Looks like a weird fight. He was knocked down once in the first, but the other two knockdowns were scored with a punch landed. There was another I'd call legit in I think it was the third where the ref called it a slip as well. Odd stuff.
It is an interesting fight. The winnner moves into world class consideration, especially if it is Bidenko. I mean he fought on even ground with Valuev in only his fourth fight and if he could have just made it out of the 12th he would have beat Virchis.
I agree. It doesn't feel like he could conceivably lose a fight at 147 since he has absurd physical advantages. That makes him campaigning there boring for me. I'd like to see him in the middleweights too.
EDIT: And I know he HAS lost, but it doesn't feel like that could happen again.
I really don't understand both always including a heavyweight or never including them. The idea of a P4P list is to rank fighters based on their skill and accomplishment absolutely regardless of weight class. Paying any special attention to heavyweights undermines the point of the whole exercise either way.
I love Angulo. He is one of my favorite young fighters. I hope he stays far away from Santos. I don't like the matchup for him. Santos by decision or late stoppage.
Clearly this is the first Ward fight you guys have seen. No, he isn't a clincher. He clinched a lot, but it was to smother Miranda's power. Ward has rarely clinched in his previous fights. Maybe he'll start now that he sees it is effective, but you can't make any generalization to call him a clincher yet.
No. Green doesn't have the heart, the will, the boxing skill, or the chin. He has tons of talent, but he'll never beat another talented fighter just like he never has.
Hatton's punch resistance was gone before the Mayweather fight, if he ever really had any. Collazo hurt him pretty bad in the 12th. He got hurt by Urango. A shot Castillo didn't touch him, but then Floyd KO'd him. He clearly got buzzed a couple times by a journeyman in Lazcano, and while of course Paulie couldn't hurt him (honestly Paulie couldn't hurt most of us), you saw what Manny did.
The only time he lost he was sick? True. The only time he lost was also the only time he fought anyone with a pulse too. Face it, years later the prospect matchup and destruction of Codrington is still his best win. What else is there to him? That snoozer decision against Rubin Williams (who by the way Ward stopped in his next fight)? The absolute fragile De Leon Jr? Or was it is heroic, come from the deck victory against demi-god Donnie McCrary?
Green has tons and tons of talent, but he has no desire to actually put it together. He wants a big check without earning it to walk away with. Everytime he negociates himself out of another fight, this becomes more and more frustratingly clear.
How have you guys never watched Shobox before? It is the same stuff that it has been for years and years. I agree though that it is a really weak team.
There are barely 12-15 good heavyweights in the world, let alone in Europe, total, let alone young ones.
There is the Wlad/Vitali section.
Then there is the Povetkin, Dimentreko, Haye, Johnson, Chambers, Arreola, Chagaev, and Valuev section.
Then for legit prospects? You bring up Boystov constantly so I went through his fights and frankly he does nothing impressive yet, though he is in his early 20s and has tons of time to improve. Pianetta? Come on. Ustinov is old and doesn't have anything but a bit of raw power. There are the newbie prospects like Fury and Price over in the UK or Wilder over here, but they are miles off being ready to fight anyone with a pulse, especially Wilder.
It is a weak division regardless of borders.
I'll say that it is improving slowly though. There are many matchups I'd be interested in watching for the first time in a while.
Martinez would beat Margarito now. I agree he loses to Williams in all probability, but he has an outside shot as he is better than Quintana at what Quintana did to Williams. He also beat Cintron really easily, three times. He KO'd him in the seventh, then Cintron's people came in the ring so he won by DQ, and then he won almost every round. Somehow that adds up to a draw.
Congrats at looking at his boxrec though. I'm proud of you.
Hatton held belts at two weight classes and was the real champ of one of them as well for quite a while. That is a strong legacy. Personally I think he should retire. He won't go down as an all time great, but he'll be remembered and there is really nothing he can do to change his status at this point barring a miracle turn around anyway.
If he does return, however, he should focus on fighting domestically over in England. He should be done with this place. For his first fight back he needs to pull up a bum from 135 to make sure nothing can possibly go wrong. This one needs to be about confidence. Willie Limond, anyway? After that, assuming it goes smoothly, the Witter fight makes tons of sense. If he gets through that some of those rather... gullible fans will think he is back, and from there a Khan (who has also fought three or four more times) fight suddenly makes sense.
