Just goes to show how hard it is to predict which guys will have staying power and which won't. Things change fast in boxing especially over seven years. Makes me appreciate guys like Floyd, Manny and Marquez who have been top level competitors since even before this thread was made.
Boxing anyone is always risky. Making the biggest fight of your career even more needlessly risky is stupid. Nobody gives credit to any fighter who pushes for a knockout, gets caught and is instead stopped and loses.
It's not evel like we can say Usyk coasted to a win. This was a dangerous fight for him all twelve rounds. At no point did I ever feel he was avoiding danger. And he certainly tried to close the show in the 12th when he saw his opportunity.
Of course his corner said don't needlessly give this guy chances. That's their job, to give good advice that helps their guy make winning moves. Usyk was smart to listen to them.
You know, if I was flying literally across the entire planet to watch a boxer I support compete in the biggest fight of his career, and then ten days before my booked trip I was told actually the fight's happening two weeks later lol good luck getting the flight/hotel refunded, I would be absolutely fucking livid beyond belief. Scheduling the fight for a Monday was stupid but it was scheduled, people made plans for the date they scheduled.
I scored this fight for Casimero purely on spite.
I've heard people say judges need to be more liberal with 10-10 round scores but honestly this fight needed the option to score rounds 0-0. I honestly feel bad for the judges who had to sit and watch this round for round. At least the fans who paid money for a ticket to this had the option of leaving early.
Maybe in some strictly pure world of boxing only as a sport you could make the case for Rigo. In the real world though scoring these rounds was like comparing slivers of pennies to see who wins an auction. Eventually you hit a point where there's so little on offer that figuring out the difference stops being worth the effort.
Sometimes in fights you get two or three round stretches where neither fighter does much of anything to distinguish himself and you basically have to invent some slim margin for why one guy was better in that round. In those situations I think it's fair to say, hey I gave one guy the arbitrary nod last round and this round was the same, so I'll give it to the other guy and they split the two rounds. When that happens for basically the entire fight eventually I'm just going to say fuck it, I'm done scoring and I don't care who wins. It's a draw, whatever.
In a fight like this where the twelve rounds are spent not only with neither guy ever distinguishing himself in any remarkable way, but specifically with one of the two guys doing everything in his power to make sure this does not change, at that point I think there's a pretty clear winner. The winner is the guy trying to fight in a combat sport. The loser is the guy trying to prevent at all costs a fight from happening. The winner is the guy who goes roughly towards where the other guy is and who throws his fists often enough to where I can believe he wants to hit his opponent with one of them. The loser is the guy who moves in every possible direction within the 180 degrees furtherst from his opponent and throws his fists like he is being billed $30,000 for each one.
I honestly don't know how this is even arguable, If this opinion makes me a "casual" boxing fan then great, call me casual and while we're at it let's make "casual boxing" its own separate sport where everyone is on the same page I am, where we all understand that this is a sport defined primarily by punching. Then the "purists" can have their very own "purist boxing" sport in which it is understood that punching is not something expected from the athletes competing in it. We can let the TV networks and advertisers figure out which sport fills stadium seats and broadcasts nationwide to millions of viewers.
A few dummies compared Rigo to Floyd earlier in this thread but Rigo makes even the Floyd who fought Baldomir look like Arturo Gatti on crystal meth. People paid millions of dollars to see Floyd Mayweather, they flew cross country and booked hotels to watch him in person. Even people who hated Floyd's style still paid to watch him if only to hope to see him lose. The one time I came remotely close to paying to see Rigondeaux, the people at my fight party literally forgot there was boxing on during his fight. They remembered again when Canelo and Cotto started walking out. That was probably Rigo's most-watched fight by far and I guaranteed you the vast majority of the people who watched it live could not name either of the fighters in it or tell you anything about the fight other than it was really boring. The few who remember Rigo was one of the fighters in that boring fight probably couldn't tell you who he was fighting without looking it up. I know I can't.
