Wlad nearly got KOed by one-punch-at-a-time Peter, no way is he the top guy in the division.
Gotta go with Toney until he loses. Lamon seems to be a popular choice these days as well...guess he's been looking pretty good lately.
At the end of the day boxing is part of the entertainment industry as much as it is a sport, and to be fair the two fights were not the most entertaining!
Before you all start screaming and shouting, I am not disrespecting either fighter they are both great fighters but this was not a classic fight in the mold of Hearns - Hagler, Leonard - Duran etc etc, it was a tactical chess match and a boxing fan can see that and find it interesting but most people watch boxing to see one or the other fighter get knocked about and in this case it didn't happen!
Your points are definitely valid but it doesn't explain why boxing writers who are supposedly boxing fans on a boxing website are badmouthing this fight so much.
I wouldn't mind them taking the odd tomato can if the top fighters fought more frequently. Sugar Ray Robinson would take on nobodies pretty much as pratice, sometimes several in a row, once a week, to stay in game shape for the big fights.
When a guy takes five months off and then fights some nobody mandatory, and then waits another five months and takes on another one, and then only five months after that does he match up again with a live opponent, it becomes very frustrating for the fans who he picked up when he scored his first big win.
As for only matching up with top-flight fighters, though, I don't necessarily think that that's necessary. Hell, the best NFL teams get the odd week off when they face weak divisional opponents, or whatever. But they also have to play a game every week.
Word has it, actually some sites are posting it, that Hatton is going to fight Gatti next year. Yeah...
I personally would rather see him fight a good "gatekeeper" in the division like Corley instead.
What division are you talking about? Cause Gatti's up at welter now.
Okay, here is my take on the issue: Hatton wants to fight Floyd but he doens't want to give up his belts if he loses. Floyd's move up to welter gives him a good excuse to follow him, setting up a matchup where no titles will be on the line. But to tune himself up for the jump up to that weight, Hatton will want to get another guy in the division he has a good chance of beating but that will also give him a big payday in his first big show in America. And this is why Gatti's name has come up cause he fits the bill perfectly.
Another interesting thing to consider: Floyd could beat both Zab and Hatton next year yet earn zero belts in the process. Not that that matters, but it's sort of funny.
Jermain only because he's heading into some tougher competition now. Fights with Winky or any of the guys coming up in the super middle division are a definite possibility, and there's plenty of potential for him to trip up.
If/when Lacy takes care of Calzaghe the way is clear for him to dominate for a while. If he takes on Kessler or Zsolt, which I doubt he will, they may give him some trouble but I say he takes both. I'm guessing a move up into light heavy is in the cards, though. At that level maybe Tarver or Glencoffe might give him a bit of a test but they're both getting old fast.
What are you talking about? This will be the first great fight of the new millennium, of course I'm buying it.
Oh, wait a minute, this is 2005, not 1999. In that case I wouldn't pay a nickel to watch too washed-up has-beens in the middle of unimpressive comebacks slog their way through 12 rounds.
Bombardier... see, these guys are THE BEST in the world and that is why they have a top 10... number ONE and two are not supposed to wait until number TEN gets a shot. The world chmpionship isn't supposed to be protected and used and played with... it is supposed to be DEFENDED
All right, but when exactly did this golden era you speak of end? I don't think the 80s were as great as you seem to claim. For example, I don't think that you could claim that every single opponent of Larry Holmes was a top-flight prospect. As for Hagler, his 2 post-Duran fights weren't exactly against memorable names, and while he fought Mugabi after Hearns, he took nearly a full year to do so, and then another yaer passed before he took on Leonard. If Taylor fights a nobody next fight and then takes on a bigger name after that, probably about a year will have passed so he will be fighting top contenders at the same rate as Hagler.
I predict that in 10 years or so people will look at these fights a lot differently, and they may even be considered to be minor classics. Right now people are being either too cynical or too biased when they look at them, after that has all passed watch how perceptions change.
He will also be a slugger but his right hand is showing up alot more now and his head movement is better. He should tighten up his defense but he is what he is. And thats enough to give anybody hell.
