyson's Legacy
William Dettloff makes an excellent, convincing, and absolutely correct argument for Mike Tyson's election to the Hall of Fame.
The idea that Tyson is not qualified for the Hall of Fame is laughable. I'm not even going to address it. I do think one can make the argument that Tyson is not necessarily a first ballot Hall of Famer. His loss to Buster Douglas is inexcusable if he was really as good as we thought. I tend to think, however, that what the Douglas fight really did was expose Tyson as a bully who was quite a bit less spectacular when his opponent came to fight and who could not overcome adversity.
Still, in the context of his effect on the heavyweight division during his prime, I'm not going to dispute that he is as deserving of first ballot inclusion as Rocky Marciano or Sonny Liston. After harsh reflection, they fall into much the same category as Tyson when it comes to the difference between perception and reality.
I am going to address a statement cited in support of Mr. Dettloff's thesis.
I am not going to deny that Tyson occupied that position in the rankings. I'm just going to point out that it was part of the ridiculous Tyson mystique of the time. I was a kid in the middle of it. Tyson was everywhere. Nintendo even re-wrote their popular arcade title 'Punch Out' around Mike Tyson when bringing it into the burgeoning home console market.
But was he really ever the best fighter in the world, ranked that way or not?
Tyson beat Spinks in 1988. That year KO Magazine ranked Tyson #1 and Julio Cesar Chavez #2. Chavez and Tyson had very parallel careers, with much of Chavez's success happening on Mike Tyson undercards. Tyson was the heavyweight, so he got the attention, but was he a better fighter than Chavez lb for lb? Evander Holyfield, who made the words 'all-time great cruiserweight' really mean something for the first (and arguably only) time ever was #3. If one considers the quality of his foes at cruiserweight vs the quality of Tyson's at heavyweight (excluding a clearly gun-shy Spinks who never tried to put up a fight), he could make a really good argument for having faced better opposition than Tyson.
So if we rate Chavez #1 and Holyfield #2 based on what we know now, Tyson drops to third place at best. #4 is Saccharine Ray Leonard, who had come out of retirement to upset Marvin Hagler the year before. The year before, prior to that upset, Hagler had been #1. One can argue whether Leonard deserved to win the fight, but he definitely hung in with the best pound for pound fighter in the world until the final bell. Depending on when that particular listing was published, doesn't that rate Saccharine Ray the #3 spot?
So Tyson has been pushed down to number four already. Number five on the list is a man as feared as Tyson in lower weight classes and other corners of the world: Jeff Fenech. Number 7? Fenech's greatest rival, Azumah Nelson. In that same harsh light of reflection, can we justify rating Tyson as better than Fenech or Nelson pound for pound? Nelson had been on the list in 1986 and 1987 and would be on it again in 1989. I don't think it is out of order to promote both men over Holyfield and Leonard to #2 and #3.
The other names on the list were Michael Nunn (#6), Jung Koo Chang (#8), Buddy McGirt (#9), and Sumbu Kalambay (#10) and it isn't impossible to argue that Tyson might have been somewhere in that league. So a more contextual version of the top five might read:
1. Julio Cesar Chavez
2. Jeff Fenech (who earned his spot by beating Nelson)
3. Azumah Nelson
4. Evander Holyfield
5. Ray Leonard
From here it becomes more difficult to rate the rest of the names on the list. It's a matter of taste whether to rate Tyson above or below Nunn. In the spirit of the idea of the 'pound for pound best', however, I would ask this: if both men were the same size, how would you handicap Tyson-Nunn? Nunn didn't have a big punch or a granite chin but he was a very good boxer who threw great combinations and came to fight. I'd rate his chances at least as good as Buster Douglas. Those chances come closer to 50/50 than they do to 300/1 when viewed in the light of what we know now. Better than that if we accept the not too ridiculous thesis that Nunn was a more skilled boxer than anyone Tyson ever faced at heavyweight.
So an historical review of the guys on the list in Tyson's heyday suggests that Tyson was maybe number six in the world at the time at best, more likely number seven, pound for pound. All the guys I've rated above Tyson had faced much liver opposition between 1987 and 1988 than Tyson had. Chavez was still riding the most frightening unbeaten streak since Sugar Ray Robinson. Azumah Nelson was a pound-for-pound fixture who fought in a then-overlooked weight division*. Fenech had beaten Nelson. Leonard had up-ended the previous number one in a huge upset. Holyfield had fought some of the toughest men of the early-to-mid 1980s, who had been two-division champions at 175 and 190. Dwight Muhammad Qawi and Eddie Mustapha Muhammed just have to be rated over Tony Tubbs and Bonecrusher Smith in the 'strength of opposition' department if we're serious about the words 'pound for pound.'Even Michael Nunn knocked out Frank Tate and Juan Roldan in 1988.
Tyson? He'd beaten Tony Tubbs, an overweight and rusty Larry Holmes who hadn't learned how to fight without his speed yet, and Michael Spinks. The only fight that meant anything was the one with Spinks and it would have meant a whole lot more if Spinks had not come into the ring already expecting to take a nap**.
Come to think of it, maybe number seven is still a stretch.
I want to note that I am not considering anything but the accomplishments that figured into the ratings at the time, except maybe for Nelson simply because he was on the list for his third straight year. I'm simply viewing those accomplishments through an historical lens rather than through the enthusiasms and biases of the time.
Sometimes revisionist history is necessary because the accepted 'facts' of the time were simply wrong.
*Back then, fighters below lightweight got a lot less respect than fighters above it. Today, we routinely rank guys in the 126-135 bracket much closer to the top and guys in the 200+ range much closer to the bottom. Sure, today's heavyweights aren't particularly good... but neither were the heavyweights of the 1980s. The division was simply still viewed with a glamour now lost.
**I don't mean to imply that Mike Spinks threw his fight with Tyson. Certainly he didn't consciously decide to lose when he could win. He simply came in expecting to get really badly beaten up so he planned to lie down and take it easy as soon as things got bad. Who knows what might have happened if he came to fight?
The idea that Tyson is not qualified for the Hall of Fame is laughable. I'm not even going to address it. I do think one can make the argument that Tyson is not necessarily a first ballot Hall of Famer. His loss to Buster Douglas is inexcusable if he was really as good as we thought. I tend to think, however, that what the Douglas fight really did was expose Tyson as a bully who was quite a bit less spectacular when his opponent came to fight and who could not overcome adversity.
Still, in the context of his effect on the heavyweight division during his prime, I'm not going to dispute that he is as deserving of first ballot inclusion as Rocky Marciano or Sonny Liston. After harsh reflection, they fall into much the same category as Tyson when it comes to the difference between perception and reality.
I am going to address a statement cited in support of Mr. Dettloff's thesis.
'“I voted for Tyson, and he's a definite first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Showtime boxing analyst Steve Farhood told me. As editor of KO Magazine and also former editor of The RING, Farhood covered Tyson’s pro career from the earliest stages.
“Those who don't think so are practicing revisionist history,” Farhood said. “I laugh when I read how Tyson was an underachiever and should have been dominant for much longer. First of all, he was not only the top heavyweight in the world, and the first undisputed champion in years, but he was the No. 1-ranked fighter in the game, pound for pound. And to secure that position, he beat the No. 2, Michael Spinks.”'
I am not going to deny that Tyson occupied that position in the rankings. I'm just going to point out that it was part of the ridiculous Tyson mystique of the time. I was a kid in the middle of it. Tyson was everywhere. Nintendo even re-wrote their popular arcade title 'Punch Out' around Mike Tyson when bringing it into the burgeoning home console market.
But was he really ever the best fighter in the world, ranked that way or not?
Tyson beat Spinks in 1988. That year KO Magazine ranked Tyson #1 and Julio Cesar Chavez #2. Chavez and Tyson had very parallel careers, with much of Chavez's success happening on Mike Tyson undercards. Tyson was the heavyweight, so he got the attention, but was he a better fighter than Chavez lb for lb? Evander Holyfield, who made the words 'all-time great cruiserweight' really mean something for the first (and arguably only) time ever was #3. If one considers the quality of his foes at cruiserweight vs the quality of Tyson's at heavyweight (excluding a clearly gun-shy Spinks who never tried to put up a fight), he could make a really good argument for having faced better opposition than Tyson.
So if we rate Chavez #1 and Holyfield #2 based on what we know now, Tyson drops to third place at best. #4 is Saccharine Ray Leonard, who had come out of retirement to upset Marvin Hagler the year before. The year before, prior to that upset, Hagler had been #1. One can argue whether Leonard deserved to win the fight, but he definitely hung in with the best pound for pound fighter in the world until the final bell. Depending on when that particular listing was published, doesn't that rate Saccharine Ray the #3 spot?
So Tyson has been pushed down to number four already. Number five on the list is a man as feared as Tyson in lower weight classes and other corners of the world: Jeff Fenech. Number 7? Fenech's greatest rival, Azumah Nelson. In that same harsh light of reflection, can we justify rating Tyson as better than Fenech or Nelson pound for pound? Nelson had been on the list in 1986 and 1987 and would be on it again in 1989. I don't think it is out of order to promote both men over Holyfield and Leonard to #2 and #3.
The other names on the list were Michael Nunn (#6), Jung Koo Chang (#8), Buddy McGirt (#9), and Sumbu Kalambay (#10) and it isn't impossible to argue that Tyson might have been somewhere in that league. So a more contextual version of the top five might read:
1. Julio Cesar Chavez
2. Jeff Fenech (who earned his spot by beating Nelson)
3. Azumah Nelson
4. Evander Holyfield
5. Ray Leonard
From here it becomes more difficult to rate the rest of the names on the list. It's a matter of taste whether to rate Tyson above or below Nunn. In the spirit of the idea of the 'pound for pound best', however, I would ask this: if both men were the same size, how would you handicap Tyson-Nunn? Nunn didn't have a big punch or a granite chin but he was a very good boxer who threw great combinations and came to fight. I'd rate his chances at least as good as Buster Douglas. Those chances come closer to 50/50 than they do to 300/1 when viewed in the light of what we know now. Better than that if we accept the not too ridiculous thesis that Nunn was a more skilled boxer than anyone Tyson ever faced at heavyweight.
So an historical review of the guys on the list in Tyson's heyday suggests that Tyson was maybe number six in the world at the time at best, more likely number seven, pound for pound. All the guys I've rated above Tyson had faced much liver opposition between 1987 and 1988 than Tyson had. Chavez was still riding the most frightening unbeaten streak since Sugar Ray Robinson. Azumah Nelson was a pound-for-pound fixture who fought in a then-overlooked weight division*. Fenech had beaten Nelson. Leonard had up-ended the previous number one in a huge upset. Holyfield had fought some of the toughest men of the early-to-mid 1980s, who had been two-division champions at 175 and 190. Dwight Muhammad Qawi and Eddie Mustapha Muhammed just have to be rated over Tony Tubbs and Bonecrusher Smith in the 'strength of opposition' department if we're serious about the words 'pound for pound.'Even Michael Nunn knocked out Frank Tate and Juan Roldan in 1988.
Tyson? He'd beaten Tony Tubbs, an overweight and rusty Larry Holmes who hadn't learned how to fight without his speed yet, and Michael Spinks. The only fight that meant anything was the one with Spinks and it would have meant a whole lot more if Spinks had not come into the ring already expecting to take a nap**.
Come to think of it, maybe number seven is still a stretch.
I want to note that I am not considering anything but the accomplishments that figured into the ratings at the time, except maybe for Nelson simply because he was on the list for his third straight year. I'm simply viewing those accomplishments through an historical lens rather than through the enthusiasms and biases of the time.
Sometimes revisionist history is necessary because the accepted 'facts' of the time were simply wrong.
*Back then, fighters below lightweight got a lot less respect than fighters above it. Today, we routinely rank guys in the 126-135 bracket much closer to the top and guys in the 200+ range much closer to the bottom. Sure, today's heavyweights aren't particularly good... but neither were the heavyweights of the 1980s. The division was simply still viewed with a glamour now lost.
**I don't mean to imply that Mike Spinks threw his fight with Tyson. Certainly he didn't consciously decide to lose when he could win. He simply came in expecting to get really badly beaten up so he planned to lie down and take it easy as soon as things got bad. Who knows what might have happened if he came to fight?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Classic Saturday: Every Boxing Cliche Takes its Turn!
Saturday Dec 11 was a night of packed fight cards on both HBO and Showtime. The most impressive moment of the night was the realization that not only was the Showtime card even better than advertised but that the HBO Main Event was the single best fight of the night. When three of four fights are that good, it's good for boxing. Period. When every classical literary and historical trope in boxing takes a run around the ring in its turn, it only serves to crystallize a great night.
The most immediate cliche to jump to the surface is that of redemption.
Coming into Tacoma on Saturday night, Joseph Agbeko was the number six bantamweight in the world on The Ring's list. His last fight was a decision loss to Yohnny Perez of Colombia, in which a determining factor was a controversial knockdown that may have been a head-butt. Referee Robert Byrd later admitted that he himself did not know whether Agbeko's trip to the canvas had been caused by a punch or a clash of heads. The judges weren't any more helpful. Everyone in boxing suggested the fight had been much closer than the score cards. Yet no one suggested that he won either.
In the second fight of Showtime's 'double main event', Agebeko proved he could box and showed he could do it very well down the stretch when it really mattered. He cut Peres with a punch in round 4 and Perez was pawing at it by round 7. Scoring the fight off tv, I had Agbeko shutting Perez out over the last five rounds. Perez kept repeatedly rubbing at the cut in every round and his punch out-put dropped. This time the judges gave the fight to Agbeko without reserve: Glenn Fellman by a score of 115-113, Glenn Hamada by a score of 116-112, and Alan Krebs 117-111. My final tally was 117-111 as well.
Agbeko grabbed his retribution when the chance came, regained his alphabet title, and advanced to the fial round of Showtime's tournament. It wouldn't be hard to make the argument that the manner of his victory over Perez makes him the favorite to win the tournament.
Agbeko put it more simply. "I've got my meal ticket back," he said to Steve Farhood.
Amir Khan's meal ticket appears fairly well assured as well. The photogenic young Englishman boxed well enough to dominate most of the minutes of his fight with Marcos Maidana. He also hit well enough to score a first round knockdown with a stiff body blow. It was the only offical knockdown of the fight (though referee Joe Cortez waved another apparent knockdown off as a slip in R9) despite questions about Khan's chin and Marcos Maidana's proven power. After dominating the first half of the fight and giving Maidana a really good thrashing in round 9, Khan was caught flush by a pair of really nasty right hands from Maidana in round 10. Khan refused to clinch and, despite a lot of effort put into his defense, mostly refused to run as well. He even waved Maidana in on two occasions, the second as the twelfth round wound down. Khan survived the tenth with skill, heart, and (lest someone else forget to mention it) CHIN. Though he was out on his feet on at least two occasions (once in the tenth and once in the eleventh), he did not go down and managed to make serious efforts to steal both the eleventh and twelfth rounds back from Maidana.
Amir Khan deliberately chose Maidana as an opponent to prove he could fight a hard fight, and win, against the hardest puncher in the division. I'd say he did just what he wanted. I'm not saying that he can't be knocked out or that he isn't vulnerable to a big uppercut, but he's proved he has enough talent and a good enough beard that 'a weak chin' is not to blame should he ever be stopped again.
The Las Vegas crowd managed to provide another boxing cliche: the inability of casual fans to believe that someone who almost knocked his opponent out could still deserve to lose or to understand that surviving such a puncher until one can fight back is an achievement and not a failure of character. Their booing of Khan was disappointing.