Seriously at this point I have to assume any outspoken Rigondeaux fan is just trolling. Nobody thinks he represents the pinnacle of boxing skill. The people who pretend they think so just want to look smart. Nobody actually likes watching Rigo fight. People just pretend they do because they want attention for being contrary. They won't admit it but if any of them wants to actually prove me wrong, I invite them to post a receipt of any kind proving they spent actual money and time and effort to support their favorite fighter in his live events.
no.1 for me. true definition of a world champ, travels around the world to champs backyards and takes their belts.
Bud doesnt have the resume, and Canelo is marred by corruption & PEDS, robberies etc.
I just don't see anyone between 160-168 who I'd pick to give Canelo anything close to a pickem match. And if we're gonna extend the range to 175 (which even considering that already says a lot) there's just Bivol and Beterbiev who are definitely dangerous fights but really only because of the size difference. Maybe Jermall Charlo in a year or two after a careful jump up to super middle. But otherwise yeah to me the essence of pound for pound is a guy so good nobody across 3 weight divisions feels they can credibly threaten them and that's Canelo right now for sure.
He's #2 now in my opinion.
More meaningful win today than anything Crawford or Inoue have done.
Inoue for me is largely the eye test, I love guys who attack the body but what Inoue does is more like watching a building get demolished.
Not choosing the path of the least resistance. picking & choosing the weakest belt holders & then running off to another division to do the same. All the while, likely being loaded to the gills, with the judges in his back pocket. if you think thats p4p no .1 kind of material then alright :fing02:
I guess I have to ask again. What do you think Canelo should be doing instead? Who do you think he should be fighting that he hasn't fought?
Not interested in your agendas.
Do you think he'll invoke the rematch clause?
He's got the kind of character to do it (and all credit for that), but in my opinion it's not worth it. Claim the eye is damaged, let the rematch go, and take an easier route back to a belt.
In round 8 I would have said for sure he will invoke the rematch card if he loses. But after the damage he took in those last rounds I think he would be smarter to take some time to heal up and maybe get a tune up fight in. My feeling is that if he decides a year from now that he's in top shape for a rematch Usyk would be more than happy to give it to him.
From a fans perspective I thought this was a great competitive fight and just beautiful boxing so I'd love to see it whenever it happens. My gut though is if it happens immediately then Usyk probably looks even better just from "winner in a rematch" advantage, and have trouble imagining Joshua making drastic enough adjustments to change the fight dynamic in so short of a time.
Canelo needs every advantage, legal & non legal to win a fight, sorry but thats not a no.1 p4p world champ for me. Choosing the path of least resistance...
Canelo is more a manufactured fighter, like AJ. imo.
What do you think Canelo should be doing instead outside of fighting guys at 175, which he'll probably be doing next year anyway?
I like Terence Crawford a lot and he's my favorite active fighter to watch fight now but like, if a portal opens up and an alternate reality 147 pound sized Usyk steps out and challenges him to a fight I still don't think I can pick the winner.
Hmm two fights between top 5 pound for pound fighters that were extremely close and could have gone either way, with tons of action across all twenty four rounds... nah no point in doing a third one
:bigeyes:
I enjoyed the card. I already put my $100 down on DAZN earlier this year and can't complain about getting 5-6 fights over a good quality stream every week or two.
Ceballo was the standout on the undercard, he has a lot of developing to do but is definitely someone to keep an eye on.
Ali Akhmedov also looks like a guy to keep tabs on.
I thought GGG looked rusty in the first two rounds but to be fair he's been out of action for nine months. By round 3 he looked warmed up and seemed to land at will. I did notice more emphasis on body shots from Golovkin, something I wanted to see more of against Canelo.
I wouldn't have bought this fight on PPV but as subscriber content I think this night delivered more value than your average HBO card used to.
Boxing isn't going to be mainstream in the internet age, but I think it will get bigger among casual sports fans in the coming years. The platforms boxing is on now (ESPN, DAZN, Fox/FS1) are more geared toward sports fans whereas HBO was always more concerned about building stories and appealing to niche subscriber demographics with the fighters they promoted.
