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Boxing

Page 5 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Mar 19, 2009
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Cobblestoned said:
That was one of the best fights I remember.
Close and ugly.

Hope for refight, but doesn't look so.

it gets better, povetkin is to fight rahman next :S and rahman weighed 284 pounds in his last match about 35 pounds more than the klitschkos weigh... amazing how he gets this fight, it must be the work of don king... I think huck might fight wladimir next.. Wladimir is fight mormeck and I have no idea why he isnt even famous anywhere, if that is the standard they can get to fight wladimir then huck has a great chance to get a fight with them and it sounded like the crowd liked him in germany...
 
Mar 19, 2009
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Wladimir v mormec the marksman........ What a strange fight, although I am not sure who else wlad could fight to keep busy, haye always wants a lot of money and every other heavyweight contendor is dodging them(well the european ones anyway).. Would be cool to have a french heavyweight champion but as standard I am supporting the klitschkos... I read on the internets that wladimir will probably be taking on arreola next, he isnt too bad but since losing to vitali he has lost to adamek aswell... and I saw an interview with wlad where he mention an american guy called seth mitchell(I've never heard of him :S)
 
Mar 19, 2009
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gooner said:
It looks like Vitali and Haye is a done deal. Hopefully Vitali can put him firmly back in his place.

Haye claims Vitali has agreed to WBC heavyweight title clash
I doubt it, haye doesnt even have a boxing licence and I dont know if he'll even get one after his antics after vitalis fight a few weeks ago... Hayes twittering is just nonsense, it seems to me like vitali was asked by rtl if he will fight haye next and he gave the standard boxers answer(he will fight him or anyone) and haye has posted that this means he will fight vitali... Maybe the fight will be next but hayes twittering is just nonsense.. First of all he needs a licence
 
gooner said:
It looks like Vitali and Haye is a done deal. Hopefully Vitali can put him firmly back in his place.

I have a prediction. Haye will talk and talk and talk and talk. Then it will come to fight time, and he'll stand there, move around, throw some jabs, do his best to not get hurt, then jab and move around some more. The Klitschko's are happy to fight in such non-committal way, so Vitali will do the same. If the fighting gets close, Vitali will just hold or push Haye around, then they'll go back to jabbing and not fighting. Vitali will win an easy decision, Haye will lament that he was robbed and have some excuse like a bad hangnail.

Personally, I'd love nothing more than to see Haye man up and push Vitali into a brawling slugfest for several rounds, followed by Haye getting knocked out in spectacular fashion with a few teeth flying into the press section, but I don't possibly see it happening.
 
Oh, boy, Manny Pacquiao has really put his foot in his mouth now. He has been banned from a mall in LA for his anti-gay comments. He was originally understood to have endorsed a Biblical passage endorsing death to gays. He insists he never said that, but what he does own to saying is not all that much better:

"I only gave out my opinion that same sex marriage is against the law of God," he told ABS-CBN's Dyan Castillejo. "I'm not against gay people ... I have a relative who is also gay. We can't help it if they were born that way. What I'm critical of are actions that violate the word of God."

I’m quite surprised about this, because Filipinos are generally very tolerant of gays, more so in general than Americans, I would say. Gays live very openly over there, having many straight friends who accept them with no problem. I knew Manny had “got religion” recently, but very sad to see him letting it turn him into an ignorant bigot.

With his other problems that have surfaced recently, this is not going to help his image. Also provides another unneeded distraction going into his fight with Bradley.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dis...anned-hollywood-mall-says-he-has-gay-relative

Manny also criticized Obama's support of gay marriage. This is really ironic. Manny campaigned for Harry Reid when he ran against Sharon Angle. Reid supports gay marriage, Angle opposes it.

The situation here is actually pretty clear, though. Pacquiao was long known in the Philippines for his numerous mistresses. It reached the point where his wife Jinkee threatened to divorce him. Perhaps because of that, or perhaps more because his lifestyle was hurting his training, Pacquiao turned to religion to get his personal life in order.
 