Another less than pleasant boxing cliche was provided by Vic Darchniyan after he was out-punched by undeated Abner Mares. Mares survived a head-butt induced cut in the first round, a flash knockdown in the second, and a borderline point-deduction for low blows in the 4th to keep the fight largely even through six rounds (a fact strangely unappreciated by the press row score cards shared with Shotwime) and then to out-slug Darhninyan for an arguably two-point round 7. Darchinyan made a tough stand in round 10, blunting Mares' offensive and arguably stealing the round. Mares was simply unwilling to stop looking for the knockout. In round eleven, Darchinyan was hurt several times and was forced to lean heavily on Mares in the clinches to stay on his feet. He was simply too tired and hurt to fend off a wild, sloppy offensive explosion from Mares and score the stoppage necessary to win. The judges didn't all see the same fight, with Glenn Hamada scoring the fight 115-111 for Darchinyan (a difficult position to defend), Alan Krebs 115-112 for Mares, and Tom McDonough 115-111 for Mares. My final score was also 115-112 for Mares.*
The victory means that Mares will face Agbeko in the tourney final. I really liked his guts and aggression in his win over Darchinyan and he really has fast hands and a little bit of a punch. Yet he clearly had momentarily trouble when Darchniyan boxed well, and Darchniyan's power shots allowed him to hold his own. Agbeko is bigger and stronger than Darchinyan and hits harder than Darchinyan at bantamweight. He's also better than Darchniyan, whose style is so unorthodox that it becomes a weakness and whose basic boxing fundamentals show as lacking even when he boxes well.
I have to favor Agbeko in the final. If Mares is as aggressive as he was against Darchniyan and Agbeko is as good as he was against Perez then I think Agbeko wins by late knockout. He is physically much bigger and stronger than Darchniyan and will be able to out-bully Mares if necessary. Mares will have to box smarter to find a way to beat Agbeko. I like this fight a lot and am eager to see it.
Darchniyan, however, blamed the judges for not seeing it his way and blamed the referee for warning him against grinding his glove into Mares' cut. His display of self-pity was very disappointing. He cut Steve Farhood's questions about his next fight off in order to say, "Let me finish," and go back to reciting the injustices of his defeat until Farhood appeared to decide, with some possible distaste**, that Darchinyan would simply not answer questions and dismissed him.
Which leaves only Victor Ortiz vs. Lamont Peterson. The deprived, homeless childhoods of both fighters lent drama outside the ring. The clash of styles promised an entertaining fight. The fact that both men could not afford to lose lent a sense of urgency to the battle.
Unfortunately, it didn't even offer any such sense of urgency to Ortiz and Peterson. Both men spent the first two rounds feeling each other out, which Ortiz's greater activity and greater pop barely giving him the lead. In the third we were given the promise of excitement when Ortiz dropped Peterson with a combination, initiated something of a brawl in which he then employed a dead-weight take-down*** to put Peterson on the canvas a second time, and then scored a second legal knockdown soon thereafter. The fight promised either an exciting resolution or a dramatic performance by Peterson in the rounds to come.
Peterson did provide a bit of early drama when he punched himself out trouble well enough to avoid a knock-out and stay in the fourth round, then boxed well enough to steal it. He slowed the fifth round down, keeping things inactive enough that he could make an argument for the otherwise close round with a few good hooks. When Ortiz tried to force the action in the sixth, Peterson kept the round very close. Yet it wasn't terribly exciting to watch. Ortiz fought well enough down the stretch to steal an otherwise uneventful round 7. Round eight was close and relatively slow again, but Ortiz made another major press to win the fight in the eight. He tagged Peterson a few times and forced another fight, and Peterson again punched out of trouble well enough to manage to steal the round. In the ninth they both boxed well enough to make the round slower again, but Ortiz landed the heavier shots down the stretch. In the tenth, Ortiz fought a smart, effectively aggressive round and appeared to finish strong.
I had the fight 97-92 in Ortiz's favor, because I thought the knock-downs gave him a big edge in an otherwise close fight. I was impressed by some of the things Peterson did to stay in the fight, but I don't think he saved himself as much as Ortiz let him off the hook by abandoning a steady body attack. I could see the fight being a little closer, but not so close as to prevent the knock-downs from making the difference.
Hence another cliche: the oddly unexplainable 'Vegas decision.'
The judges saw a totally different fight. Robert Hoyle scored the fight a ridiculous 95-93 for Peterson. Patricia Morse-Jarman and Dave Moretti (aka 'the usual suspects')then turned in hardly more defensible scores of 94-94. I had Ortiz up by five points after three rounds. The math that we then require to accept Hoyle's score is this: Peterson won every other round after the first three. Peterson just didn't look that good to me. The drawn score requires that Peterson lose only one more round. I don't see how someone couldn't find at least three rounds for Peterson in the final seven.
That's Vegas.
In retrospect, the combination of cliches connected to Saturday night's fights made the two fight cards a microcosm of boxing in its entirety. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the foolish were all on display.
*I don't remember Alan Krebs' name from any previous fights, but this is sure some judge! Imagine someone getting the two big fights in front of him EXACTLY right twice. I thought I was the only one who did that!
**I don't want to put thoughts into the head of Steve Farhood. I don't know what the man was thinking at the time. I can only read his tone and body language. They didn't read like he was thinking happy thoughts. By contrast, he looked much more comfortable and happy with the other fighters.
***I think Ortiz is in the wrong sport. He hits hard, he's a fine wrestler, he doesn't like to get hit, and he has already had the experience of losing by submission. I think he's ready for The Ultimate Fighter.
The most immediate cliche to jump to the surface is that of redemption.
Coming into Tacoma on Saturday night, Joseph Agbeko was the number six bantamweight in the world on The Ring's list. His last fight was a decision loss to Yohnny Perez of Colombia, in which a determining factor was a controversial knockdown that may have been a head-butt. Referee Robert Byrd later admitted that he himself did not know whether Agbeko's trip to the canvas had been caused by a punch or a clash of heads. The judges weren't any more helpful. Everyone in boxing suggested the fight had been much closer than the score cards. Yet no one suggested that he won either.
In the second fight of Showtime's 'double main event', Agebeko proved he could box and showed he could do it very well down the stretch when it really mattered. He cut Peres with a punch in round 4 and Perez was pawing at it by round 7. Scoring the fight off tv, I had Agbeko shutting Perez out over the last five rounds. Perez kept repeatedly rubbing at the cut in every round and his punch out-put dropped. This time the judges gave the fight to Agbeko without reserve: Glenn Fellman by a score of 115-113, Glenn Hamada by a score of 116-112, and Alan Krebs 117-111. My final tally was 117-111 as well.
Agbeko grabbed his retribution when the chance came, regained his alphabet title, and advanced to the fial round of Showtime's tournament. It wouldn't be hard to make the argument that the manner of his victory over Perez makes him the favorite to win the tournament.
Agbeko put it more simply. "I've got my meal ticket back," he said to Steve Farhood.
Amir Khan's meal ticket appears fairly well assured as well. The photogenic young Englishman boxed well enough to dominate most of the minutes of his fight with Marcos Maidana. He also hit well enough to score a first round knockdown with a stiff body blow. It was the only offical knockdown of the fight (though referee Joe Cortez waved another apparent knockdown off as a slip in R9) despite questions about Khan's chin and Marcos Maidana's proven power. After dominating the first half of the fight and giving Maidana a really good thrashing in round 9, Khan was caught flush by a pair of really nasty right hands from Maidana in round 10. Khan refused to clinch and, despite a lot of effort put into his defense, mostly refused to run as well. He even waved Maidana in on two occasions, the second as the twelfth round wound down. Khan survived the tenth with skill, heart, and (lest someone else forget to mention it) CHIN. Though he was out on his feet on at least two occasions (once in the tenth and once in the eleventh), he did not go down and managed to make serious efforts to steal both the eleventh and twelfth rounds back from Maidana.
Amir Khan deliberately chose Maidana as an opponent to prove he could fight a hard fight, and win, against the hardest puncher in the division. I'd say he did just what he wanted. I'm not saying that he can't be knocked out or that he isn't vulnerable to a big uppercut, but he's proved he has enough talent and a good enough beard that 'a weak chin' is not to blame should he ever be stopped again.
The Las Vegas crowd managed to provide another boxing cliche: the inability of casual fans to believe that someone who almost knocked his opponent out could still deserve to lose or to understand that surviving such a puncher until one can fight back is an achievement and not a failure of character. Their booing of Khan was disappointing.
Another less than pleasant boxing cliche was provided by Vic Darchniyan after he was out-punched by undeated Abner Mares. Mares survived a head-butt induced cut in the first round, a flash knockdown in the second, and a borderline point-deduction for low blows in the 4th to keep the fight largely even through six rounds (a fact strangely unappreciated by the press row score cards shared with Shotwime) and then to out-slug Darhninyan for an arguably two-point round 7. Darchinyan made a tough stand in round 10, blunting Mares' offensive and arguably stealing the round. Mares was simply unwilling to stop looking for the knockout. In round eleven, Darchinyan was hurt several times and was forced to lean heavily on Mares in the clinches to stay on his feet. He was simply too tired and hurt to fend off a wild, sloppy offensive explosion from Mares and score the stoppage necessary to win. The judges didn't all see the same fight, with Glenn Hamada scoring the fight 115-111 for Darchinyan (a difficult position to defend), Alan Krebs 115-112 for Mares, and Tom McDonough 115-111 for Mares. My final score was also 115-112 for Mares.*
The victory means that Mares will face Agbeko in the tourney final. I really liked his guts and aggression in his win over Darchinyan and he really has fast hands and a little bit of a punch. Yet he clearly had momentarily trouble when Darchniyan boxed well, and Darchniyan's power shots allowed him to hold his own. Agbeko is bigger and stronger than Darchinyan and hits harder than Darchinyan at bantamweight. He's also better than Darchniyan, whose style is so unorthodox that it becomes a weakness and whose basic boxing fundamentals show as lacking even when he boxes well.
I have to favor Agbeko in the final. If Mares is as aggressive as he was against Darchniyan and Agbeko is as good as he was against Perez then I think Agbeko wins by late knockout. He is physically much bigger and stronger than Darchniyan and will be able to out-bully Mares if necessary. Mares will have to box smarter to find a way to beat Agbeko. I like this fight a lot and am eager to see it.
Darchniyan, however, blamed the judges for not seeing it his way and blamed the referee for warning him against grinding his glove into Mares' cut. His display of self-pity was very disappointing. He cut Steve Farhood's questions about his next fight off in order to say, "Let me finish," and go back to reciting the injustices of his defeat until Farhood appeared to decide, with some possible distaste**, that Darchinyan would simply not answer questions and dismissed him.
Which leaves only Victor Ortiz vs. Lamont Peterson. The deprived, homeless childhoods of both fighters lent drama outside the ring. The clash of styles promised an entertaining fight. The fact that both men could not afford to lose lent a sense of urgency to the battle.
Unfortunately, it didn't even offer any such sense of urgency to Ortiz and Peterson. Both men spent the first two rounds feeling each other out, which Ortiz's greater activity and greater pop barely giving him the lead. In the third we were given the promise of excitement when Ortiz dropped Peterson with a combination, initiated something of a brawl in which he then employed a dead-weight take-down*** to put Peterson on the canvas a second time, and then scored a second legal knockdown soon thereafter. The fight promised either an exciting resolution or a dramatic performance by Peterson in the rounds to come.
Peterson did provide a bit of early drama when he punched himself out trouble well enough to avoid a knock-out and stay in the fourth round, then boxed well enough to steal it. He slowed the fifth round down, keeping things inactive enough that he could make an argument for the otherwise close round with a few good hooks. When Ortiz tried to force the action in the sixth, Peterson kept the round very close. Yet it wasn't terribly exciting to watch. Ortiz fought well enough down the stretch to steal an otherwise uneventful round 7. Round eight was close and relatively slow again, but Ortiz made another major press to win the fight in the eight. He tagged Peterson a few times and forced another fight, and Peterson again punched out of trouble well enough to manage to steal the round. In the ninth they both boxed well enough to make the round slower again, but Ortiz landed the heavier shots down the stretch. In the tenth, Ortiz fought a smart, effectively aggressive round and appeared to finish strong.
I had the fight 97-92 in Ortiz's favor, because I thought the knock-downs gave him a big edge in an otherwise close fight. I was impressed by some of the things Peterson did to stay in the fight, but I don't think he saved himself as much as Ortiz let him off the hook by abandoning a steady body attack. I could see the fight being a little closer, but not so close as to prevent the knock-downs from making the difference.
Hence another cliche: the oddly unexplainable 'Vegas decision.'
The judges saw a totally different fight. Robert Hoyle scored the fight a ridiculous 95-93 for Peterson. Patricia Morse-Jarman and Dave Moretti (aka 'the usual suspects')then turned in hardly more defensible scores of 94-94. I had Ortiz up by five points after three rounds. The math that we then require to accept Hoyle's score is this: Peterson won every other round after the first three. Peterson just didn't look that good to me. The drawn score requires that Peterson lose only one more round. I don't see how someone couldn't find at least three rounds for Peterson in the final seven.
That's Vegas.
In retrospect, the combination of cliches connected to Saturday night's fights made the two fight cards a microcosm of boxing in its entirety. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the foolish were all on display.
*I don't remember Alan Krebs' name from any previous fights, but this is sure some judge! Imagine someone getting the two big fights in front of him EXACTLY right twice. I thought I was the only one who did that!
**I don't want to put thoughts into the head of Steve Farhood. I don't know what the man was thinking at the time. I can only read his tone and body language. They didn't read like he was thinking happy thoughts. By contrast, he looked much more comfortable and happy with the other fighters.
***I think Ortiz is in the wrong sport. He hits hard, he's a fine wrestler, he doesn't like to get hit, and he has already had the experience of losing by submission. I think he's ready for The Ultimate Fighter.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
'History in the Making...'
Some phrases have become so prone to misuse that they almost don't mean anything anymore.
'History in the making right here in the Acer Arena!' was the hyperbolic declaration of dismay made by the Australian broadcast team in the wake of Garth Wood's 5th round knockout of top ten middleweight contender Anthony Mundine. The problem is that there was nothing really special about the fight but the ending. Australians use English differently than we Americans. Maybe the broadcasters just meant Mundine was history. I hope so but I doubt it. Since becoming perhaps the only person to be laid out by a single punch from former 168 lb alphabet titlist Sven Ottke, Mundine's only fight outside the friendly environs of Australia has been a brave journey to that hostile and faraway land of New Zealand.
While Mundine did take the risk of fighting a New Zealander in his own country, however, it was a very calculated risk. Sean Sullivan was 35 years old and had a record of 50-13, including a loss to Shannan Taylor at welterweight.
Wood, on the other hand, had already defeated once-hot Victor Oganov in the semi-final round of the Australian incarnation of The Contender at 168 lbs. Despite having faced the arguably more talented Oganov, Mundine was the most accomplished fighter the 32 year old late bloomer had ever faced.
The fight started according to the Mundine camp's script. For two rounds Wood showed wild shots and sloppy technique while Mundine boxed, moved, and clinched. Mundine even appeared to score a knockdown in a savage flurry after the bell ended the second round. It was wisely waved off.
Unfortunately for Mundine, Wood was already beginning to figure out the formula to beat the veteran's clinches in the third round: use his size advantage and the loose ropes to make Mundine wrestle while hammering the veteran in the back of the head with rabbit punches. Mundine's answer? Respond in kind and butt heads. The latter tactic badly sliced open Wood's eye by the end of the third round. Despite the third round having taken on the character of a sloppy brawl, it still looked good for Mundine. He had arguably won all three of the rounds fought so far and his opponent was badly cut.
Wood kept it a brawl, though he also showed flashes of good boxing instincts in the manner he used his hands to confuse Mundine on the outside and the way he tried to move his upper body on the way inside. The fourth went steadily worse for Mundine from the opening bell and Wood had several good moments. By the end of the round he was beating the veteran up.
He kept brawling, kept fouling, and kept fighting in the fifth round. It paid off, largely thanks to Mundine's willingness to let Wood dictate the kind of fight it would be. Wood landed several good shots, cluminating in a left hook that put Mundine down for the count.
If Mundine has sense then he will retire. I expect him to go on another 13 or 14 fight win streak against a crew of no-hopers until someone with less talent than Wood gets as lucky. After that I am sure he will take the task of trial-horse on rather than retire.