You won't get the same kind of attention the sport had with Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather drawing celebrity attendance, but I think we will see more general sports enthusiasts return to the sport, and I feel that this generation of fighters will be a lot better off than the last one, even if none of them really have potential to "cross over" into mainstream consciousness.
Canelo is chasing greatness, that means collecting all the belts at middleweight or fighting the best at super middleweight. This is a pointless fight.
It's not pointless, plenty of people think there is unfinished business here and that the question of who is the best at middleweight has not been settled.
The first two were good close action-packed fights between two elite boxers. I know I want to see it again.
I always thought Andrade was really good and had a lot of potential, but was never active enough to capitalize on it. Maybe one of the biggest examples of wasted potential in recent years.
I'm also gonna put it out there that I'm a boxing fan and watch the occasional MMA event if it happens to be on TV/stream and someone tells me about it. I don't know if I could name five active UFC fighters without having to google their names to confirm, especially outside their heavyweight division.
Pacquiao lost the first fight clearly, but let's be real it was a pretty uneventful fight on both ends and was notable for having an exceptionally low punch count for a welterweight championship fight. I had Manny and Floyd trading rounds until round 9 when Floyd separated himself, at the time I didn't see this as some hugely dominant win. Floyd had a consistent edge but it was a slight one, at no point did I ever think "these guys shouldn't be sharing the ring together" like I did when for example Mayweather fought Canelo or Pacquiao fought Broner.
Basically there wasn't enough that happened in the first fight to make me think Manny couldn't be competitive in the rematch if he made the right adjustments. I also have a feeling the rematch would be a better fight since the second time around there wouldn't be as much insane pressure on both fighters.
To be honest, I am still interested in this rematch, based on Manny's current level of performance at welterweight and contingent on whether Floyd is "retired" instead of retired. It will be a blatant cash grab if they do it but I don't have a problem with that really. That people here still argue about the two fighters underscores their continued relevance to the sport. I also just personally would love to see the fight live, hopefully at prices below the $8000 floor of the first fight.
When did Bradley fight TBE? (Mayweather) Another Pac fanboy I see. 118-110 TBE. To help you with future scoring, Pac won Rounds 4 and 6.
Don't be dense. In 2011 a lot of people had Pacquiao as top pound-for-pound. It was an open question as to who was on top, but at the time Pacquiao was more active (six fights between 2009-2011 compared to Mayweather's three) and Floyd wasn't helped by the unusual way his 2011 fight with Victor Ortiz ended.
Google "2011 boxing pound for pound rankings" and you can see what people thought at the time. For example here is Ring Magazine ranking Manny as p4p #1 above Floyd:
https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_2011
In 2012 perceptions flipped as Manny lost both his fights that year, first to Bradley which most felt was controversial and then to Marquez which was very uncontroversial.
I would have really liked to see Bradley-Maidana and Bradley-Khan in 2010-2011. Bradley-Maidana was at one point negotiated but Maidana had to pull out due to a back injury. Style wise Bradley-Maidana would have been a war, although I feel Tim probably would have fought a more disciplined fight than his approach against Provodnikov. I always felt Maidana was very underrated for most of his time as an active fighter, and though I wouldn't pick him over Tim I 'm confident he would have been very competitive and dangerous throughout.
Bradley-Khan was very publicly negotiated and even sounded like a done deal at times, but promotional disputes with Gary Shaw led Bradley to join Top Rank and pursue Pacquiao instead. A lot of people feel Bradley ducked Khan, I personally don't take anything said publicly about negotiations at face value and in any case I wouldn't call a guy "ducking" when he goes to fight the #1 p4p guy instead, but I still think it's a huge shame we never got Bradley-Khan to settle who was the best at 140 when both were in their primes. As division rivals they had an intriguing style matchup, with Bradley being a jack-of-all-trades fighter who lacked "flash" but still got the job done, and Khan being a very specialized physical specimen with his extraordinary hand speed. Up until Bradley fought Pacquiao, he had never faced a guy with hand speed comparable to Khan's, and we all know that speed kills. I don't believe either fighter would have knocked the other guy out if they had fought, and my opinion is that if they fought it would be a strafey, tactical figght that I would favor Bradley to win on his footwork.