That right is what did it for him for sure. At the very least it's a distraction so he can set up his left. But it seemed to have a lot of pop to it as well.
Manny is a great fighter any way you look at it, but it seems like he's really getting the hang of improving his all-around game now, so that's why I brought this all up.
Yes we do....LOL your a good guy.Where do you live western Canada?
lol, well as long as I there are places on-line to get these fights I think I'll hold off on the move.
I live in Ottawa, in Ontario...straight north from where you are. My family used to drive down to Florida every few years when I was a kid.
Oh well why does the Ouma fight start so late...... :confused:
It's tape delayed on our sports network. I'd like to say that it's because of a hockey game because that would be so typical, but it's actually because of the Australian Open, which is way lamer.
I did not mean that like you were a kid either I meant it like able to stay awake.....LOL
LOL! Yeah, I don't think my mom's gonna call and tell me it's past my bedtime.
It's harder to stay up late than it used to be though. Don't know if it's because of work or age.
FNF comes on at 12:30 here. But I'll stay up cause it should be an interesting one.
Here's the kicker, though: because Gatti is so beloved in Canada his fight is gonna be on fucking PPV! :mad: You guys got any room in your country for me? :D
Listen, if he successfully defends a few times, or even just once against a worthy opponent, he'll be on the list, but as i say AGAIN.. there's no way he should be in the top 10 yet until he's done a little more than win 2 close-narrow decisions with a man getting close to retirement(taking nothing away from either of the fights).
Hatton beat a man getting close to retirement only once and he's got the #5 spot. Before that his career is no more impressive than Taylor's. But the Ring is just a pro-Hatton as they are anti-Taylor.
As for JMM, his draw was impressive but a)it wasn't a win and b)it was two years ago! Yes he has won in "impressive" fashion since that time but against nobodies. Taylor's won in impressive fashion against opponents of equal caliber plus he has two wins against the guy who was (let's not forget) their #1 p4p fighter for more than a year.
A guy beats their #1 p4p fighter twice and doesn't even crack the top 10? Nonsense.
Nice, huh? I would send you a letter but I'm all out of anthrax.
:lol1: well according to some of your pundits all the terrorists come through Canada, so I can probably scare some up for you.
I got tackled by a cop when I was younger and I was on X and he was sqeezing me and i was like dude this feels good......LOL
:lol1: hopefully you had enough restraint not to hug him back.
I don't know, Merchant was all over Manny's nuts ever since Pacquiao beat Ledwaba.
He went on and on about the gloves in the first fight, so he is definitely a Paq fan. But hell, he was probably right now when you think about it.
Plus Merchant is there more or less to provide "colour" to the announcing. I don't expect him to be as objective as the other two. Lampley especially should not be favouring any fighter.
You should hear them in the Wlad-Sanders matchup. Merchant was the harshest.
He went from calling Wlad untouchable to the "next big bust." Oh, I have this fight stored on my computer. It's just truly funny. It's also funny that they were dismissing Wlad in the fight (some 5 years ago) and Wlad is STILL on HBO.
I only saw that fight once and don't remember it all that well, but that's pretty hilarious. HBO's stable of fighters is looking pretty grim right now outside Mayweather.
Apparently the guy is a bit of a two-fisted slugger, so it could be quite interesting. There's the same sort of buzz around him that there was around Torres before the Cotto fight, and we'd be lucky if it was half as good as that one.
The worst beating I have ever seen Pac dish out was in his title winning match against the classy Lehlo Ledwaba.
Pac was a supposed to be a fill in and he went out and delivered as brutal a beating as I have ever seen. I believe the fight only lasted 6 rounds but it appeared that after three Lehlo's nose and his cheekbones were busted.
Not many fights make me feel real sad but I felt horrible for Lehlo-Pac took his entire career from him in 6 rounds.
Fuck that was a brutal fight. The way Ledwaba was staggering around towards the end was painful to watch.
How about that guy who was on FNF last week? Rakkiatgym. Floored four times by Pac in one round and then out cold for like half an hour afterwards.