Wood now has a big platform in Australia on which to build. He's a big, strong guy who has fought at super-middle but came down to middleweight to fight Mundine. He tries to move his upper body and he tries to use his gloves to confuse his opponent as he works his way inside but that is probably the extent of his boxing ability. He threw very wide shots early in the fight but was able to tighten them up when it counted. Still, someone better than Mundine would have knocked him out early given the same opportunities to counterpunch.
Even if he isn't really that good, I hope Wood makes it to America. I loved watching this fight on YouTube and Wood is the kind of fighter Americans would buy HBO to see if he can be moved properly. He can fight, he is rough and tough, and he bleeds. Even if wouldn't make the middleweights boxing's glamour division again, he could certainly help make it a lot more fun.
Though his nickname, 'From the Hood', would probably get a lot of laughs in Detroit, Miami, LA, and Brooklyn.
Still, comedy sells.
'History in the making right here in the Acer Arena!' was the hyperbolic declaration of dismay made by the Australian broadcast team in the wake of Garth Wood's 5th round knockout of top ten middleweight contender Anthony Mundine. The problem is that there was nothing really special about the fight but the ending. Australians use English differently than we Americans. Maybe the broadcasters just meant Mundine was history. I hope so but I doubt it. Since becoming perhaps the only person to be laid out by a single punch from former 168 lb alphabet titlist Sven Ottke, Mundine's only fight outside the friendly environs of Australia has been a brave journey to that hostile and faraway land of New Zealand.
While Mundine did take the risk of fighting a New Zealander in his own country, however, it was a very calculated risk. Sean Sullivan was 35 years old and had a record of 50-13, including a loss to Shannan Taylor at welterweight.
Wood, on the other hand, had already defeated once-hot Victor Oganov in the semi-final round of the Australian incarnation of The Contender at 168 lbs. Despite having faced the arguably more talented Oganov, Mundine was the most accomplished fighter the 32 year old late bloomer had ever faced.
The fight started according to the Mundine camp's script. For two rounds Wood showed wild shots and sloppy technique while Mundine boxed, moved, and clinched. Mundine even appeared to score a knockdown in a savage flurry after the bell ended the second round. It was wisely waved off.
Unfortunately for Mundine, Wood was already beginning to figure out the formula to beat the veteran's clinches in the third round: use his size advantage and the loose ropes to make Mundine wrestle while hammering the veteran in the back of the head with rabbit punches. Mundine's answer? Respond in kind and butt heads. The latter tactic badly sliced open Wood's eye by the end of the third round. Despite the third round having taken on the character of a sloppy brawl, it still looked good for Mundine. He had arguably won all three of the rounds fought so far and his opponent was badly cut.
Wood kept it a brawl, though he also showed flashes of good boxing instincts in the manner he used his hands to confuse Mundine on the outside and the way he tried to move his upper body on the way inside. The fourth went steadily worse for Mundine from the opening bell and Wood had several good moments. By the end of the round he was beating the veteran up.
He kept brawling, kept fouling, and kept fighting in the fifth round. It paid off, largely thanks to Mundine's willingness to let Wood dictate the kind of fight it would be. Wood landed several good shots, cluminating in a left hook that put Mundine down for the count.
If Mundine has sense then he will retire. I expect him to go on another 13 or 14 fight win streak against a crew of no-hopers until someone with less talent than Wood gets as lucky. After that I am sure he will take the task of trial-horse on rather than retire.
Wood now has a big platform in Australia on which to build. He's a big, strong guy who has fought at super-middle but came down to middleweight to fight Mundine. He tries to move his upper body and he tries to use his gloves to confuse his opponent as he works his way inside but that is probably the extent of his boxing ability. He threw very wide shots early in the fight but was able to tighten them up when it counted. Still, someone better than Mundine would have knocked him out early given the same opportunities to counterpunch.
Even if he isn't really that good, I hope Wood makes it to America. I loved watching this fight on YouTube and Wood is the kind of fighter Americans would buy HBO to see if he can be moved properly. He can fight, he is rough and tough, and he bleeds. Even if wouldn't make the middleweights boxing's glamour division again, he could certainly help make it a lot more fun.
Though his nickname, 'From the Hood', would probably get a lot of laughs in Detroit, Miami, LA, and Brooklyn.
Still, comedy sells.
An Update
If anyone is actually reading this, I am still back. I hope to begin a regular weekly posting schedule again soon. There's plenty of boxing on tv on Saturday and I'll be watching something no matter what.
I have HBO again, which means I am hardly starved for choices. Part of me leans toward the Showtime bantam tourney because I believe those fights to be more significant than HBO's match-up of various prospects in search of a big money fight for Amir Khan and/or Victor Ortiz. I also tend to think that everyone will be writing about Khan-Maidana and Ortiz-Peterson over the bantam fights. I hate to follow the pack.
As a fight fan, though, I really want to see Khan and Ortiz. Khan's fight is the more interesting of the two, but both are in good solid matches.
So what I will do is watch Showtime, DVR HBO, and score all four fights. If all goes well, the Sunday lead will pick itself.
I didn't write about Froch-Abraham or Bika-Ward before or after the fact, so I will say a few words on both now.
I picked Abraham to beat Froch by decision. I didn't see a point in making a Bika-Ward pick, but quietly wondered if Bika could pull an upset.
Froch surprised the hell out of me. I didn't think he would be able to box like that. My idea was that he would come ahead and the only things preventing a knockout would be his chin and Abraham's low punch rate. I didn't properly score the fight, but I thought Froch shut Abraham out. I've always thought Abraham was a good fighter who would have given Kelly Pavlik a really hard time and probably beat him when both were fighting at middleweight. Now I'm not sure whether he is unable or unwilling to counterpunch. I think the only way to know for sure is if he goes back down to middleweight. I won't even be upset if he becomes the next fighter to pull out of the Super Six.
Ward showed he could hang with a tough, nasty fighter in a cleaver and blackjack fight. He may have shown that he is a tough and nasty fighter himself. On top of that, we know he's fast and technically sound. Bika gave him all he could handle and the judges' cards were off but no one disputes that Ward won convincingly in a very different kind of fight.
Which is another reason for Abraham to drop out of the Super Six. Dirrell is good but isn't a fighter. Froch is a fighter but just how good he really is might still be up for argument.
Ward is better than Dirrell and might be as much of a fighter as Froch.
Why should Abraham stay in the tournament?
Anyone?
I have HBO again, which means I am hardly starved for choices. Part of me leans toward the Showtime bantam tourney because I believe those fights to be more significant than HBO's match-up of various prospects in search of a big money fight for Amir Khan and/or Victor Ortiz. I also tend to think that everyone will be writing about Khan-Maidana and Ortiz-Peterson over the bantam fights. I hate to follow the pack.
As a fight fan, though, I really want to see Khan and Ortiz. Khan's fight is the more interesting of the two, but both are in good solid matches.
So what I will do is watch Showtime, DVR HBO, and score all four fights. If all goes well, the Sunday lead will pick itself.
I didn't write about Froch-Abraham or Bika-Ward before or after the fact, so I will say a few words on both now.
I picked Abraham to beat Froch by decision. I didn't see a point in making a Bika-Ward pick, but quietly wondered if Bika could pull an upset.
Froch surprised the hell out of me. I didn't think he would be able to box like that. My idea was that he would come ahead and the only things preventing a knockout would be his chin and Abraham's low punch rate. I didn't properly score the fight, but I thought Froch shut Abraham out. I've always thought Abraham was a good fighter who would have given Kelly Pavlik a really hard time and probably beat him when both were fighting at middleweight. Now I'm not sure whether he is unable or unwilling to counterpunch. I think the only way to know for sure is if he goes back down to middleweight. I won't even be upset if he becomes the next fighter to pull out of the Super Six.
Ward showed he could hang with a tough, nasty fighter in a cleaver and blackjack fight. He may have shown that he is a tough and nasty fighter himself. On top of that, we know he's fast and technically sound. Bika gave him all he could handle and the judges' cards were off but no one disputes that Ward won convincingly in a very different kind of fight.
Which is another reason for Abraham to drop out of the Super Six. Dirrell is good but isn't a fighter. Froch is a fighter but just how good he really is might still be up for argument.
Ward is better than Dirrell and might be as much of a fighter as Froch.
Why should Abraham stay in the tournament?
Anyone?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What to do now?
I got my office copy of the January 2011 issue of The Ring today.
Seeing my name in print was even more exciting/surreal than seeing my name in the table of contents on a website. Reading my article was a kick. The trouble is that my brush with print has me wanting more. It also has me wondering if I can juggle a serious effort at freelance writing and a day-job that is more than just a little time intensive. I certainly can't make a living writing, not anytime in the near future.
If it were just the writing, then I wouldn't be worried. Writing is the easy part. I've never had a problem with writing. I beat my deadline easily once I had everything I needed to sit down and hammer the keyboard.
The hard part was getting to the people I needed to talk to and making sure I had the framework on which to build. I never did receive an email reply or a call-back from the fighter's promotional outfit. I was fortunate that the Nevada State Athletic Commission forwarded an email I sent them to Jimmy Alex. I was even more fortunate that Jimmy called me back. Even after speaking to Jimmy and getting point of contact info for the promoters, I was still never able to get a quote.
I did speak to Alex, to co-manager Ralph Heredia, and to Sharif Bogere. They were great. If Jimmy had not been so easy to talk to and happy to talk to me then everything would have died a slow death then and there.
Of course, due to my inexperience, I ended up not speaking to Kenny Adams before sitting down to write. This was partly due to my own insecurity. I was nobody and, being nobody, I was concerned about wasting his time. I have since been given to understand he was not terribly happy to be left out. Since Kenny Adams is not the boxing personage I would most like upset with me, I admit to feeling pretty stupid. Lesson learned: always ask to talk to the trainer. Hopefully, if I ever have to talk to Adams about one of his fighters in the future, he won't remember me. I don't want Kenny Adams to beat me up.
Whether I've been writing about boxing or about politics, I've always fallen back on the line 'I'm not a journalist.' While I'm obviously not a career journalist, I don't know if I can still fall back on that safe haven.
I don't know what happens next, but something has to happen next. Otherwise, why did I do it in the first place?
Seeing my name in print was even more exciting/surreal than seeing my name in the table of contents on a website. Reading my article was a kick. The trouble is that my brush with print has me wanting more. It also has me wondering if I can juggle a serious effort at freelance writing and a day-job that is more than just a little time intensive. I certainly can't make a living writing, not anytime in the near future.
If it were just the writing, then I wouldn't be worried. Writing is the easy part. I've never had a problem with writing. I beat my deadline easily once I had everything I needed to sit down and hammer the keyboard.
The hard part was getting to the people I needed to talk to and making sure I had the framework on which to build. I never did receive an email reply or a call-back from the fighter's promotional outfit. I was fortunate that the Nevada State Athletic Commission forwarded an email I sent them to Jimmy Alex. I was even more fortunate that Jimmy called me back. Even after speaking to Jimmy and getting point of contact info for the promoters, I was still never able to get a quote.
I did speak to Alex, to co-manager Ralph Heredia, and to Sharif Bogere. They were great. If Jimmy had not been so easy to talk to and happy to talk to me then everything would have died a slow death then and there.
Of course, due to my inexperience, I ended up not speaking to Kenny Adams before sitting down to write. This was partly due to my own insecurity. I was nobody and, being nobody, I was concerned about wasting his time. I have since been given to understand he was not terribly happy to be left out. Since Kenny Adams is not the boxing personage I would most like upset with me, I admit to feeling pretty stupid. Lesson learned: always ask to talk to the trainer. Hopefully, if I ever have to talk to Adams about one of his fighters in the future, he won't remember me. I don't want Kenny Adams to beat me up.
Whether I've been writing about boxing or about politics, I've always fallen back on the line 'I'm not a journalist.' While I'm obviously not a career journalist, I don't know if I can still fall back on that safe haven.
I don't know what happens next, but something has to happen next. Otherwise, why did I do it in the first place?
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Confessions of a Bad Fan
This is sacrilege in many circles. I am sure some of my fellow hardcore boxing fans will tell me that I am helping to kill boxing.
I've never watched a pay-per-view fight live. Ever.
It isn't just that I haven't shelled the money out personally to watch it by myself. I've also never chipped in with friends to buy a pay-per-view at five or ten or twenty dollars each either. Nor have I gone to a sports-bar and paid a cover to watch a live pay-per-view. I've ever even watched a pay-per-view fight someone else paid for, as a freeloader.
Today, after I had finished catching up with Ring Theory for the day, my wife called me from work and said that I could order the Pacquiao-Margarito PPV if I wanted.
I said no without even thinking about it and then I tried to talk myself into watching it because I was worried that I had hurt my wife's feelings. My wife, whether her feelings were hurt or not, agreed with me that it was probably better not to spend the money and to watch it a week later*.
I made some statements about why I didn't think this particular fight wouldn't be worth the PPV buy and I do stand by them**. They aren't the real reason I didn't want to shell out the dough. It isn't even because I am cheap, because I'm not. I would probably pay even more to see the fight live, were it an option, despite my objections to buying it on tv.
The real reason I didn't immediately make my wife happy by accepting her very thoughtful and caring gift was because I've never thought there was a PPV worth buying.
Writers complain about PPV undercards all the time. Writers also complain about how small ticket PPVs keep developing fighters off the radar of all but the most hardcore fans. I agree with those complaints, but I have a bigger complaint.
I don't care how good the fight is, how exciting the match-up, or how famous the A-side star may happen to be. I don't see the value for the dollar. I consider myself a hardcore fan. I've watched fights on ESPN, Fox Sports, Versus, and You-Tube I know many others haven't. I've watched fights on Spanish language broadcasts where I could not understand the commentators because I've been gone from California for too long to remember any Spanish. I'd certainly shell out more than the cost of a PPV for tickets to a live fight.
I think PPV broadcasts are one of the things most responsible for killing the sport in the US.
Think about it.
The World Series, the Superbowl, and the NBA Championship are much bigger events than any single boxing match. They are more lucrative and (to any but we hardcore boxing fans) they are more significant. The NHL pulls in a lot more money than boxing and hockey is not the sport foremost on every American's mind. I would be willing to bet that Major League Soccer and the WNBA pull in more money than boxing in the US as well; they certainly get more attention from the American sporting press.
I'm sure there are hardcore football fans who would shell out the money to watch the Superbowl on PPV. I'm sure there are enough to make a lot of money for the teams involved and their ownership; possibly*** more money than they get in their share of the Superbowl tv revenues under the existing system used by the NFL. So why isn't the Superbowl a closed-circuit event?
The NFL is neither as stupid, as greedy, nor as contemptuous of the people who buy their tickets as boxing promoters. If the NFL limited the viewership of the Superbowl to those hard-core fans willing to shell out $50-$100 for the privilege of watching it, the Superbowl might bring in a lot more money for two teams but the sport as a whole would lose a lot of money. This is happening in boxing. It's why so many professional fighters have day jobs.
In the early days of radio, major league baseball struggled with the idea of giving the product they sold away for free to people who had not purchased tickets. Owners and executives like Bill Veeck and Larry MacPhail realized that stadiums couldn't hold the number of people who could get access to the sport over the airwaves. Radio broadcasts were even better than free advertising: someone would pay them to advertise their product. Radio and television didn't stop fans from wanting to buy tickets. They created new fans who bought more tickets, whole families of fans who bought tickets in blocks instead of single men who bought one ticket here and one there.
There are reasons boxing isn't all over the radio or network tv now, sure. Some of them have nothing to do with PPV fights. Hell, most of them have nothing to do with PPV fights. A lot of the penny ante PPV cards killing the exposure of young prospects are because these cards are the only way to make some tv money. I won't deny that.
The big ticket PPV, however, is not a reaction to the marginalization of boxing in the media. The big ticket PPV came about at a time when lots of people would have watched the same fighters on HBO, on Showtime, on basic cable channels, or on network tv. Enough people would have watched those shows that there was a market for selling them instead. Boxing, which is a working class sport, became too expensive for the casual, working class fan.
How did anyone expect that to turn out?
