5 Thoughts on yesterdays boxing: 1. Bernard Hopkins fought a very spirited, high energy fight against Karo Murat, especially when you consider how Hopkins usually fights, and when you consider that his opponent Murat is only 30 years old, and Bernard is 130 years old. The fight had numerous high volume punch exchanges where clean punches where landed, and Hopkins showed excellent head movement and defense at times. It was really quite amazing to see a man at his age (48 years old) fight in that manner. Now if you think he would EVER fight that way against an Adonis Adonis Superman Stevenson or a Sergei Kovalev, forget about it. Bernard didnt get this far in his career by being stupid. There is a time and place for everything, even in boxing. 2. Why is it that in boxing, whenever there is a gross miscarriage of justice, we all yell and scream about how bad it is that fighter A,B, or C got screwed, robbed, mistreated, etc, but within 24 hours, we all just say Well thats boxing and move on? As fans perhaps this is acceptable. Sports are a diversion, entertainment, something to take your mind off of the daily grind. But for people who are full time members of the media, those whose lively hood depends on covering and following the sport, it is completely unacceptable. The fact that very few, if any, in the boxing media have so little to say about the epidemic of bad decisions that take place on the highest level of the sport on what seems to be a weekly basis now, is almost as disturbing as the poor decisions themselves. Once again last night, Gabriel Rosado, if not for the stoppage on cuts, was going to become the victim of bad judging, had his fight been allowed to continue. Rosado fell behind in the early rounds of his bout with Peter Quillin, but was coming on strong in the later rounds, backing Quillin up and landing clean shots throughout. When the doctor stopped the fight due to a nasty cut over Rosados eye (which is also debatable considering what was at stake) and gave Quillin a TKO victory, we later learned that even if the fight had continued, Rosado was so far behind on two of the judges cards, he was going to need a KO to win! One of the judges gave Peter Quillin EVERY round, another gave him every round except one. No one watching that fight, except for the three people with an official score card, would have given Quillin every round. It was a very close fight, with some people even scoring it with Rosado ahead at the time of the stoppage. But as we later found out, cut or no cut Rosado was going to lose. Well all complain and cry about it for a day or so, but by Wednesday morning, the whole boxing world will just say, Thats boxing and move on, until some terrible decision happens again next week, and then well all find a reason to be outraged again for another couple of days. If bad officiating and decision making was constantly and consistently effecting the outcome of NFL games, or EPL matches, the outcry from the media that covers those sports would be so great that those people in decision making positions for those leagues would be forced to address it and make changes. Why? Because those people realize that the if the integrity of their sport is constantly being questioned, the sport will eventually be marginalized and pushed out of the mainstream, just like boxing. A lot of pressure has been applied by boxing media in recent years when it comes to drug testing. Lets see them do the same thing when it comes to corrupt judging. 3. Kell Brook scored an impressive KO of Vyashaslev Senchenko yesterday. He consistently walked his man down and landed clean, very hard shots. Brook looks like hes a big 147 pounder, and because of that he may present some serious problems for some of the top guys in the division not named Floyd Mayweather. He did get stunned momentarily by Senchenko in the 4th, but that may have come as a result of getting too comfortable. Lets hope it is for his sake. If he gets caught like that by an Alexander, Broner, Thurman, etc, he wont get a chance to bounce back so quickly. Now we need to see if his promoter Eddie Hearn is going to actually match him against one of the welterweight title holders, or just put him in with another name fighter. Brook seriously needs to be fighting for titles at age 27. He doesnt want to spend his prime years fighting has beens and journeymen. 4. Another Hearn fighter, junior middleweight Brian Rose won a split decision over Argentinian contender Javier Maciel. The fight was a WBO eliminator, and supposedly, Rose will next fight for the WBO title. Bad move. Maciel, who is a little stiff and unpolished, was able to bust up and hurt Rose on numerous occasions throughout the fight by constantly coming forward, because Rose didnt have the power to keep him away. The three men ranked ahead of Rose by the WBO, Vanes Martirosyan, Demetrius Andrade, and Zaurbek Baysangurov are all capable of finishing the job and closing the deal where Maciel could not. The WBO may say that hes ready, but he really isnt. He needs to develop more than just a good jab before he challenges one of these guys. 5. Kudos to Golden Boy/Showtime/Al Haymon for realizing that Adrien Broner vs Marcos Maidana is NOT a Pay Per View worthy event. Its a good fight yes, but no one should be asked to pay $60+ to watch it at home. PPV is an old and dying business model as it is, especially in the age of the internet and 200 cable channels. Consumers simply have too many choices for anyone to think that the vast majority will pay hard earned money to watch someone that, quite frankly, theyve never heard of if they dont have an HBO or Showtime subscription. Remember, in a nation of 100 million cable TV homes, only 18-20 million of those homes have Showtime. Only 30 million of those have HBO. Boxing is the only sport that takes it best, and puts them where the least amount of people can see them (premium cable, PPV). Putting Broner vs Maidana on regular Showtime instead of PPV is not free, but its a step in the right direction. If you read all of this rant/article/post, thank you for your patience and you love of boxing!!
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:31:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015