Controversy or not, Pac lost. I'm now starting to think the Mayweather-Pacquaio fight will never come off. It already peaked as far as interest goes, and the shelf life has to be towards it's expiration date as far as a great fight is concerned. What's left now is whether or not HBO or anyone else really thinks the fight is worth forking over $100m plus for. This would be even if Pacquiao fights and whips Bradley in a rematch.

Look at it this way. At the rate things are going, it's not going to happen in 2012, and we could see a few fights from each guy, especially Manny, before any serious talks come back up. This puts us a year out. It's arguable, but I think true, that Manny is getting to the point where his career is starting to slip. Add a year and 2-3 fights to that, and I think the entire Mayweather-Pacman fight hits a point of diminished returns. Then there's the fact that Manny is involved in politics back in the Philippines, and Floyd keeps hinting at retiring.

They still could fight, but it will be for a smaller gate and much less interesting than it ever could have been (had they fought in 2010, for example).
 
I did not see the Pac-Bradley fight. Can someone who saw it explain how Pac loses the fight when by fight's end he has these stats to his advantage?

- punches connected: 253-159 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- jabs connected: 63-51 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- power punches: 190-108 (in favor of Pacquiao)

And the LA Times reported he was the aggressor, backing Bradley up many times. They reported they had to go back 20 or more years to find a more stunning/bewildering decision.

Promoter Bob Arum is quoted saying,
This is nuts. People don't know what they are watching anymore. I'm going to make a lot of money (in a rematch), but who is going to take this sport seriously?
I don't believe like Arum hints that they are really that stupid. Sounds like all 3 judges were paid off. Yes, I meant all 3 because they had to make sure it would be a split decision. Otherwise the cries of foul play would be even greater. I'm not saying there was foul play, but it just looks that way unless someone can explain what really happened.
 
Jan 15, 2011
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on3m@n@rmy said:
I did not see the Pac-Bradley fight. Can someone who saw it explain how Pac loses the fight when by fight's end he has these stats to his advantage?

- punches connected: 253-159 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- jabs connected: 63-51 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- power punches: 190-108 (in favor of Pacquiao)

And the LA Times reported he was the aggressor, backing Bradley up many times. They reported they had to go back 20 or more years to find a more stunning/bewildering decision.

Promoter Bob Arum is quoted saying,

I don't believe like Arum hints that they are really that stupid. Sounds like all 3 judges were paid off. Yes, I meant all 3 because they had to make sure it would be a split decision. Otherwise the cries of foul play would be even greater. I'm not saying there was foul play, but it just looks that way unless someone can explain what really happened.

That's very simple: DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. Half of the rounds were even, half tightly edged by Pacman.
 
on3m@n@rmy said:
I did not see the Pac-Bradley fight. Can someone who saw it explain how Pac loses the fight when by fight's end he has these stats to his advantage?

- punches connected: 253-159 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- jabs connected: 63-51 (in favor of Pacquiao)
- power punches: 190-108 (in favor of Pacquiao)

And the LA Times reported he was the aggressor, backing Bradley up many times. They reported they had to go back 20 or more years to find a more stunning/bewildering decision.

Promoter Bob Arum is quoted saying,

I don't believe like Arum hints that they are really that stupid. Sounds like all 3 judges were paid off. Yes, I meant all 3 because they had to make sure it would be a split decision. Otherwise the cries of foul play would be even greater. I'm not saying there was foul play, but it just looks that way unless someone can explain what really happened.

Pacquiao also connected on 33% of his punches, Bradley just 19%. Bradley threw a few more punches than Pac, but that is meaningless if they don't land.

I think this does smell of a fix. You often see one judge with a very different card from the other two, and assume it's because of bias, incompetence, or maybe valuing different things. But here you have three cards very close to each other, but completely different from what everyone else saw. Every sportswriter I know of had Pac by at least 9 rounds to 3. And Arum said when he went up to Bradley after the fight, but before the decision was announced, Bradley said he tried hard, but Pac was too good for him.

The two judges who had Bradley winning had Pacquiao winning four of the first six rounds, which is reasonable. It's in the second half of the fight where they gave Bradley almost everything.