I'm not trying to minimize extra weight classes, corrupt syndicates (either promotional syndicates or the alphabet gangs that claim to 'govern' the sport), or the lack of American talent. These all play a role in the marginalization of boxing too. There are lots of problems with boxing. There are lots of great things about boxing too, that's why I love it. It's why I watch it all I can, read about it all I can, and write about it for free whenever I'm able to watch it.
It's just that none of the great things about boxing justify the price of a PPV ticket to me. I can't be the only fan who feels that way. It's part of why 900,000 PPV buys (roughly equal to the devoted viewership of public access cable across the country) is a successful PPV event.
Who knew Bob Arum and Oscar de la Hoya were so stupid?
*This is actually a very funny joke: it was only as I wrote this blog entry that I realized it is an HBO PPV and I only have Showtime right now. So I won't be able to watch it next week anyway.
**I don't think it is going to be a particularly exciting fight. I think Pacquiao will prove to be good for the fight to be competitive or Margarito will prove too big and strong for the fight to be competitive. I don't mean to say the fight will not be entertaining. Just that I don't think it will be PPV-buy exciting.
***I only say 'possibly' because I know there is a lot of advertising money invested in the Superbowl, so both teams could theoretically make a lot of money with their share. I just can't bring myself to think it is still more money after it is split 32 ways and the league takes its cut off the top.
I've never watched a pay-per-view fight live. Ever.
It isn't just that I haven't shelled the money out personally to watch it by myself. I've also never chipped in with friends to buy a pay-per-view at five or ten or twenty dollars each either. Nor have I gone to a sports-bar and paid a cover to watch a live pay-per-view. I've ever even watched a pay-per-view fight someone else paid for, as a freeloader.
Today, after I had finished catching up with Ring Theory for the day, my wife called me from work and said that I could order the Pacquiao-Margarito PPV if I wanted.
I said no without even thinking about it and then I tried to talk myself into watching it because I was worried that I had hurt my wife's feelings. My wife, whether her feelings were hurt or not, agreed with me that it was probably better not to spend the money and to watch it a week later*.
I made some statements about why I didn't think this particular fight wouldn't be worth the PPV buy and I do stand by them**. They aren't the real reason I didn't want to shell out the dough. It isn't even because I am cheap, because I'm not. I would probably pay even more to see the fight live, were it an option, despite my objections to buying it on tv.
The real reason I didn't immediately make my wife happy by accepting her very thoughtful and caring gift was because I've never thought there was a PPV worth buying.
Writers complain about PPV undercards all the time. Writers also complain about how small ticket PPVs keep developing fighters off the radar of all but the most hardcore fans. I agree with those complaints, but I have a bigger complaint.
I don't care how good the fight is, how exciting the match-up, or how famous the A-side star may happen to be. I don't see the value for the dollar. I consider myself a hardcore fan. I've watched fights on ESPN, Fox Sports, Versus, and You-Tube I know many others haven't. I've watched fights on Spanish language broadcasts where I could not understand the commentators because I've been gone from California for too long to remember any Spanish. I'd certainly shell out more than the cost of a PPV for tickets to a live fight.
I think PPV broadcasts are one of the things most responsible for killing the sport in the US.
Think about it.
The World Series, the Superbowl, and the NBA Championship are much bigger events than any single boxing match. They are more lucrative and (to any but we hardcore boxing fans) they are more significant. The NHL pulls in a lot more money than boxing and hockey is not the sport foremost on every American's mind. I would be willing to bet that Major League Soccer and the WNBA pull in more money than boxing in the US as well; they certainly get more attention from the American sporting press.
I'm sure there are hardcore football fans who would shell out the money to watch the Superbowl on PPV. I'm sure there are enough to make a lot of money for the teams involved and their ownership; possibly*** more money than they get in their share of the Superbowl tv revenues under the existing system used by the NFL. So why isn't the Superbowl a closed-circuit event?
The NFL is neither as stupid, as greedy, nor as contemptuous of the people who buy their tickets as boxing promoters. If the NFL limited the viewership of the Superbowl to those hard-core fans willing to shell out $50-$100 for the privilege of watching it, the Superbowl might bring in a lot more money for two teams but the sport as a whole would lose a lot of money. This is happening in boxing. It's why so many professional fighters have day jobs.
In the early days of radio, major league baseball struggled with the idea of giving the product they sold away for free to people who had not purchased tickets. Owners and executives like Bill Veeck and Larry MacPhail realized that stadiums couldn't hold the number of people who could get access to the sport over the airwaves. Radio broadcasts were even better than free advertising: someone would pay them to advertise their product. Radio and television didn't stop fans from wanting to buy tickets. They created new fans who bought more tickets, whole families of fans who bought tickets in blocks instead of single men who bought one ticket here and one there.
There are reasons boxing isn't all over the radio or network tv now, sure. Some of them have nothing to do with PPV fights. Hell, most of them have nothing to do with PPV fights. A lot of the penny ante PPV cards killing the exposure of young prospects are because these cards are the only way to make some tv money. I won't deny that.
The big ticket PPV, however, is not a reaction to the marginalization of boxing in the media. The big ticket PPV came about at a time when lots of people would have watched the same fighters on HBO, on Showtime, on basic cable channels, or on network tv. Enough people would have watched those shows that there was a market for selling them instead. Boxing, which is a working class sport, became too expensive for the casual, working class fan.
How did anyone expect that to turn out?
I'm not trying to minimize extra weight classes, corrupt syndicates (either promotional syndicates or the alphabet gangs that claim to 'govern' the sport), or the lack of American talent. These all play a role in the marginalization of boxing too. There are lots of problems with boxing. There are lots of great things about boxing too, that's why I love it. It's why I watch it all I can, read about it all I can, and write about it for free whenever I'm able to watch it.
It's just that none of the great things about boxing justify the price of a PPV ticket to me. I can't be the only fan who feels that way. It's part of why 900,000 PPV buys (roughly equal to the devoted viewership of public access cable across the country) is a successful PPV event.
Who knew Bob Arum and Oscar de la Hoya were so stupid?
*This is actually a very funny joke: it was only as I wrote this blog entry that I realized it is an HBO PPV and I only have Showtime right now. So I won't be able to watch it next week anyway.
**I don't think it is going to be a particularly exciting fight. I think Pacquiao will prove to be good for the fight to be competitive or Margarito will prove too big and strong for the fight to be competitive. I don't mean to say the fight will not be entertaining. Just that I don't think it will be PPV-buy exciting.
***I only say 'possibly' because I know there is a lot of advertising money invested in the Superbowl, so both teams could theoretically make a lot of money with their share. I just can't bring myself to think it is still more money after it is split 32 ways and the league takes its cut off the top.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Marquez-Lopez: Saving Face?
There are three kinds of injuries in professional boxing.
Every now and then (Sharmba Mitchell's sprained knee after Kostya Tzsyu threw him to the canvas in their first fight or Vitali Klischko's strained shoulder in his fight with Chris Byrd, a fight he was winning on the cards, come to mind) there is the genuine injury.
There is the frustration injury. A guy can't do a lot against the guy he's fighting and, even though he's not getting terribly hurt, he either takes advantage of a real but minor cut or claims a more severe injury and calls it in. We all might remember Robert Guerrero** getting criticized for this some time back. The classic example is Sonny Liston's wrenched shoulder in Liston-Clay I.
Finally, there is the 'getting one's ass kicked injury.' A guy is getting beat up, he's going to go down for the count eventually or really get hurt if he keeps fighting, but he can't just quit. He has to save face. He's going to lose by knockout, ultimately, anyway; so he claims an injury to get it over with.
It's hard not to suspect that Rafael Marquez's shoulder injury in Satuday's fight with Juan Manuel Lopez falls into this category. The only real opportunity Marquez had to injure his right arm (assuming it did not happen in training, prior to the fight, which is possible) was when he pointed to the back of his head trying to convince Tony Weeks that Lopez was hitting him in the back of the head. While this was a good strategy (Weeks deducted a point from JuanMa for rabbit punching in the only round Marquez won*) I don't think it was strenuous enough to cause the injury in question.
Marquez was competitive, just not competitive enough, in every round before cashing in. He did well with his left hook, but ate a lot of right hooks from JuanMa. The fight was getting near the point where a lot of corners would be considering stopping the fight because of the punishment their man was taking.
I don't like saying this. I think a prime Rafael Marquez would have beaten Lopez. He was just there to be hit too much for his own health. As it was, however, Marquez could not pull the trigger consistently enough to get it done.
This was a great fight with only two disappointments. The first, obviously, was Marquez's 'injury.' It would have been nice to see a dramatic finish instead of an anticlimax. Still, if it prevents Marquez from living in a wheelchair past 40, I'm willing to deal.
Less tolerable was Tony Weeks' refereeing of the fight. Weeks was just a little too eager to be involved and just a little too inconsistent after deciding he was going to be a visible ref. He broke the fighters on quite a few occasions when it was not necessary, but did not break the fighters on one or two occasions where it looked like it might actually be called for. He warned Lopez for rabbit punching that appeared to be as much the result of the angle at which Marquez chose to attack (it appeared that shots targeting the chin, temple, and ear hit the back of Marquez's head when he came in fast and low), even taking a point, but chose to ignore Marquez's habit of punching on the break. If you're going to break the fighters unnecessarily, try to make sure neither one of them punch each other while you're doing it.
*I did not actually score this fight. It's the first fight I've watched since getting Showtime back in October and I wanted to just enjoy and not be distracted by scoring. I'll give my usual more detailed breakdown the next time around. I'll be willing to watch with a notebook then.
**This originally read Robert Garcia, which is not just a mistake but a pretty dumb one.
Every now and then (Sharmba Mitchell's sprained knee after Kostya Tzsyu threw him to the canvas in their first fight or Vitali Klischko's strained shoulder in his fight with Chris Byrd, a fight he was winning on the cards, come to mind) there is the genuine injury.
There is the frustration injury. A guy can't do a lot against the guy he's fighting and, even though he's not getting terribly hurt, he either takes advantage of a real but minor cut or claims a more severe injury and calls it in. We all might remember Robert Guerrero** getting criticized for this some time back. The classic example is Sonny Liston's wrenched shoulder in Liston-Clay I.
Finally, there is the 'getting one's ass kicked injury.' A guy is getting beat up, he's going to go down for the count eventually or really get hurt if he keeps fighting, but he can't just quit. He has to save face. He's going to lose by knockout, ultimately, anyway; so he claims an injury to get it over with.
It's hard not to suspect that Rafael Marquez's shoulder injury in Satuday's fight with Juan Manuel Lopez falls into this category. The only real opportunity Marquez had to injure his right arm (assuming it did not happen in training, prior to the fight, which is possible) was when he pointed to the back of his head trying to convince Tony Weeks that Lopez was hitting him in the back of the head. While this was a good strategy (Weeks deducted a point from JuanMa for rabbit punching in the only round Marquez won*) I don't think it was strenuous enough to cause the injury in question.
Marquez was competitive, just not competitive enough, in every round before cashing in. He did well with his left hook, but ate a lot of right hooks from JuanMa. The fight was getting near the point where a lot of corners would be considering stopping the fight because of the punishment their man was taking.
I don't like saying this. I think a prime Rafael Marquez would have beaten Lopez. He was just there to be hit too much for his own health. As it was, however, Marquez could not pull the trigger consistently enough to get it done.
This was a great fight with only two disappointments. The first, obviously, was Marquez's 'injury.' It would have been nice to see a dramatic finish instead of an anticlimax. Still, if it prevents Marquez from living in a wheelchair past 40, I'm willing to deal.
Less tolerable was Tony Weeks' refereeing of the fight. Weeks was just a little too eager to be involved and just a little too inconsistent after deciding he was going to be a visible ref. He broke the fighters on quite a few occasions when it was not necessary, but did not break the fighters on one or two occasions where it looked like it might actually be called for. He warned Lopez for rabbit punching that appeared to be as much the result of the angle at which Marquez chose to attack (it appeared that shots targeting the chin, temple, and ear hit the back of Marquez's head when he came in fast and low), even taking a point, but chose to ignore Marquez's habit of punching on the break. If you're going to break the fighters unnecessarily, try to make sure neither one of them punch each other while you're doing it.
*I did not actually score this fight. It's the first fight I've watched since getting Showtime back in October and I wanted to just enjoy and not be distracted by scoring. I'll give my usual more detailed breakdown the next time around. I'll be willing to watch with a notebook then.
**This originally read Robert Garcia, which is not just a mistake but a pretty dumb one.
New Faces, Watch for it January
I haven't been active here, so I probably no readers left, but I have to do something to crow a bit.
My first freelance credit is appearing in the January issue of The Ring, which will see print on November 30. I can't post it on my blog because it's work-for-hire. So you'll have to buy the issue to read it.
Self-promotion has never been my big talent, but I have to say something.
My first freelance credit is appearing in the January issue of The Ring, which will see print on November 30. I can't post it on my blog because it's work-for-hire. So you'll have to buy the issue to read it.
Self-promotion has never been my big talent, but I have to say something.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Pound for Pound Listings
There has been recent discussion about the proper #3 man on the pound for pound list.
Since it's so hard anyway and since there's a lot of subjectivity in
any pick, I'm going to start by saying it's not Juan Manuel Marquez. I
think his rematch with Juan Diaz is potentially a lot harder than a lot
of people think. I do think Diaz may be on his way down with the losses
to Campbell and Marquez and the tough time with Michael Katsidis between
the two losses. I just JMM is older, smaller, and even more shopworn. I
don't think going up in weight to fight Floyd served him well and I
don't think he's going to be a top tier guy for more than a few more fights.
Take JMM off the list and you've really got a lot of parity. Either
Chad Dawson or Paul Williams (or both of them) may be the future of the
sport but Dawson has never impressed me as much as he impresses everyone
else and Williams came very close to losing his two biggest wins. His
'win' against Cintron wasn't the kind of fight to sway votes his way.
So one could argue that Shane Mosley is still #3 on the list and
demoting him was a mistake...
...but I won't and I don't think that argument is valid. I think
Mosley got old all at once in round 3 against Mayweather and that he's
got more losses in front of him if he keeps fighting.
I think Pongsaklek has the best claim to the #3 spot. He won a big
fight that pretty much punches his HoF ticket, against a younger man who
was seen as a star on the way up coming into the fight. Koki Kameda was
coming off his biggest win and I think that has to be taken into
account. Pongsaklek has had longevity that, for the lower weight
classes, is almost Hopkins-esque. I'd argue he's underranked and has a
good case for #3.
At least as good as anyone else on the list.
Since it's so hard anyway and since there's a lot of subjectivity in
any pick, I'm going to start by saying it's not Juan Manuel Marquez. I
think his rematch with Juan Diaz is potentially a lot harder than a lot
of people think. I do think Diaz may be on his way down with the losses
to Campbell and Marquez and the tough time with Michael Katsidis between
the two losses. I just JMM is older, smaller, and even more shopworn. I
don't think going up in weight to fight Floyd served him well and I
don't think he's going to be a top tier guy for more than a few more fights.
Take JMM off the list and you've really got a lot of parity. Either
Chad Dawson or Paul Williams (or both of them) may be the future of the
sport but Dawson has never impressed me as much as he impresses everyone
else and Williams came very close to losing his two biggest wins. His
'win' against Cintron wasn't the kind of fight to sway votes his way.
So one could argue that Shane Mosley is still #3 on the list and
demoting him was a mistake...
...but I won't and I don't think that argument is valid. I think
Mosley got old all at once in round 3 against Mayweather and that he's
got more losses in front of him if he keeps fighting.
I think Pongsaklek has the best claim to the #3 spot. He won a big
fight that pretty much punches his HoF ticket, against a younger man who
was seen as a star on the way up coming into the fight. Koki Kameda was
coming off his biggest win and I think that has to be taken into
account. Pongsaklek has had longevity that, for the lower weight
classes, is almost Hopkins-esque. I'd argue he's underranked and has a
good case for #3.