I don't remember anything in particular, but I wouldn't be surprised. Merchant has no opinions and just 'goes with the flow'. This is also the same network that was surprised that Cotto wasn't as good as they state he was.
No kidding about Cotto. Watch the replay of the fight this weekend and you'll see they had nothing but good things to say about Morales until it was obvious he was getting his ass kicked, then they suddenly switched gears.
I would love to see Mora fight someone of note, and catch a beatdown. He's an arrogant prick. He is a decent fighter, but lacks punching power(3 KO's in like 20 fights).
Plus he has so many people in boxing kissing his ass. Fucking Teddy Atlas was drooling over him in the rematch fight and made it sound a lot closer than it really was (still think he won it, though).
then this fVcker Jim Lampley was gettin hyper in shyt afta round 2 (EVNthough Pac had a huge round in that one) he goes "Pacquiao's face is already swelling up big product of Morales' excellent jabs".
Shyyyyt, that was Manny's round. Give him the credit you biased piece of shyt!
Manny had Morales reeling in that round and nearly KOed them right then and there. Lampley didn't seem to notice, or didn't want to.
listen, Anti-Taylor or Pro-Taylor, we can go back and forth all day with our points, but nothing is going to change until the "champ" decides to fight someone else impressive (or even win impressively for once), and i've yet to see either.
You made a lot of good points in your post, I just think that a lot of people are being too hard on Taylor because of their HBO-DiBella conspiracy theories. I mean, every fighter is hyped up by their promoters, right? Hopkins has been really good at "selling" this story and while I like BHop I think he is being pretty petty with all this.
They're announcers...and they were calling the fight as they saw it. You say that they were praising Morales in the first 5 rounds? Maybe, but he was also controlling the fight up until that point and he was giving somewhat of a performance like he gave in the first fight (even though Pacquiao looked much better and was landing a lot more).
Steward acknowledged that Morales had no answer for the straight left and that Manny seemed to be a lot more lively too.
Maybe I just didn't really LISTEN to the announcers that much because I was too upset from seeing my boy get dropped and knocked out for the first time. :(
Watch the replay and I think you'll see what I mean. Manny_P posted all the best examples of what I was talking about.
I think the first 2 rounds were up for grabs, and round 2 easily went to Paq, yet Lampley and Steward could not stop talking about how great Morales was. Rounds 3-5 I'll give you, though they did not make the fight the foregone conclusion that Lampley seemed to think it was.
And, come to think of it, Steward could not shut up about Pac's balance. I know that's an issue with him, but it was a non-factor in this fight from the opening bell. Yet Steward seemed to be wishing for him to trip up.
thn Jim Lampley at the end of 5th round was like "so if the question is, IS THIS FIGHT DIFFERENT FROM LAST TIME, the answer is NOOOO" I felt like punchin his face on the TV. I'm like, you just wait beotch, Pac will get his rythm goin.
Yeah, Lampley's been bitchy as hell lately. I'm sure HBO doesn't appreciate him trashing every fight he calls by like the fourth of fifth round.
Lampley is, & always was, a fraud of a boxing guy. I've been saying that forever.
He's constantly calling the wrong punch, a punch that didn't land , missing ones that did, or exaggerrating the effect of a blow.
The one prelim the other night (young southpaw, Puerto Rican prospect) KO'd his foe with a right hook. Clear as day in my eyes. But, Lampley couldn't stop screaming that it was a left hand that did the trick.
Just an idea of how bad he is....
There are like three basic punches in boxing, I can't believe how many writers and announcers get it wrong when they talk about this or that punch.
With Andre Ward's last fight everyone said he went down with a left hook, when it was clearly, clearly, a right uppercut that nailed him (Boone tapped him briefly with his left before he went down).
imo this fight was one of the easiest to score that I've ever seen.
1 - Morales (this one is the closest, though)
2 - Pac
3-5 Morales
6-10 Pac
Except for round 1 I don't think there's any dispute.
Story of the fight is simple: Morales took control in round 3 and lost it in 6.