I even wonder if Pac could have been in on the fix. The theory being he's given up on a fight with Mayweather, and sees a rematch with Bradley as the next best moneymaker. I found it a little remarkable that Pacquiao took the decision so calmly. Maybe he's just a very gracious loser, but considering the stakes--any remaining chance for a Mayweather fight is probably gone--you would expect he would have been angry and bitter. He didn't sound particularly upset at all. He even mentioned that he took it easy in several rounds, because he thought he was leading easily, and I think played defensively in the twelfth round, when it seemed Bradley had to KO him to win--and still all that didn'f frustrate him. And surely Freddie Roach should have been, but I don't think he commented much, either.

I don't think this is good for Bradley, either. The controversy obscures that he fought quite well, going toe to toe for twelve rounds with a guy who had larger opponents running away from him in the ring. Despite straining ligaments in his foot so badly in the second round that he was actually in a wheelchair after the fight was over! His other foot also had some problem.

Then again, considering Pac's previous fight with Marquez, maybe he has more trouble with smaller guys. Big guys like Margarito and Cotto hit harder than Bradley or Marquez, but they had trouble landing punches with Pac, or avoiding being hit by him. Maybe Bradley and Marquez both had advantages in that respect. Or maybe Pacquiao just isn't the fighter he was a year or two ago. Hard to say.

Assuming Pacquiao wins the rematch, he would next be available to fight next spring. Even assuming Mayweather wants to fight him and a deal can be made, both men will surely be past their prime by then. That, plus the dent in Pacquiao's seeming invulnerability, would make that bout much less anticipated than it would have been a year or two ago.

History will remember that they had a chance to make the most lucrative fight in history in their prime, and didn't do it. They should have learned from Juan Manuel Lopez, who was on a collision course with Yuriokis Gamboa, until Juan Ma lost in a stunning upset. Then he lost the rematch. Now that dream match is gone. They had a chance to make it, kept delaying, and the chance was lost.

The saddest recent news in boxing, though, has to be Paul Williams, apparently paralyzed from the waist down from a motorcycle accident. He was supposed to fight Canelo Alvarez this fall, which should have been a terrific fight. Williams was a real anomaly in the ring, 6'2" with a longer reach than many heavyweights, but capable of fighting at 154 or possibly even 147.

Update:

Bob Arum now says he wants an investigation, and won’t have a rematch until and unless that happens. Meanwhile, one of the judges who scored it for Bradley defends himself:

"If this were American Idol, without a doubt, Manny Pacquiao would have won," Ford said. "But it was not. I gave an honest opinion. I had Pacquiao up 4-2, I think, at the end of six rounds. I thought he hurt Bradley a couple of times early in the fight. But when the bell rang to end that round, it was over and what happens in one round doesn't carry over to the next round. They're separate units.

"In the second half of the fight, Pacquiao picked off a lot of punches to the head, but Bradley landed some hard body shots. That hurt Pacquiao. I don't mean it hurt him in the sense of it physically hurting him, but in terms of scoring and piling up points. Bradley did an excellent job standing his ground as a boxer. Remember, it's a boxing match and Bradley demonstrated his ability to box expertly."

"In pro boxing, you look for damage, and if the punches are equal and the damage is equal, you are looking for effective aggression, and that does not necessarily mean the guy going forward," Ford said. "Effective aggression can be a guy going back. And then you look at ring generalship, and that's all about control.

"When you score a fight of that magnitude, you know the criticism comes with the job. But unless you are totally focused on that scoring zone for three minutes, it's impossible to score the fight correctly. I know you can't do it talking into a microphone. It was a close fight in my mind that could have gone either way. The result was nothing more than three judges giving an honest opinion, and nothing other than that."

If you can be aggressive while going backwards, then I know a lot of very aggressive riders in the pro peloton.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/boxing...-ford-.html;_ylt=Atq5ZDkErlXSvLZjsbjZMog5nYcB
 
Agree with that.

This decision and the controversy surrounding it reminds me of the third Ali-Norton fight, where everyone was certain Norton won easily, but Ali got the decision. But in that case Ali was the champ, and Ali was you know, Ali. So it just seemed like a really bad decision from biased judges. This fight seems like some sort of fix.

I did hear that about Williams. He somewhat reminded me of Tommy Hearns, though not quite with that power. P4P to me Hearns is the hardest puncher in history. He just destroyed some people, even at 160 he still had impossible punching power.
 