At least as good as anyone else on the list.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
'What Boxing Needs'
How many times have we, as fans, been promised 'the fight to save boxing?' How many times have self-appointed regulators whose real business is collecting protection money tinkered with new ideas that have only served to further marginalize the sport?
Dan Wetzel, of Yahoo! Sports, writes that Mayweather-Pacquiao as 'the blockbuster fight (or fights) boxing needs.'
Kevin Iole, also of Yahoo! Sports, is equally sure of that same fact.
Boxing doesn't 'need' Mayweather-Pacquiao anymore than it 'needs' a super-heavyweight division or 'needs' the Klitschko brothers to retire.*
What boxing needs is presence in the mainstream American sports media, including the sports pages and the evening news. This includes more and better fights on ESPN and Fox Sports. It includes a serious return to network television. It means that some of these guys headlining PPV cards no one is buying might be better served by exposure through the media I just mentioned. It needs fighters to be promoted in their hometowns to gather the kind of solid fanbase sought in other sports. It needs the strong presence of an organization of boxers with a strong say in (or outright control of) the future of their sport on the model of the AVP, ATP, or PGA. It needs a regulatory stucture and organizing body capable of serious professional standards and sanctions that cross international boundaries and making matches based on serious rankings rather than not-so-funny listings of bad jokes.
Boxing needs a licensing system for promoters and for real penalties to be handed down to the Don Kings of the business. Ideally, promoters and managers should have no part of the matchmaking process. That should be determined by as objective a ranking system as possible. Licensed promoters should bid to sell the fights made according to the rankings. Promoters should never be allowed to sign exclusive contracts with fighters or managers.
I can go on a lot longer and throw a bunch of other things boxing needs into the pot. If boxing could meet the proper combination of enough of these needs, then a fight like Mayweather-Pacquiao would be very nearly guaranteed of happening.
Without any of these needs being met there is no single fight or gimmick that will 'save boxing.' It will be a choice between a profitable-but-precarious existence as a niche sport and further marginalization.
There is no fight that boxing needs, except perhaps the fight to meet its needs.
Dan Wetzel, of Yahoo! Sports, writes that Mayweather-Pacquiao as 'the blockbuster fight (or fights) boxing needs.'
Kevin Iole, also of Yahoo! Sports, is equally sure of that same fact.
Boxing doesn't 'need' Mayweather-Pacquiao anymore than it 'needs' a super-heavyweight division or 'needs' the Klitschko brothers to retire.*
What boxing needs is presence in the mainstream American sports media, including the sports pages and the evening news. This includes more and better fights on ESPN and Fox Sports. It includes a serious return to network television. It means that some of these guys headlining PPV cards no one is buying might be better served by exposure through the media I just mentioned. It needs fighters to be promoted in their hometowns to gather the kind of solid fanbase sought in other sports. It needs the strong presence of an organization of boxers with a strong say in (or outright control of) the future of their sport on the model of the AVP, ATP, or PGA. It needs a regulatory stucture and organizing body capable of serious professional standards and sanctions that cross international boundaries and making matches based on serious rankings rather than not-so-funny listings of bad jokes.
Boxing needs a licensing system for promoters and for real penalties to be handed down to the Don Kings of the business. Ideally, promoters and managers should have no part of the matchmaking process. That should be determined by as objective a ranking system as possible. Licensed promoters should bid to sell the fights made according to the rankings. Promoters should never be allowed to sign exclusive contracts with fighters or managers.
I can go on a lot longer and throw a bunch of other things boxing needs into the pot. If boxing could meet the proper combination of enough of these needs, then a fight like Mayweather-Pacquiao would be very nearly guaranteed of happening.
Without any of these needs being met there is no single fight or gimmick that will 'save boxing.' It will be a choice between a profitable-but-precarious existence as a niche sport and further marginalization.
There is no fight that boxing needs, except perhaps the fight to meet its needs.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
'The Edge'
I've been intending for some time to write about the inherent problems with pound-for-pound comparisons among fighters. This was the topic I had planned after the resolution of Mayweather-Mosley. I'm going to be writing about pound-for-pound rankings after a fashion, but not about the system itself.
Instead I'm going to write about something everyone is writing about because the wall of noise on the subject makes it impossible for me to keep my own opinions to myself.
For the third outing in a row I'm going to be writing about Floyd Mayweather Jr. Specifically, I am suggesting a new nickname. 'Money' is really too silly and 'Pretty Boy' is just too derivative. A fighter's nickname should be descriptive of that fighter and speak viscerally to those who hear it.
Floyd Mayweather Jr's opponents have been older, smaller, a blatant cut below the cream of their divisions, or just plain ordinary for a long time now. Despite his popularity and accomplishments, Shane Mosley fits this pattern far better than we would all like to admit.
Mayweather doesn't fight without an edge. Even the match-up that no one could criticize, Mayweather's rout of Diego Corrales, was surrounded by maneuvering and harassment designed to give Mayweather that edge. The maneuvering around the Pacuqiao fight was designed to gain Floyd that same edge, not only against Pacquiao but against any future or substitute opponents and it's hard to say that it failed. I can't entirely join the chorus of praise for Mayweather's performance (it was brilliant, let's not deny that) because I don't see the differences between his comeback and his previous 'disappointing' fights that others do.
Kevin Iole (of Yahoo! sports) is, as usual, the biggest voice the Mayweather chorus:
I don't disagree substantively with Iole's description of the fight itself at all. I do disagree with the idea that victory in a fight everyone (with the exception of RingTV's Doug Fischer) called for Floyd somehow changes how Floyd stacks up in terms of either his legacy or his position vis a vis other fighters. It is worth noting that Floyd has still not fought a single truly world-class welterweight in their prime. Ever. He avoided the very best fighters at 140 lbs as well, failed to defend his lightweight title against a single genuine top contender, and skipped to lightweight without fighting the best fighters at 130.
The fact that Floyd fought Mosley is impressive in much the same way as his fight with Oscar De La Hoya:
We should all be very impressed by the fact that Floyd fought a man well past his prime when much more serious fights were available. The fact that his fight with Shane Mosley was his most serious fight at welterweight only serves to underscore how disappointing his career since fighting Diego Corrales has been.
Instead I'm going to write about something everyone is writing about because the wall of noise on the subject makes it impossible for me to keep my own opinions to myself.
For the third outing in a row I'm going to be writing about Floyd Mayweather Jr. Specifically, I am suggesting a new nickname. 'Money' is really too silly and 'Pretty Boy' is just too derivative. A fighter's nickname should be descriptive of that fighter and speak viscerally to those who hear it.
Floyd Mayweather Jr's opponents have been older, smaller, a blatant cut below the cream of their divisions, or just plain ordinary for a long time now. Despite his popularity and accomplishments, Shane Mosley fits this pattern far better than we would all like to admit.
Mayweather doesn't fight without an edge. Even the match-up that no one could criticize, Mayweather's rout of Diego Corrales, was surrounded by maneuvering and harassment designed to give Mayweather that edge. The maneuvering around the Pacuqiao fight was designed to gain Floyd that same edge, not only against Pacquiao but against any future or substitute opponents and it's hard to say that it failed. I can't entirely join the chorus of praise for Mayweather's performance (it was brilliant, let's not deny that) because I don't see the differences between his comeback and his previous 'disappointing' fights that others do.
Kevin Iole (of Yahoo! sports) is, as usual, the biggest voice the Mayweather chorus:
I have great respect for what Pacquiao has accomplished in the last three years and there is a very legitimate argument that he has accomplished more in the ring than Mayweather,” Iole said. “That said, the fight with Mosley proved conclusively to me why Mayweather is the best. He fought offensively and stalked a man many thought he would run from. Yet, even though Floyd fought offensively, Mosley could still barely touch him. Mosley only landed 42 power shots in the entire fight, but what is incredible to me is that 13 of those were in the second round. Other than the second, Mosley landed fewer than three power shots a round. That's a testament to Floyd's skill as a fighter.
I don't disagree substantively with Iole's description of the fight itself at all. I do disagree with the idea that victory in a fight everyone (with the exception of RingTV's Doug Fischer) called for Floyd somehow changes how Floyd stacks up in terms of either his legacy or his position vis a vis other fighters. It is worth noting that Floyd has still not fought a single truly world-class welterweight in their prime. Ever. He avoided the very best fighters at 140 lbs as well, failed to defend his lightweight title against a single genuine top contender, and skipped to lightweight without fighting the best fighters at 130.
The fact that Floyd fought Mosley is impressive in much the same way as his fight with Oscar De La Hoya:
We should all be very impressed by the fact that Floyd fought a man well past his prime when much more serious fights were available. The fact that his fight with Shane Mosley was his most serious fight at welterweight only serves to underscore how disappointing his career since fighting Diego Corrales has been.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
What does beating Mosley mean for Mayweather?
I think that the biggest thing we should all take away from Floyd Mayweather's win over Shane Mosley is this: Shane had a good game plan, early success with a big shot, and then rapidly got old over the course of the fight. I realize that Mayweather's fans are already singing his praises with more vehemence than ever. I realize that many writers who have been critical of Mayweather are giving him his props. I would certainly never argue that he did not deserve to win the huge decision he won.
I just think it's a mistake to see this as fundamentally different from Mayweather's previous fights. I don't believe that a 38 year old Mosley was necessarily enough more of a threat than a prime Corrales or a prime Jose Luis Castillo to really make us all change our minds about Floyd. I said some of this before the fight, and The Ring's Jim Bagge dedicated a whole column to Floyd's matchmaking skills.
Ultimately, Mosley failed to pull the trigger over the course of the fight. He threw fewer punches than Mayweather, something I'd have thought unthinkable before the fight: and I picked Mayweather to win. This is the statistic that means the most. Shane Mosley was not busy and active enough to make the fight close.
In my opinion, Floyd Mayweather is the same fighter he was before fighting Mosley and his decision to fight Mosley has to be seen in the same light as his decision to fight Juan Manuel Marquez.
Both men were substitutes for the big, meaningful fight with Manny Pacquiao. Both men appeared tremendous challenges on paper. Juan Manuel Marquez was the guy who arguably beat Pacquiao twice. Mosley was the first real welterweight Mayweather had taken on since Carlos Baldomir. Ultimately, these facts were distractions from the facts: Marquez was too small and slow and Mosley too far from his prime to pose serious danger to Floyd Mayweather Jr. The real analogy to Floyd's fights with both men might be Oscar De La Hoya's too fights with a slower, older, smaller Julio Cesar Chavez.
I do not believe that fact will be kept in the proper perspective. I think Floyd's critics will continue to backtrack, because of the boxing media's tremendous good feeling for Shane Mosley. No one could possibly have picked him as the easy opponent.
Unfortunately, side by side with Manny Pacquiao, that's precisely what he was.
I just think it's a mistake to see this as fundamentally different from Mayweather's previous fights. I don't believe that a 38 year old Mosley was necessarily enough more of a threat than a prime Corrales or a prime Jose Luis Castillo to really make us all change our minds about Floyd. I said some of this before the fight, and The Ring's Jim Bagge dedicated a whole column to Floyd's matchmaking skills.
Ultimately, Mosley failed to pull the trigger over the course of the fight. He threw fewer punches than Mayweather, something I'd have thought unthinkable before the fight: and I picked Mayweather to win. This is the statistic that means the most. Shane Mosley was not busy and active enough to make the fight close.
In my opinion, Floyd Mayweather is the same fighter he was before fighting Mosley and his decision to fight Mosley has to be seen in the same light as his decision to fight Juan Manuel Marquez.
Both men were substitutes for the big, meaningful fight with Manny Pacquiao. Both men appeared tremendous challenges on paper. Juan Manuel Marquez was the guy who arguably beat Pacquiao twice. Mosley was the first real welterweight Mayweather had taken on since Carlos Baldomir. Ultimately, these facts were distractions from the facts: Marquez was too small and slow and Mosley too far from his prime to pose serious danger to Floyd Mayweather Jr. The real analogy to Floyd's fights with both men might be Oscar De La Hoya's too fights with a slower, older, smaller Julio Cesar Chavez.
I do not believe that fact will be kept in the proper perspective. I think Floyd's critics will continue to backtrack, because of the boxing media's tremendous good feeling for Shane Mosley. No one could possibly have picked him as the easy opponent.
Unfortunately, side by side with Manny Pacquiao, that's precisely what he was.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Mosley-Mayweather: Thoughts and Predictions
This is awfully late for a fight that happens the day after tomorrow, but I was distracted by the relatively meaningless diversion of the heavyweight division for two days in a row.
So far I have seen two dominant narratives emerging around the Mayweather-Mosley fight. I don't feel either is entirely objective or accurate.
Narrative A is what I would call the majority view. Every boxing writer in Las Vegas for the fight thinks Mayweather is going to win and the odds in his favor are 4-1. Many people essentially believe Mosley has no chance, that his 38 years of age might as well be Bernard Hopkins' 45. I have seen fans write to the one unflinchingly pro-Mosley writer I follow saying that Mayweather will win because of his 'ring intelligence' in a manner suggesting that Mosley is an idiot. Internet boxing writer Ted Sares predicts 'a dominant UD' win for Mayweather. I don't dismiss the 4-1 odds (I'll get to that later) but I do think that all of this misses a great deal of nuance.
Narrative B is the equal and opposite reaction. Most prominent on this end of the argument is RingTv.com's Doug Fischer. He has been predicting a Mosley victory in his mailbag since before the fight was ever announced*. This view holds that Mosley has the combination of size, strength, speed, skill, and power to beat the pants off Mayweather. I think this would be very true of a prime Mosley. I think it's more realistic to recognize that Mosley is still very good and far from used up but most definitely past his very best.
So what is an honest, objective, realistic assessment of this fight?
I think the 4-1 odds in Floyd's favor and the 3-1 odds against Mosley reflect a certain degree of reality. Shane is definitely an underdog rather than the obvious favorite and if both fighters have the very best night that each is still capable of having, Floyd should win. I think odds somewhere between 2-1 and 6-1 are very reasonable. It's just that the intangibles make me unsure of exactly where in that range things fall into place.
Let's look at Shane first and let's look at him with an honest detachment. I don't want to look at him that way either. I'm born and raised in Southern California. My hometown is barely 30 minutes from Pomona. I'm the same age as Floyd Mayweather. That means Shane Mosley and I were 'neighbors' of sorts when we were kids. He is the one fighter I would want to root for instinctively above nearly anyone else. Still, you've got to bite the bullet.
Shane Mosley is 38 years old. While his performance against Antonio Margarito was nothing short of beautiful, his three previous fights were uneven at best. He had a lot of trouble with a used up Ricardo Mayorga before finally stopping him, was outboxed by Miguel Cotto down the stretch, and he put together a workmanlike but lopsided win over Luis Collazo. Four very different performances against four very different fighters. He's shown signs of his age at several points in his career and, while he's always bounced back well, it must be admitted that his age is a factor and might be a deciding factor. He's lost something. He doesn't move quite like he used to, doesn't pull the trigger quite as fast, doesn't beat the counter quite as smoothly as he did. Despite that, he's still able to move and pull the trigger pretty well. The main difference is that he gets countered more and, as a result, takes more punches. Against a pure boxer like Floyd, that doesn't help him. I don't think anyone denies Floyd is a better boxer than Miguel Cotto. Shane says he didn't expect Cotto to box and I think he came into the fight flat and might have beaten Cotto otherwise. Floyd won't surprise him by boxing, but there's still plenty of risk that Shane could come in flat from inactivity and/or overtraining. While it's not terribly likely, what if Floyd surprises Shane by standing in front of him? Mayweather stood in front of Jesus Chavez for 9 rounds and beat him so badly he quit.
Sure, Shane isn't a quitter and Floyd isn't going to beat him up the way he beat Chavez. Still, if Shane reacted badly to a surprise from Cotto then how would he react to a surprise from Floyd?
I don't think that's Floyd's likely strategy. Shane's admission that he failed to properly adjust when surprised by Cotto's strategic moves, however, suggest he is in danger if Floyd does do something he isn't expecting.
