Unexpectedly good matches and inexplicable decisions permeated the last two weeks of boxing, as well as news that the camps of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are close to finalizing things to make way a megafight in March. I'd say I'm excited, but I'll just be hoping that the former doesn't all of the sudden have an "injury" and the fight gets pushed back towards the summer...
--Lucian Bute should take Jermain Taylor's place in the Super Six tourney if he drops out. 'Nuff said, and no other names or suggestions, either. He looked brilliant in his dispatching of Librado Andrade and deserves sole consideration based on skill alone. It would certainly change its complexion anew, once more.
--Want a real no-brainer? Look no further than Ali Funeka-Joan Guzman, whose "majority draw" is one of the biggest jokes in recent boxing history (and surely not the last in the coming days...). Funeka dissembles Guzman in "unanimous decision" fashion and turns his face into a red mush and is awarded...a "draw", instead of the vacant IBF Middleweight Championship they were challenging for. There was nary a person who didn't disagree with the judges' foolishness, and a full investigation should be levied against them, if not a revocation of their licenses. On the somewhat brighter side, Funeka is at least garnering the attention and recognition he so deserves, even if its not in the form of an "official" one...
--Roy Jones, Jr. just keeps looking worse and worse with each major fight. Sure, he'll look like gold against a feeder, but he's nothing but pyrite in reality and it painfully shows in his biggest recent fights. Calzaghe made a spectacle of him one bloody November night and Danny Green cleaned his clock in the spread of a round. So why, in a time in boxing where age is seemingly just a number and fighters "still got it" in their late 30s and beyond, has Jones looked so broken-down? Simply put, he has fought people that he could easily beat and look good against for far too long and has not accommodated his style for his diminished skills and weakening chin. The likes of Hopkins and Mosley have stayed sharp by challenging the best out there and fighting smarter in the ring. Jones, in the meantime, has done the opposite and continues to eschew good defense and leave himself wide open with his left hand dangling down. It's clear that Jones hasn't learn his lesson in his defeats to Tarver, Johnson, and Calzaghe, and perhaps it will not matter if retirement follows soon after. Although, I said the same thing after he lost to the latter.
--On the subject of Hopkins, he still looks great, as he held off a scrappy Enrique Ornelas in a match that turned out better than what I was expecting. Both of them went at it, but Hopkins proved to be the slicker of the two. It may seem odd from the outset that he still wants to fight Jones next year (as planned if both had won their fights that day), but it makes perfect sense when you think about it. One, he badly wants to avenge his loss to him early in his career nearly two decades ago. Two, such a match would make him loads (and loads) of money. Three, Jones is very vulnerable to KOs now, and such a win against him would easily make his day. Cheap and diluted? Perhaps (if not outright), but I bet he could care less at this point...
--Light welterweight Danny Garcia, who won impressively on the Hopkins undercard, looks very promising. Certainly a name worth looking out for in the future.
--In another scintillating chapter of "Bad Decisions", Tim Coleman somehow beat Mike Arnaoutis by split decision. The fight itself was alright, but nothing too exciting.
--The Holly Holm-Melissa Hernandez fight was looking good, until all of the crap that hit the fan. No one from Hernandez's camp was around at the time to see the champion Holm's hand wrapping (though an official was and saw no fault), Hernandez's trainer later inspects them herself and OKs it, Hernandez (still in street clothes and not in her fight attire yet) and her manager demand her hands get rewrapped, which Holm's manager agrees to after an argument, but which the two blow off regardless (according to them, due to wasting time with the matter and not getting ready to fight because of it) and leave the arena (with an allegedly failed attempt at bribing the Holm camp out of more money to fight her anyway). Holm would eventually fight, and defeat, a fighter who was a spectator at that night's very event (though to her credit, she had fought only a few days before and was cleared to compete right there). Overall, IMO, it sounds like a whole lot of overreacting and perhaps ill mental-preparedness on the challenger's part, though the articles present the mess in more detail. The funny pre-fight quote from "Huracan" Hernandez?
“I make no excuses on Friday night. I’m here to punch the ‘Rabbit’ in the face and to expose her. I am women’s boxing."
Uh huh, yeah sure...
...Part 2 later on today...
No comments:
Post a Comment