Hearns was inducted into the HOF yesterday, along with Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach and some others. Why did it take so long for Hearns to get there? The others of the big 4 of the 80s--Hagler, Leonard, Duran--are already in. Even Sylvester Stallone was inducted last year (IMO, he doesn't belong there, but that's another story).

More fallout from the fight: Floyd himself said he thought Pacquiao won the fight. And there is an Irish betting site that is refunding the money to bettors on Pacquiao. Many people are saying they are through with boxing, will never buy another PPV, but they have been saying that for a long time.

One of the many sportswriters who thought the Pacquiao-Bradley decision was a joke did mention that in Vegas, judges really pay attention to activity. That is, the fact that Bradley threw more punches and (many) more jabs than Pacquiao, even though he didn’t land nearly as many, counted for a lot. The writer didn’t agree with that view, but he said every fighter in Vegas has to be aware of this. And in fact, in Pacquiao’s previous victory over Marquez, which many people think Marquez won, he threw more as well as landed more. That system works against counter-punchers like Marquez, who may land the more effective punches and still lose.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a boxing decision is like the American electoral college. You can have the most total votes, like Al Gore, and still lose because of the state to state distribution. In the same way, you can “win” a boxing match overall, by overwhelming your opponent in some rounds and being very closely matched in all the others, and still lose on a round to round basis. If the match was not fixed (?), that might be the other explanation. That Pacquiao clearly won all the rounds that were given to him, while Bradley won all the close rounds that might have gone either way. The American Idol reference of that judge suggests that might be why he gave the match to Bradley.

I think that illustrates another problem with boxing, though. The scoring system in principle allows for a more graduated approach. You get ten points for winning a round, and nine for losing a round. No other scores are given, unless you are knocked down, or commit some infraction, in which case a point is deducted. But if you’re going to have that ten point system, you should be willing to score the round’s loser less than nine if he loses badly. You should be able to grade the loser’s score over that entire scale, so that the round is not a winner-take-all system. Then some rounds might count for more than others.

I can understand that there might be good reasons for not doing it that way, but if the judges aren’t willing to do that, then it would be a lot simpler—really, less hypocritical-- to dispense with the ten point system and just give a single point for winning the round, deducting a point for a knockdown or infraction (so in principle a fighter could have a negative score for the match). Another advantage of this system is that one could look at the score and instantly know how many rounds each fighter won. Instead of having to figure it out from some score like 117-111.
 
The other thing about the 80's is that all those great champions actually fought each other, often several times. Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, Duran, they all fought each other. Same in the heavyweights in the 70's with Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, etc. No one sat back and demanded more money, to be their own promoter, to force drug testing, etc. etc. They got a good deal, and just fought. And the fights they had were some of the greatest in history.

As to Hearns and his power, his best night was probably Duran's worst, but what an incredible finish. Probably the most destructive KO that I ever saw, especially considering how hard of a chin Duran had. Even watching this today, some 25 years later, it's just astounding watching this fight and how impossibly devastating Hearns power was. In Marvin Hagler's career he was never knocked out, and never knocked down even. He said the only fighter who ever actually hurt him was Hearns. Link here to the Hearns-Duran fight
 
Mar 17, 2009
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Alpe d'Huez said:
The other thing about the 80's is that all those great champions actually fought each other, often several times. Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, Duran, they all fought each other. Same in the heavyweights in the 70's with Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, etc. No one sat back and demanded more money, to be their own promoter, to force drug testing, etc. etc. They got a good deal, and just fought. And the fights they had were some of the greatest in history.

As to Hearns and his power, his best night was probably Duran's worst, but what an incredible finish. Probably the most destructive KO that I ever saw, especially considering how hard of a chin Duran had. Even watching this today, some 25 years later, it's just astounding watching this fight and how impossibly devastating Hearns power was. In Marvin Hagler's career he was never knocked out, and never knocked down even. He said the only fighter who ever actually hurt him was Hearns. Link here to the Hearns-Duran fight

hearns-duran was epic, and hearns-hagler may be my all time favorite. you knew when the opening bell sounded is was not going the distance. two great champions, both in my top 5 all time favorites
 

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