As for Mayweather, he is 33 years old. Once upon a time a welterweight was considered finished at that age. Floyd's periodic lack of activity, recent 'retirement', and lack of seriously punishing fights probably put his 'ring age' at around 27 or 28. So he may not be far off his prime at all. Still, in the 30s one starts to wonder. There aren't many guys Mosley's age fighting at Mosley's level. He doesn't always do it himself. Floyd's on safer ground but his age can't be totally ignored. Mayweather starts slow, is frequently more conservative than he really should be for too long, and is far from busy even in his most dominant rounds in the majority of his fights. His amazing athletic gifts and a degree of technical polish not common in this boxing era have allowed him to overcome these handicaps. Yet he has had close calls along the way and the fighters who gave him those close calls had things in common with Shane. Zab Judah and DeMarcus Corley were hard punchers who narrowed the speed gap enough to give Mayweather some tough moments. Jose Luis Castillo was bigger and stronger and was able to rough Mayweather up throughout their first fight. Mosley is both a hard puncher with good speed and a bigger and stronger man than Mayweather. This could be a dangerous combination.
I believe Mayweather has taken this fight because he sees it as the maximum possible level of reward he can get for the equivalent risk: like Oscar De La Joya before him, Mosley is an old man with a big reputation. I think Mayweather is in for tougher going than he expects.
My prediction and caveats will likely please no one in either camp.
I think Floyd will win. The fight will be close, sometimes entertaining and sometimes very ugly to watch, and the final scoring may be controversial. The final decision will likely be a majority or split decision or a very, very razor thin UD. There will be people who swear Mosley deserved to win.
As for my caveats, I think both are equally likely. If both cancel each other out, it will only ensure my prediction. It would not surprise me at all if that happened.
1.) Mosley has a lot in common with the guys who have Floyd a hard time early and he is considered a good puncher at welterweight. If Mosley uses his experience and what is left of his speed to catch Mayweather with a couple of good right hands and a fast combination early in the fight it could be a game changer. I don't think he KOs Mayweather, but the circumstances could unfold in which he gives Mayweather the kind of night he was given by the late Vernon Forrest. If Floyd really is underestimating Shane this becomes even more possible.
2.) Shane could also get old all at once. He is 38 and he has been in some very punishing fights. Forrest-Mosley I was more punishing than most of Floyd's career all by itself. If this happens he's going to have a very long night and people will be calling for his retirement. I can see a scenario where he craps out around round 10 or so and gives Mayweather a resurgence that makes the difference, even if Mosley is leading coming into the championship rounds.
The pressure is on Mosley to come in at the very best he can still manage in order to win and that can be a very difficult challenge to overcome. Floyd, because of both his comparative youth and his more defensive style, has more margin for error. That's why I can't pick against Floyd.
It's not going to be easy or lopsided, though. Floyd is going to have to work to win and, when it's all over, the sportswriters talking about how this will solidify his legacy may not think it did after all. Some of them may think Mosley won while others may think Mosley wasn't as much of a threat as they thought.
In the end Mayweather is going to win but he isn't going to make anyone happy who isn't already.
Just like always.
* The linked page is from this week, to show Mr. Fischer's position on the fight and his mailbag. The factual language of the sentence is not to imply this specific mailbag is older than the announcement of the fight.
So far I have seen two dominant narratives emerging around the Mayweather-Mosley fight. I don't feel either is entirely objective or accurate.
Narrative A is what I would call the majority view. Every boxing writer in Las Vegas for the fight thinks Mayweather is going to win and the odds in his favor are 4-1. Many people essentially believe Mosley has no chance, that his 38 years of age might as well be Bernard Hopkins' 45. I have seen fans write to the one unflinchingly pro-Mosley writer I follow saying that Mayweather will win because of his 'ring intelligence' in a manner suggesting that Mosley is an idiot. Internet boxing writer Ted Sares predicts 'a dominant UD' win for Mayweather. I don't dismiss the 4-1 odds (I'll get to that later) but I do think that all of this misses a great deal of nuance.
Narrative B is the equal and opposite reaction. Most prominent on this end of the argument is RingTv.com's Doug Fischer. He has been predicting a Mosley victory in his mailbag since before the fight was ever announced*. This view holds that Mosley has the combination of size, strength, speed, skill, and power to beat the pants off Mayweather. I think this would be very true of a prime Mosley. I think it's more realistic to recognize that Mosley is still very good and far from used up but most definitely past his very best.
So what is an honest, objective, realistic assessment of this fight?
I think the 4-1 odds in Floyd's favor and the 3-1 odds against Mosley reflect a certain degree of reality. Shane is definitely an underdog rather than the obvious favorite and if both fighters have the very best night that each is still capable of having, Floyd should win. I think odds somewhere between 2-1 and 6-1 are very reasonable. It's just that the intangibles make me unsure of exactly where in that range things fall into place.
Let's look at Shane first and let's look at him with an honest detachment. I don't want to look at him that way either. I'm born and raised in Southern California. My hometown is barely 30 minutes from Pomona. I'm the same age as Floyd Mayweather. That means Shane Mosley and I were 'neighbors' of sorts when we were kids. He is the one fighter I would want to root for instinctively above nearly anyone else. Still, you've got to bite the bullet.
Shane Mosley is 38 years old. While his performance against Antonio Margarito was nothing short of beautiful, his three previous fights were uneven at best. He had a lot of trouble with a used up Ricardo Mayorga before finally stopping him, was outboxed by Miguel Cotto down the stretch, and he put together a workmanlike but lopsided win over Luis Collazo. Four very different performances against four very different fighters. He's shown signs of his age at several points in his career and, while he's always bounced back well, it must be admitted that his age is a factor and might be a deciding factor. He's lost something. He doesn't move quite like he used to, doesn't pull the trigger quite as fast, doesn't beat the counter quite as smoothly as he did. Despite that, he's still able to move and pull the trigger pretty well. The main difference is that he gets countered more and, as a result, takes more punches. Against a pure boxer like Floyd, that doesn't help him. I don't think anyone denies Floyd is a better boxer than Miguel Cotto. Shane says he didn't expect Cotto to box and I think he came into the fight flat and might have beaten Cotto otherwise. Floyd won't surprise him by boxing, but there's still plenty of risk that Shane could come in flat from inactivity and/or overtraining. While it's not terribly likely, what if Floyd surprises Shane by standing in front of him? Mayweather stood in front of Jesus Chavez for 9 rounds and beat him so badly he quit.
Sure, Shane isn't a quitter and Floyd isn't going to beat him up the way he beat Chavez. Still, if Shane reacted badly to a surprise from Cotto then how would he react to a surprise from Floyd?
I don't think that's Floyd's likely strategy. Shane's admission that he failed to properly adjust when surprised by Cotto's strategic moves, however, suggest he is in danger if Floyd does do something he isn't expecting.
As for Mayweather, he is 33 years old. Once upon a time a welterweight was considered finished at that age. Floyd's periodic lack of activity, recent 'retirement', and lack of seriously punishing fights probably put his 'ring age' at around 27 or 28. So he may not be far off his prime at all. Still, in the 30s one starts to wonder. There aren't many guys Mosley's age fighting at Mosley's level. He doesn't always do it himself. Floyd's on safer ground but his age can't be totally ignored. Mayweather starts slow, is frequently more conservative than he really should be for too long, and is far from busy even in his most dominant rounds in the majority of his fights. His amazing athletic gifts and a degree of technical polish not common in this boxing era have allowed him to overcome these handicaps. Yet he has had close calls along the way and the fighters who gave him those close calls had things in common with Shane. Zab Judah and DeMarcus Corley were hard punchers who narrowed the speed gap enough to give Mayweather some tough moments. Jose Luis Castillo was bigger and stronger and was able to rough Mayweather up throughout their first fight. Mosley is both a hard puncher with good speed and a bigger and stronger man than Mayweather. This could be a dangerous combination.
I believe Mayweather has taken this fight because he sees it as the maximum possible level of reward he can get for the equivalent risk: like Oscar De La Joya before him, Mosley is an old man with a big reputation. I think Mayweather is in for tougher going than he expects.
My prediction and caveats will likely please no one in either camp.
I think Floyd will win. The fight will be close, sometimes entertaining and sometimes very ugly to watch, and the final scoring may be controversial. The final decision will likely be a majority or split decision or a very, very razor thin UD. There will be people who swear Mosley deserved to win.
As for my caveats, I think both are equally likely. If both cancel each other out, it will only ensure my prediction. It would not surprise me at all if that happened.
1.) Mosley has a lot in common with the guys who have Floyd a hard time early and he is considered a good puncher at welterweight. If Mosley uses his experience and what is left of his speed to catch Mayweather with a couple of good right hands and a fast combination early in the fight it could be a game changer. I don't think he KOs Mayweather, but the circumstances could unfold in which he gives Mayweather the kind of night he was given by the late Vernon Forrest. If Floyd really is underestimating Shane this becomes even more possible.
2.) Shane could also get old all at once. He is 38 and he has been in some very punishing fights. Forrest-Mosley I was more punishing than most of Floyd's career all by itself. If this happens he's going to have a very long night and people will be calling for his retirement. I can see a scenario where he craps out around round 10 or so and gives Mayweather a resurgence that makes the difference, even if Mosley is leading coming into the championship rounds.
The pressure is on Mosley to come in at the very best he can still manage in order to win and that can be a very difficult challenge to overcome. Floyd, because of both his comparative youth and his more defensive style, has more margin for error. That's why I can't pick against Floyd.
It's not going to be easy or lopsided, though. Floyd is going to have to work to win and, when it's all over, the sportswriters talking about how this will solidify his legacy may not think it did after all. Some of them may think Mosley won while others may think Mosley wasn't as much of a threat as they thought.
In the end Mayweather is going to win but he isn't going to make anyone happy who isn't already.
Just like always.
* The linked page is from this week, to show Mr. Fischer's position on the fight and his mailbag. The factual language of the sentence is not to imply this specific mailbag is older than the announcement of the fight.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Ummm, no.
Despite my rather incisive comments about the heavyweight division yesterday, I have a lot of respect for Tomasz Adamek's victory over Chris Arreola this past Saturday. I predicted that Arreola would win by KO3 and when I hedged a little it was to say that Adamek could make it competitive for three or four rounds before losing by KO6. As I said yesterday, I was wrong.
My few readers and correspondents must think I absolutely hate Adamek. I have argued that he lost against Steve Cunningham, dismissed his wins over Andrew Golota and Jason Estrada, and stated I still consider him an underdog in a fight with Cunningham or Bernard Hopkins. I don't hate Adamek. I think he's a fun fighter, an entertaining fighter, a solid boxer, and a good puncher. Given the state of the heavyweight division, I even think that a #4 ranking is not entirely out of order.
I'm not sure about ranking him above Eddie Chambers. Chambers has arguably accomplished more at heavyweight than Adamek despite his losses to Wlad Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin. Despite his loss to Povetkin, one could argue that between himself and his European rival, Chambers has accomplished more. Still, Povetkin won his fight against Chambers (and Chambers, with his unwillingness to fight to win, deserved the loss) and remains undefeated. While I would favor Chambers over Povetkin in a rematch and favor him even more against Adamek, rankings are not all about who might beat whom. Chambers' losses to Povetkin and Wlad both showed the same defect: an unwillingness or inability to let his hands go against some opponents. The loss to Klitschko was expected and the disparity in size, Wlad's cautious style, and Wlad's great jab makes Chambers' usual jab/parry/counter style difficult to execute correctly. Against Povetkin, however, Chambers showed himself both capable of beating his opponent and unwilling to make the extra effort to do so.
As for the men ranked above and below him, I have to admit I'd favor him in a rematch with Arreola now. I'd also favor Adamek over Povetkin, who is a smaller-framed man than Arreola and would not possess the strength and power advantage I had expected Arreola to have over the Pole. I can see Adamek using the careful, conservative strategy that Chambers used against the Russian very successfully. He'd land bigger right-hand counters and it's not at all hard to picture him hurting Povetkin enough to ice the decision-influencing advantage in the late rounds. Povetkin isn't as good as Steve Cunningham. The real question mark here is Adamek's chin and power at heavyweight. The latter appears to definitely have declined. The former has yet to be tested. His technique and fundamentals are better than those of David Haye and Haye has something Adamek has never displayed: a questionable chin. Moreover, both men started at cruiserweight and moved up. I don't see a particular size advantage or disadvantage for anyone.
So it's obviously fair to call Adamek one of the top five heavyweight contenders in the world.
There is such a thing as too much hyperbole:
Is he? Really?
The above, written by Doug Fischer in The Ring's ratings update this week, is very difficult to support. Adamek's biggest accomplishments are as follows: he knocked Chad Dawson down en route to losing an otherwise one-sided decision, he knocked Steve Cunningham down three times and won an arguably controversial decision to claim the cruiserweight championship, and he beat Arreola. This is not the stuff of greatness, folks. His most significant win (over Cunningham) and his less to Dawson show the same thing... against world-class boxers, he has to rely on right-hand power. Though his knockdowns of both men were impressive, he failed to stop either and was only capable of landing the big right sporadically and to ultimately limited (if dramatic) effect. His power, his big ace in the hole, appears to be lessened at heavyweight.
I like Adamek. I'm not a hater. I think he's a good fighter who wil be competitive at heavyweight and am impressed that he proved me wrong about his ability to outbox a bigger, stronger man for 12 rounds without getting badly mauled. I am more than happy to repeat that I was very wrong about his level of ability. I just don't think he has done anything near establishing a pound-for-pound future.
Neither should you.
My few readers and correspondents must think I absolutely hate Adamek. I have argued that he lost against Steve Cunningham, dismissed his wins over Andrew Golota and Jason Estrada, and stated I still consider him an underdog in a fight with Cunningham or Bernard Hopkins. I don't hate Adamek. I think he's a fun fighter, an entertaining fighter, a solid boxer, and a good puncher. Given the state of the heavyweight division, I even think that a #4 ranking is not entirely out of order.
I'm not sure about ranking him above Eddie Chambers. Chambers has arguably accomplished more at heavyweight than Adamek despite his losses to Wlad Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin. Despite his loss to Povetkin, one could argue that between himself and his European rival, Chambers has accomplished more. Still, Povetkin won his fight against Chambers (and Chambers, with his unwillingness to fight to win, deserved the loss) and remains undefeated. While I would favor Chambers over Povetkin in a rematch and favor him even more against Adamek, rankings are not all about who might beat whom. Chambers' losses to Povetkin and Wlad both showed the same defect: an unwillingness or inability to let his hands go against some opponents. The loss to Klitschko was expected and the disparity in size, Wlad's cautious style, and Wlad's great jab makes Chambers' usual jab/parry/counter style difficult to execute correctly. Against Povetkin, however, Chambers showed himself both capable of beating his opponent and unwilling to make the extra effort to do so.
As for the men ranked above and below him, I have to admit I'd favor him in a rematch with Arreola now. I'd also favor Adamek over Povetkin, who is a smaller-framed man than Arreola and would not possess the strength and power advantage I had expected Arreola to have over the Pole. I can see Adamek using the careful, conservative strategy that Chambers used against the Russian very successfully. He'd land bigger right-hand counters and it's not at all hard to picture him hurting Povetkin enough to ice the decision-influencing advantage in the late rounds. Povetkin isn't as good as Steve Cunningham. The real question mark here is Adamek's chin and power at heavyweight. The latter appears to definitely have declined. The former has yet to be tested. His technique and fundamentals are better than those of David Haye and Haye has something Adamek has never displayed: a questionable chin. Moreover, both men started at cruiserweight and moved up. I don't see a particular size advantage or disadvantage for anyone.
So it's obviously fair to call Adamek one of the top five heavyweight contenders in the world.
There is such a thing as too much hyperbole:
Tomasz Adamek may never realize his goal of becoming the heavyweight champion of the world but he’s well on his way to being recognized as one of the best fighters, pound for pound, in the sport.
Is he? Really?