32 may be the point where boxers physically decline but you can't put a number on experience, and plenty of fighters have proven that their experience can overcome physical gaps caused by age, to a point anyway.
I don't think anyone is saying Crawford had a better run at 140 than Bradley or Garcia. He's conquered the division but it's definitely much weaker than it was five years ago.
People are big on Crawford because he has pound-for-pound credentials and a skillset that will likely translate well to bigger weight classes. He conquered the 135 and 140 lb weight classes and the only real challenger in either division that he hasn't yet fought is Mikey Garcia. If Crawford carries his speed and power all the way to welterweight he will be seen as a huge threat to anyone in that division, Thurman or Spence or whoever.
the trouble with 'proven accomplishment in the ring' is that it makes total sense on a theoretical level but not on a practical level, not these days.
Fighters these days are so inactive that we are lucky to get 2 fights a year and actually 4 fights in 3 years is more like it and likely one of those is a stay busy - case in point Bud vs Avanesyan.
My P4P doesn't stay the same for months at a time - you're as good as your last two fights and because my eye test doesn't often let me down then if you pass my eye test by totally wiping the floor in a step-up fight or in other words vastly exceeding expectations - then you are climbing my p4p.
Canelo was in my top ten p4p prior to the Bivol fight - now after failing to get a stoppage against a very poor Golovkin he is NOT in my p4p. But, who knows, a couple of good performances and he will be back in.
Me too! Totally agree with this. Comparisons with RJJ raw ability are justified - now he needs to go get those signature victories.
My feeling is that fighters represent ongoing projects. Boxing isn't the NBA where you have 82 data points a year to judge teams and set up power rankings. I guess I could see a vision of p4p that is essentially a "power rankings" or "trending/hot fighters" list. But imo, a fighter is as good as every winning performance they've had in their past until proven otherwise.
For example my own personal list would have Canelo at the top with a pretty clear lead because the "project" of Canelo as a fighter has been extremely successful across several years and against a variety of top fighters with diverse styles. He's not just someone I -think- would beat a variety of current competitors across weight divisions, he's already proven he can. I still have him at the top spot despite the Bivol loss because while it was a bad style matchup Canelo failed to adjust to, it was also a fight against arguably the best guy at a division seven pounds up from where he's competed over the last couple years... not to mention about four divisions up from where his career began!! And while he failed to knock out Golvokin, I don't see that as a knock on Canelo. Golovkin himself had a strong claim to the top pound for pound spot just a few years ago, he's one of the best to ever fight and even at 40 years old is still very good. And that was the first fight I personally feel Golovkin lost cleanly (I think he beat Canelo in their first two).
Is Canelo "trending down" now that he lost to Bivol and didn't dispatch Golovkin? Maybe... but he's got a loooong way down for me to not have him ranked on my pound for pound list. His career has been exceptional and I expect that to continue for some time. At least until someone proves me wrong.
Idk all three of these guys still pass the eye test to me. I don't see anybody at the weight beating Fury except by luck, the physical dimensions + skillset are immense. I also think Wilder and Joshua are a clear cut above the field until proven otherwise, losing to Usyk / Fury is nothing to be ashamed of and even the ATGs of the past sometimes got caught by plucky guys like Andy Ruiz before bouncing back.
The reality of heavyweight is that outside of the championship there are like 20 guys who are at a roughly equal skill level. There are always dangerous new contenders just because it's easy at the class to knock out a bunch of bums and get a good looking record. It's all fools gold though, most of these guys would go 50/50 against each other so they all maintain pretty records hoping for a title shot and payday. I'll believe there's a new top guy when I see him come out on top.
There's always going to be hot young guys. Sometimes you can just tell by looking at a fighter that they will have a special career. I felt that way abut Terence Crawford when I first saw him and I think that's panned out. But imo the panning out part is pretty huge.
With that said, imo it's definitely a great time to buy Boots Ennis stock. The only thing I'm worried about with him is that it's been too easy, and what happens when it stops being too easy. But that's a great problem for a young fighter to have.