by David P. Greisman
Barclays Center was buzzing about boxing for the second time in a little bit more than a month.
In late June, this arena in Brooklyn hosted an entertaining welterweight fight between titleholder Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. This past weekend, the main event saw Carl Frampton take a majority decision in a wonderful battle with featherweight titleholder Leo Santa Cruz.
Thurman-Porter was quite good. The promoter of both shows, Lou DiBella — who often puts on cards involving fighters signed with boxing adviser Al Haymon — said that Santa Cruz-Frampton was even better.
“The last time we were here I called the Thurman-Porter fight the fight of the year because of the competitiveness of it at such a high skill level,” DiBella said at the post-fight press conference. “I think that might’ve been outdone by this. You could make a very strong argument that you were just privileged enough to see the fight of the year, because these guys fought a war but at a tremendously high skill level.”
“It was f***ing great,” he said. “I’ve been given the opportunity to promote some brilliant, amazing fights. It was a privilege to promote this fight."
" But obviously as a fan it was more of a privilege to watch this fight. It was such a great fight. Neither guy went down. Bombs were landing. It was friggin, like, bombs away, man. I’m like humbled by watching that sh*t. If you’re a boxing fan and you didn’t like that, then there’s something wrong.”
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com