The above, written by Doug Fischer in The Ring's ratings update this week, is very difficult to support. Adamek's biggest accomplishments are as follows: he knocked Chad Dawson down en route to losing an otherwise one-sided decision, he knocked Steve Cunningham down three times and won an arguably controversial decision to claim the cruiserweight championship, and he beat Arreola. This is not the stuff of greatness, folks. His most significant win (over Cunningham) and his less to Dawson show the same thing... against world-class boxers, he has to rely on right-hand power. Though his knockdowns of both men were impressive, he failed to stop either and was only capable of landing the big right sporadically and to ultimately limited (if dramatic) effect. His power, his big ace in the hole, appears to be lessened at heavyweight.
I like Adamek. I'm not a hater. I think he's a good fighter who wil be competitive at heavyweight and am impressed that he proved me wrong about his ability to outbox a bigger, stronger man for 12 rounds without getting badly mauled. I am more than happy to repeat that I was very wrong about his level of ability. I just don't think he has done anything near establishing a pound-for-pound future.
Neither should you.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Heavyweight Thoughts
First up, I was wrong.
As everyone knows by now, Tomasz Adamek beat Chris Arreola by unanimous decision. I had been thinking about analyzing another writer's Mosley-Mayweather predictions (and you should check them out) but being wrong is always a great segue into pontification to support the underlying arguments behind one's mistakes. So heavyweights it is.
I'll start, of course, with fight about which I was so very wrong.
I noted not too long ago that I thought Chris Arreola would knock Adamek out in 3 and that Adamek could expect to last 6 rounds or so at best. Adamek, who is fundamentally sound but hardly 'Money' Mayweather or 'The Executioner' when it comes to defensive polish, soundly outboxed Arreola over the distance. I would not have been surprised if he had boxed well for three or four rounds, gotten badly beaten up in one or two, and then been stopped hard. I did not expect him to keep Arreola on the end of the jab for the entire fight or come anywhere near winning. I have to give Adamek a lot of credit for the win.
I also have to add a caveat to that credit.
I think that Arreola's loss to Adamek says more about the state of the heavyweight division, especially the American heavyweight picture, than it does about Adamek's legitimacy as a big man.
To start, despite the impressive win, I would still consider Adamek a live underdog in a rematch with Steve Cunningham rather than a favorite. I've said a lot about my thoughts about the original fight and I give Adamek a lot of credit for chin, resiliency, and power. I just don't think he is as good as the best cruisers in the world and that his ability to pull knockdowns out of his hat swayed judges who didn't know who Cunningham was. I'm not saying that the fight was so lop-sided Adamek's win was a magoo. I am saying that Adamek-Cunningham is not a fundamentally different fight than the fight between Wlad Klitschko and Sam Peter that put WK back on the heavyweight map.
In both fights a superior boxer outboxed a big puncher for the majority of the fight. In both fights the puncher scored strategic knockdowns that made the fights hard to score despite the overall dominance of the boxer. In both fights it was very difficult to find rounds to give to the puncher outside of the knockdown rounds. In both fights it could be argued that there was at least one round that might deserve to be 10-9 or even 10-10 despite the knockdown, because one good shot was the only accomplishment the big puncher managed that round.
Yet, in both fights, one guy clearly was able to hurt the other guy whenever he had the chance and was able to get the chance often enough to produce some impressive results in small but dramatic bursts. The other guy, while successful overall, was not able to match those bursts of drama.
It could be argued that Sam Peter and Steve Cunningham both deserved to win and equally argued that neither WK nor Adamek did quite enough to win. The knockdowns made the fights that difficult to score.
Adamek's life and death struggle with Steve Cunningham and his loss to Chad Dawson, coupled with his surprisingly easy win over Chris Arreola, leads to an unpleasant conclusion.
James Toney, Juan Carlos Gomez, David Haye, and Adamek have all enjoyed some degree of success beyond expectations at heavyweight. I would favor Hopkins over Adamek at heavyweight and (despite the thoughts of some others) would call Hopkins/Haye an even money fight. It might be time to change conventional wisdom: the cruiserweight division might now be deeper and more talented than the heavyweights. If one consider that the 200 lb weight limit is perfect for the great heavyweights of history, this only makes sense.
I'll offer a reason, at least on the American side. Three reasons, actually.
Promoters, writers, and fans. Especially writers and fans. Sure, the promoters are evil. But writers and fans enable that evil in their passion for the sport they love.
The promoters' share of the blame is obvious, but I'll repeat it anyway: they've protected marginal prospects to manufacture impressive records, they've exploited their own successes so shamelessly and attempted to simulate their own achievements so ludicrously that their business model is perhaps less incestuous than it is masturbatory. When given the chance to discredit or marginalize the sport, they've done so at every turn. They make the fights and their need for that 'special fighter who can't lose' requires guys stay undefeated for as long as possible. Usually they stay undefeated by fighting the kind of opponents who don't offer enough of a challenge to allow them to develop their skillset.
Writers enable this by making a big fuss over the promoters' next Michael Grant or Chris Arreola. Amateur writers are the worst (witness my own belief in Arreola) but professional writers are far from immune. Boxing writers become boxing writers because they were boxing fans first. The objectivity demanded of a crime reporter is not necessarily desirable in a sports writer. Would anyone want to read a boxing article by an MMA fan? Writers get worked up, excited, or impressed beyond rational justification just like fans do. Hyperbole is sort of expected of a sports writer even when they aren't worked up. When they really like a guy? They're going to be fulsome. The Ring published an article comparing Henry Armstrong and Manny Pacquiao. The gulf between the respective achievements of the two great fighters is so wide that the article itself stressed that the idea that Pacquiao might be as great as or greater than Armstrong was silly in order to focus on the real parallels between the two... but the fact remains that they published an article comparing Henry Armstrong and Manny Pacqiao.
Fans enable everyone by buying into everything. The next guy all the promoters and writers are raving about will be a fan favorite quite soon. His loyalists will scream for him to fight VK or WK after his 9th fight. They'll write to their preferred writer's mailbag swearing that David Haye will knock out either Klitschko with ease. They accept the notion that Tomasz Adamek is a legitimate heavyweight because he beat a prospect whose only test on the world class level was a heartless human sacrifice to some ancient European war god.
There are obviously (just obviously not on this blog) good writers. There are many good fans. There might be a good promoter somewhere. Maybe. I exaggerate some on every one of my criticisms... but only some. I'm as guilty as any other writer or fan.
The heavyweight division could improve with some matchmaking effort on the part of promoters and some careful consideration on the part of writers and fans. In the meantime, we need to be realistic about what we've got.
As everyone knows by now, Tomasz Adamek beat Chris Arreola by unanimous decision. I had been thinking about analyzing another writer's Mosley-Mayweather predictions (and you should check them out) but being wrong is always a great segue into pontification to support the underlying arguments behind one's mistakes. So heavyweights it is.
I'll start, of course, with fight about which I was so very wrong.
I noted not too long ago that I thought Chris Arreola would knock Adamek out in 3 and that Adamek could expect to last 6 rounds or so at best. Adamek, who is fundamentally sound but hardly 'Money' Mayweather or 'The Executioner' when it comes to defensive polish, soundly outboxed Arreola over the distance. I would not have been surprised if he had boxed well for three or four rounds, gotten badly beaten up in one or two, and then been stopped hard. I did not expect him to keep Arreola on the end of the jab for the entire fight or come anywhere near winning. I have to give Adamek a lot of credit for the win.
I also have to add a caveat to that credit.
I think that Arreola's loss to Adamek says more about the state of the heavyweight division, especially the American heavyweight picture, than it does about Adamek's legitimacy as a big man.
To start, despite the impressive win, I would still consider Adamek a live underdog in a rematch with Steve Cunningham rather than a favorite. I've said a lot about my thoughts about the original fight and I give Adamek a lot of credit for chin, resiliency, and power. I just don't think he is as good as the best cruisers in the world and that his ability to pull knockdowns out of his hat swayed judges who didn't know who Cunningham was. I'm not saying that the fight was so lop-sided Adamek's win was a magoo. I am saying that Adamek-Cunningham is not a fundamentally different fight than the fight between Wlad Klitschko and Sam Peter that put WK back on the heavyweight map.
In both fights a superior boxer outboxed a big puncher for the majority of the fight. In both fights the puncher scored strategic knockdowns that made the fights hard to score despite the overall dominance of the boxer. In both fights it was very difficult to find rounds to give to the puncher outside of the knockdown rounds. In both fights it could be argued that there was at least one round that might deserve to be 10-9 or even 10-10 despite the knockdown, because one good shot was the only accomplishment the big puncher managed that round.
Yet, in both fights, one guy clearly was able to hurt the other guy whenever he had the chance and was able to get the chance often enough to produce some impressive results in small but dramatic bursts. The other guy, while successful overall, was not able to match those bursts of drama.
It could be argued that Sam Peter and Steve Cunningham both deserved to win and equally argued that neither WK nor Adamek did quite enough to win. The knockdowns made the fights that difficult to score.
Adamek's life and death struggle with Steve Cunningham and his loss to Chad Dawson, coupled with his surprisingly easy win over Chris Arreola, leads to an unpleasant conclusion.
James Toney, Juan Carlos Gomez, David Haye, and Adamek have all enjoyed some degree of success beyond expectations at heavyweight. I would favor Hopkins over Adamek at heavyweight and (despite the thoughts of some others) would call Hopkins/Haye an even money fight. It might be time to change conventional wisdom: the cruiserweight division might now be deeper and more talented than the heavyweights. If one consider that the 200 lb weight limit is perfect for the great heavyweights of history, this only makes sense.
I'll offer a reason, at least on the American side. Three reasons, actually.
Promoters, writers, and fans. Especially writers and fans. Sure, the promoters are evil. But writers and fans enable that evil in their passion for the sport they love.
The promoters' share of the blame is obvious, but I'll repeat it anyway: they've protected marginal prospects to manufacture impressive records, they've exploited their own successes so shamelessly and attempted to simulate their own achievements so ludicrously that their business model is perhaps less incestuous than it is masturbatory. When given the chance to discredit or marginalize the sport, they've done so at every turn. They make the fights and their need for that 'special fighter who can't lose' requires guys stay undefeated for as long as possible. Usually they stay undefeated by fighting the kind of opponents who don't offer enough of a challenge to allow them to develop their skillset.
Writers enable this by making a big fuss over the promoters' next Michael Grant or Chris Arreola. Amateur writers are the worst (witness my own belief in Arreola) but professional writers are far from immune. Boxing writers become boxing writers because they were boxing fans first. The objectivity demanded of a crime reporter is not necessarily desirable in a sports writer. Would anyone want to read a boxing article by an MMA fan? Writers get worked up, excited, or impressed beyond rational justification just like fans do. Hyperbole is sort of expected of a sports writer even when they aren't worked up. When they really like a guy? They're going to be fulsome. The Ring published an article comparing Henry Armstrong and Manny Pacquiao. The gulf between the respective achievements of the two great fighters is so wide that the article itself stressed that the idea that Pacquiao might be as great as or greater than Armstrong was silly in order to focus on the real parallels between the two... but the fact remains that they published an article comparing Henry Armstrong and Manny Pacqiao.
Fans enable everyone by buying into everything. The next guy all the promoters and writers are raving about will be a fan favorite quite soon. His loyalists will scream for him to fight VK or WK after his 9th fight. They'll write to their preferred writer's mailbag swearing that David Haye will knock out either Klitschko with ease. They accept the notion that Tomasz Adamek is a legitimate heavyweight because he beat a prospect whose only test on the world class level was a heartless human sacrifice to some ancient European war god.
There are obviously (just obviously not on this blog) good writers. There are many good fans. There might be a good promoter somewhere. Maybe. I exaggerate some on every one of my criticisms... but only some. I'm as guilty as any other writer or fan.
The heavyweight division could improve with some matchmaking effort on the part of promoters and some careful consideration on the part of writers and fans. In the meantime, we need to be realistic about what we've got.
Monday, April 19, 2010
A Dissection of Kelly Pavlik
A bit gruesome perhaps, but it is going to happen anyway. I would rather focus on the real faults than the storm of complaints by fellow fans-playing-writer that he has been 'exposed.'
The biggest problems with Kelly Pavlik's style have all been mentioned on television, usually in a manner that was closer to a back-handed compliment than a real critique. More importantly, the deficiencies in his style are not entirely why he suffered his two losses.
That said, his technical deficiencies are why two skilled and experienced men were able to put together winning gameplans. So making some mention of them is necessary.
He does not bend his knees or move his upper body much. While everyone talks about the latter, I believe the former is the bigger weakness. His high guard and busy jab can substitute quite well for head movement, but his lack of knee movement means that when he gets hit more of those shots are clean. Watching Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather fight in today's shallower talent pool often leaves us with the notion a good boxer will not get hit, but at the truly world-class level everyone gets hit. The best know what to do when they are, and Pavlik does not entirely appear as if he does.
The failing that really has hurt Pavlik the most is one of attitude. How severely the problem has spread to Pavlik himself is not always clear. At some times Pavlik appears to be the best guy around and at some times he appears 'infected.' The source of the attitude isn't hard to see, however: it's from the corner. Pavlik trainer Jack Loew is the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the corner: he behaves as if he were the greatest ever on real, but comparatively sparse, accomplishments. Prior to the fight, both Loew and manager Cameron Dunkin were clearly looking past Sergio Martinez to Paul Williams; or perhaps it is more accurate to say they were looking past Sergio Martinez to their excuses for moving up in weight and not fighting Williams.
It is possible that this failure to take note of the guy in front of them had enough effect on Pavlik to make the difference when his eye was badly cut in the 9th round.
Even more damaging, however, is Loew's apparent belief that Kelly Pavlik is a finished product in need of no more fine tuning or improvement. This clearly has spread to Pavlik himself. A fighter's confidence in himself and his corner is important, obviously, but it's foolish not to understand where one can improve. Writing defeats that can be clearly seen to stem from specific strategies to exploit Pavlik's flaws off as 'bad nights' and claiming one can learn nothing from them is simply ridiculous.
I like Pavlik. I think he is a talented kid who is far more polished than he is given credit for being. I don't think he has been 'exposed' at all and I would favor him in a rematch with Martinez.
I do think that he needs to consider shaking up his corner. Loew has taken him as far as he can. More seriously, Loew thinks there is no farther to take him.
That is far more damaging to Pavlik's future career than a lack of head movement or an inability to bend at the knees.
The biggest problems with Kelly Pavlik's style have all been mentioned on television, usually in a manner that was closer to a back-handed compliment than a real critique. More importantly, the deficiencies in his style are not entirely why he suffered his two losses.
That said, his technical deficiencies are why two skilled and experienced men were able to put together winning gameplans. So making some mention of them is necessary.
He does not bend his knees or move his upper body much. While everyone talks about the latter, I believe the former is the bigger weakness. His high guard and busy jab can substitute quite well for head movement, but his lack of knee movement means that when he gets hit more of those shots are clean. Watching Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather fight in today's shallower talent pool often leaves us with the notion a good boxer will not get hit, but at the truly world-class level everyone gets hit. The best know what to do when they are, and Pavlik does not entirely appear as if he does.
The failing that really has hurt Pavlik the most is one of attitude. How severely the problem has spread to Pavlik himself is not always clear. At some times Pavlik appears to be the best guy around and at some times he appears 'infected.' The source of the attitude isn't hard to see, however: it's from the corner. Pavlik trainer Jack Loew is the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the corner: he behaves as if he were the greatest ever on real, but comparatively sparse, accomplishments. Prior to the fight, both Loew and manager Cameron Dunkin were clearly looking past Sergio Martinez to Paul Williams; or perhaps it is more accurate to say they were looking past Sergio Martinez to their excuses for moving up in weight and not fighting Williams.
It is possible that this failure to take note of the guy in front of them had enough effect on Pavlik to make the difference when his eye was badly cut in the 9th round.
Even more damaging, however, is Loew's apparent belief that Kelly Pavlik is a finished product in need of no more fine tuning or improvement. This clearly has spread to Pavlik himself. A fighter's confidence in himself and his corner is important, obviously, but it's foolish not to understand where one can improve. Writing defeats that can be clearly seen to stem from specific strategies to exploit Pavlik's flaws off as 'bad nights' and claiming one can learn nothing from them is simply ridiculous.
I like Pavlik. I think he is a talented kid who is far more polished than he is given credit for being. I don't think he has been 'exposed' at all and I would favor him in a rematch with Martinez.
I do think that he needs to consider shaking up his corner. Loew has taken him as far as he can. More seriously, Loew thinks there is no farther to take him.
That is far more damaging to Pavlik's future career than a lack of head movement or an inability to bend at the knees.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Bernard Hopkins' Future
With his recent decision win over Roy Jones Jr, Bernard Hopkins has his revenge.
I absently sent an annoying fan email to William Dettloff of The Ring magazine, sometime before the fight, noting that I felt entirely confident that I knew the reason Hopkins wanted to fight Jones again despite Jones' terrible and shocking KO loss to Danny Green.
I said Bernard Hopkins wanted to beat Roy Jones up. Bad. Regardless of how much anyone cared. The money the match would pull in from the name recognition value was just an extra. Beating him up on tv, of course, was why it was a pro-fight and not a parking lot face-off. When Mr. Dettloff mentioned my speculation on the audio webcast by himself and Eric Raskin, it really made me smile. I confess to being more than just a little bit egomaniacal.
So now Bernard has beaten Roy up and been paid for the pleasure. Now it's decision time: either he resumes a serious boxing career or he retires. A serious career basically means one of two choices. Either he moves to cruiserweight full time and goes shopping for more gilded plastic or he fulfill his post-fight musing and moves to heavyweight looking for a legacy fight with David Haye before he calls it a career.
In RingTV's weekend review, Michael Rosenthal makes his feelings quite clear:
I would be happy to see Mr. Hopkins retire now if that's what he wants, but I'd also be rather disappointed if his last fight was a personal vendetta that benefitted no one. It might be poetic, considering the Bon Jovi-esque qualities of his 'It's My Life' career, but it would still be disappointing.
An idle musing of The Ring's cruiserweight ratings tells me this: with one definite exception (Steve Cunningham: nearly as polished as Bernard, more athletic, and still in his prime or at its tail end) and one possible exception (Zsolt Erdei: maybe too fast for Hopkins at 45), Hopkins is even-money against the 200 lb Top Ten. Better against some of them. He could win a belt at 200 lbs, even make a serious championship run and go out on a great blaze in a classic fight. Yet I don't know what he would really add to his legacy by doing so and I am not sure the investment in physical punishment is worth the reward. If this were the only choice he was considering I'd advise retirement and the beginning of a career training Golden Boy prospects. Who wouldn't like to see the old man teach a new generation of American fighters to fight a lot better than most of them do?
I have to admit, though, that the Haye fight intrigues me.
Yeah. I said it.
For those who are thinking about the damage he took from Roy Jones' rabbit punch, it might not be the most important factor. Rabbit punches can really hurt people. That's why they are illegal. The fact that many referees fail to properly warn fighters as long as no one gets hurt, or that some fighters base their style on borderline rabbit punches, doesn't change that. Rabbit punches are really dangerous. It's why they are fouls. The after-effects Bernard experienced are precisely why they are illegal and do not necessarily reflect how he would take a legal blow. If the rabbit punch did the type of permanent damage that would make retirement necessary, it would show up on exams and licensing would be very difficult. If it hasn't, it shouldn't be a factor in the decision.
Forget Hopkins' age for a moment and then ignore the size difference as well. We'll get back to both.
Focus on the basics: Haye is a fast, powerful, athletic KO artist who is still a product in development regardless of his potential star power or his (meaningless) WBA strap. He has great talent, raw skills, and a questionable chin. His wins over Nikolai Valuev and John Ruiz have shown that his patience and self-discipline are improving. Bernard Hopkins is the perfect opponent to test/develop his technique. A close, ugly, controversial decision win (or loss) for Haye would be great for his development. If he blows Hopkins out, we know he's ready to try the Brothers K... let's face it, the only guys at heavy who would show even a semblance of Hopkins' polish have names ending in '-itschko.' If Hopkins exposes him, then he'll have a better map of what he needs to fix than anything anyone at heavyweight can show him.
That's why it's good for Haye, win lose or draw. It's good for Hopkins because he'll probably either provide a close, technical, tactical fight without a clear winner or win a huge upset.
Yes, Michael Rosenthal says he has no chance and he'll get his ass kicked. It's possible Hopkins could get old all at once and it could really happen. At 45, that's always a threat. It's happened to guys before.
Barring such a sudden event, however, when is the last time anyone kicked Bernard Hopkins' ass? Two men have beat him since he won the middleweight championship: Jermain Taylor and Joe Calzaghe. They both won the kind of close, technical, difficult fight that used to go to Hopkins over guys like Keith Holmes. There was some degree of controversy in all three of those defeats. Neither man came close to kicking Bernard's ass.
Hopkins has had his 'ass kicked' precisely twice: his first pro-fight and his first fight with Roy Jones Jr.
Of course there have been two occasions on which his ass-kicking was widely and loudly predicted: his fights with Felix Trinidad and Kelly Pavlik. In both cases much ass was kicked. Just not Bernard's.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not predicting that Hopkins can do that to Haye at heavyweight. I'm just saying that his two career defining wins came in fights in which he was a massive underdog. Before the Pavlik fight, when everyone was predicting a brutal KO that would end Hopkins' career, I admit I was wrong too: I said Pavlik would win a very close and potentially controversial decision. Hopkins surprised me.
I don't think that Bernard Hopkins will surprise me again. If he and David Haye fight, I think David Haye will win (or possibly lose, but I lean toward win) a very ugly decision of the kind Joe Calzaghe won. Don't be surprised if Hopkins manages a flash knockdown in round one in much the same way, Haye's chin and balance aren't all that.
Now, for those who cannot get over the issue of size: David Haye's claim to fame is as a big puncher at cruiserweight. At heavy, he's shown the ability to break guys down but he has not blown anyone out of the water. Like Michael Moorer before him, he's still a KO threat at 2001+... he's just no longer a sure, safe KO bet. Bernard Hopkins was talking about fighting Tomasz Adamek or Danny Green at cruiserweight before the Roy Jones fight. I think most people favored Bernard in those fights, and those who did were right to do so.
So riddle me this:
If Arreola-Adamek is a real fight which can get everyone excited, then how can Haye be safely predicted to blow Hopkins out of the water?
Tomas Adamek and Chris Arreola bring the same things to the table: good chins, solid punching power, fan-friendly styles. I've seen Adamek fight... he's entirely one dimensional. He's the stereotype of the old 'European fighter.' Jab, right hand, repeat until final bell. He doesn't throw a lot of combinations. Against Steve Cunningham (at cruiser) he won a very close fight on the basis of three knockdowns and came very close to being stopped early. At 175 he lost to Chad Dawson. Arreola isn't as fast as Dawson or as polished as Cunningham, but he hits a lot harder and has a heck of a chin. Even if Adamek brings all his power to heavyweight, Arreola is a very big slice of pie for him. If he doesn't, he's in for a very long... but very short... night. He faces much more risk of really being hurt... he's there to hit and he doesn't have a plan B if he can't hurt a guy. I expect Chris Arreola to win by KO3. It could happen faster. I can see Adamek making the first two or three rounds competitive with a bit of movement, but he's not Vitali Klitschko. He's not going to outslick Arreola and break him down. He's going to get caught and eventually ground down. His 'best case' scenario is to lose by KO6.
David Haye is a former cruiser, Bernard Hopkins has probably been a de facto cruiser for awhile. Sure, age is a factor. It's impossible to ignore '45'... but David Haye is neither tremendously bigger than Hopkins nor tremendously more skilled than guys at cruiser we would all admit, if pressed, we just can't see badly beating Bernard.
There's the crux of it. If Haye were still a cruiserweight, there would be some die-hard American boxing writers predicting a big Hopkins win in the same vein some predicted Hopkins schooling Calzaghe. Anyone actually reading this should take a moment to think about that and tell themselves honestly what they think about such a fight.
For those of you who still believe, despite all of my arguments, that a highly-skilled middleweight champ lacking one punch power can't be successful at heavyweight well-past his prime I have only two words.
James Toney.
I absently sent an annoying fan email to William Dettloff of The Ring magazine, sometime before the fight, noting that I felt entirely confident that I knew the reason Hopkins wanted to fight Jones again despite Jones' terrible and shocking KO loss to Danny Green.
I said Bernard Hopkins wanted to beat Roy Jones up. Bad. Regardless of how much anyone cared. The money the match would pull in from the name recognition value was just an extra. Beating him up on tv, of course, was why it was a pro-fight and not a parking lot face-off. When Mr. Dettloff mentioned my speculation on the audio webcast by himself and Eric Raskin, it really made me smile. I confess to being more than just a little bit egomaniacal.
So now Bernard has beaten Roy up and been paid for the pleasure. Now it's decision time: either he resumes a serious boxing career or he retires. A serious career basically means one of two choices. Either he moves to cruiserweight full time and goes shopping for more gilded plastic or he fulfill his post-fight musing and moves to heavyweight looking for a legacy fight with David Haye before he calls it a career.
In RingTV's weekend review, Michael Rosenthal makes his feelings quite clear:
Yes, he can still beat the majority of good fighters in and around his weight class. However, he’s talking about challenging heavyweight David Haye. Hopkins, a smart guy, is deluding himself if he thinks he can beat a fighter as big and good as the brash Briton. He’d get pummeled –- badly. The hope here is that Hopkins retires, leaving behind a wonderful legacy. If he must continue fighting, he should stick to relatively small and slow opponents. No one wants to see him get hurt.
I would be happy to see Mr. Hopkins retire now if that's what he wants, but I'd also be rather disappointed if his last fight was a personal vendetta that benefitted no one. It might be poetic, considering the Bon Jovi-esque qualities of his 'It's My Life' career, but it would still be disappointing.
An idle musing of The Ring's cruiserweight ratings tells me this: with one definite exception (Steve Cunningham: nearly as polished as Bernard, more athletic, and still in his prime or at its tail end) and one possible exception (Zsolt Erdei: maybe too fast for Hopkins at 45), Hopkins is even-money against the 200 lb Top Ten. Better against some of them. He could win a belt at 200 lbs, even make a serious championship run and go out on a great blaze in a classic fight. Yet I don't know what he would really add to his legacy by doing so and I am not sure the investment in physical punishment is worth the reward. If this were the only choice he was considering I'd advise retirement and the beginning of a career training Golden Boy prospects. Who wouldn't like to see the old man teach a new generation of American fighters to fight a lot better than most of them do?
I have to admit, though, that the Haye fight intrigues me.
Yeah. I said it.
For those who are thinking about the damage he took from Roy Jones' rabbit punch, it might not be the most important factor. Rabbit punches can really hurt people. That's why they are illegal. The fact that many referees fail to properly warn fighters as long as no one gets hurt, or that some fighters base their style on borderline rabbit punches, doesn't change that. Rabbit punches are really dangerous. It's why they are fouls. The after-effects Bernard experienced are precisely why they are illegal and do not necessarily reflect how he would take a legal blow. If the rabbit punch did the type of permanent damage that would make retirement necessary, it would show up on exams and licensing would be very difficult. If it hasn't, it shouldn't be a factor in the decision.
Forget Hopkins' age for a moment and then ignore the size difference as well. We'll get back to both.
Focus on the basics: Haye is a fast, powerful, athletic KO artist who is still a product in development regardless of his potential star power or his (meaningless) WBA strap. He has great talent, raw skills, and a questionable chin. His wins over Nikolai Valuev and John Ruiz have shown that his patience and self-discipline are improving. Bernard Hopkins is the perfect opponent to test/develop his technique. A close, ugly, controversial decision win (or loss) for Haye would be great for his development. If he blows Hopkins out, we know he's ready to try the Brothers K... let's face it, the only guys at heavy who would show even a semblance of Hopkins' polish have names ending in '-itschko.' If Hopkins exposes him, then he'll have a better map of what he needs to fix than anything anyone at heavyweight can show him.
That's why it's good for Haye, win lose or draw. It's good for Hopkins because he'll probably either provide a close, technical, tactical fight without a clear winner or win a huge upset.
Yes, Michael Rosenthal says he has no chance and he'll get his ass kicked. It's possible Hopkins could get old all at once and it could really happen. At 45, that's always a threat. It's happened to guys before.
Barring such a sudden event, however, when is the last time anyone kicked Bernard Hopkins' ass? Two men have beat him since he won the middleweight championship: Jermain Taylor and Joe Calzaghe. They both won the kind of close, technical, difficult fight that used to go to Hopkins over guys like Keith Holmes. There was some degree of controversy in all three of those defeats. Neither man came close to kicking Bernard's ass.
Hopkins has had his 'ass kicked' precisely twice: his first pro-fight and his first fight with Roy Jones Jr.
Of course there have been two occasions on which his ass-kicking was widely and loudly predicted: his fights with Felix Trinidad and Kelly Pavlik. In both cases much ass was kicked. Just not Bernard's.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not predicting that Hopkins can do that to Haye at heavyweight. I'm just saying that his two career defining wins came in fights in which he was a massive underdog. Before the Pavlik fight, when everyone was predicting a brutal KO that would end Hopkins' career, I admit I was wrong too: I said Pavlik would win a very close and potentially controversial decision. Hopkins surprised me.
I don't think that Bernard Hopkins will surprise me again. If he and David Haye fight, I think David Haye will win (or possibly lose, but I lean toward win) a very ugly decision of the kind Joe Calzaghe won. Don't be surprised if Hopkins manages a flash knockdown in round one in much the same way, Haye's chin and balance aren't all that.
Now, for those who cannot get over the issue of size: David Haye's claim to fame is as a big puncher at cruiserweight. At heavy, he's shown the ability to break guys down but he has not blown anyone out of the water. Like Michael Moorer before him, he's still a KO threat at 2001+... he's just no longer a sure, safe KO bet. Bernard Hopkins was talking about fighting Tomasz Adamek or Danny Green at cruiserweight before the Roy Jones fight. I think most people favored Bernard in those fights, and those who did were right to do so.
So riddle me this:
If Arreola-Adamek is a real fight which can get everyone excited, then how can Haye be safely predicted to blow Hopkins out of the water?
Tomas Adamek and Chris Arreola bring the same things to the table: good chins, solid punching power, fan-friendly styles. I've seen Adamek fight... he's entirely one dimensional. He's the stereotype of the old 'European fighter.' Jab, right hand, repeat until final bell. He doesn't throw a lot of combinations. Against Steve Cunningham (at cruiser) he won a very close fight on the basis of three knockdowns and came very close to being stopped early. At 175 he lost to Chad Dawson. Arreola isn't as fast as Dawson or as polished as Cunningham, but he hits a lot harder and has a heck of a chin. Even if Adamek brings all his power to heavyweight, Arreola is a very big slice of pie for him. If he doesn't, he's in for a very long... but very short... night. He faces much more risk of really being hurt... he's there to hit and he doesn't have a plan B if he can't hurt a guy. I expect Chris Arreola to win by KO3. It could happen faster. I can see Adamek making the first two or three rounds competitive with a bit of movement, but he's not Vitali Klitschko. He's not going to outslick Arreola and break him down. He's going to get caught and eventually ground down. His 'best case' scenario is to lose by KO6.
David Haye is a former cruiser, Bernard Hopkins has probably been a de facto cruiser for awhile. Sure, age is a factor. It's impossible to ignore '45'... but David Haye is neither tremendously bigger than Hopkins nor tremendously more skilled than guys at cruiser we would all admit, if pressed, we just can't see badly beating Bernard.
There's the crux of it. If Haye were still a cruiserweight, there would be some die-hard American boxing writers predicting a big Hopkins win in the same vein some predicted Hopkins schooling Calzaghe. Anyone actually reading this should take a moment to think about that and tell themselves honestly what they think about such a fight.
For those of you who still believe, despite all of my arguments, that a highly-skilled middleweight champ lacking one punch power can't be successful at heavyweight well-past his prime I have only two words.
James Toney.
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