If he were 3-0 in those fights, then he could try to re-enter the world stage. Maybe by that time he could even try for a belt by staying home and going after Paul McCloskey of Ireland who could very well have a belt in a couple years time. 140 is always weak and it will be again soon. 147 always carries tons more money and 135 even brings in more as well. It is just how boxing always works. There will be someone beatable for him to get a belt back. If he were to go 4-0 and get a title though, I'd pray he retires. If he made another assinine run at P4P status he'd probably die.
EDIT: After I typed that I realized he'd probably get a belt from the Khan fight. If he doesn't that means Khan was stopped again somewhere and that fight doesn't make sense anymore.
I didn't. I seem to be in a minority here, but I liked the undercard. Lara and Korbodov are fascinating prospects and Jacobs is blossoming into one of my favorites. I also enjoyed the Soto/Gaudet fight way more than anyone else. It was stylistically fascinating and Gaudet was doing really well, far better than Lederman was giving him credit for. I had him pulling even before the KO round.
Rafael isn't the type of writer to pull shit out of his ass. He can be kind of a arrogrant prick to read sometimes, but he's reliable. If he says 800k+ then that is the number. It is a really impressive number. Considering that in a much, much better economy, Mayweather (against a much more credible Hatton) barely beat those numbers is very telling.
Sick or not, Angulo would have won by KO if it was a 12 round fight. Cintron was done at the end of the 10th. Still, Angulo is always going to have trouble with top level fighters who box him. He'll lose a couple more times before his prime is even over. I like him a lot though. He makes for very good fights. He has a FOTY in him somewhere.
He won't lose. He will, however, win another fairly boring decision. He is the lightest hitting "power puncher" ever. Seems like anyone with any pop at all can come out of Colombia with a great KO record. It also seems like anyone with a hand can conceivably hurt Amir Khan, at least pre-Roach. Post-Freddie Amir remains to be seen. Perhaps improved defense will hide his chin, not to mention improved confidence. I've always held that at least a part of a fighter's chin is his confidence in it.
Prescott is really overrated from his semi-fluke of a win (fluke in the sense that what are the odds that there would be a star with such a bad chin for him to KO and make a name out of) and will fall hard if and when he steps up. This just isn't the step up.
Nice call. I'm not sure that even in saying he was crap I overestimated Prescott or I underestimated Vasquez. Probably both. I said earlier in the thread that Prescott would be eventually exposed without a doubt, but I just didn't think Vasquez would be the guy to do it. He was just a little sneakier than I thought he'd be. Prescott looked like Prescott has in every single fight. He just wings and falls in.
Against Khan he just got lucky. His wild left hook happened to land. Maybe it has power, maybe it doesn't. You can't tell. Seems any fighter can build a big KO record in Colombia and we've only really seen it land big against Khan who may or may not have the most fragile chin ever.
You've got it backwards. Rematches are only deserved in really close, competitive fights, in robberies, or years later when paths just happen to cross again. Khan wasn't remotely competitive. It would have been a bitch move to try to go after a rematch. Why would Prescott give him one? Money, of course, but Khan wouldn't have deserved it.
Now, in two nights, the tables have reverse. Khan has a belt and Prescott is no where near deserving of a title shot. Funny how it works.
Khan isn't champion of anything. He has a belt he won against a fringe contender in the division. I like Khan, but I will never acknowledge any ABC title as meaningful in any way other than as a stat for weight jumping glory. If you can grab them in three divisions then yeah that means something. The WBA is the worst of the four as well. Routinely they'll have three champions in the same division: interim, normal and super. The WBC does that too, but they do it with an interim that usually makes sense (actually champ is hurt or something) though not always. They'll also have a champion emeritus, an auto title shot if you retire as their champion. The IBF and the WBO are most sensible, but they also have the least historical weight and, especially the WBO, weaker champions. The WBO is notoriously spineless. How many longterm WBO champs have there been who were never forced to fight a live opponent in any of their mandatories? In complete honesty the IBO has made the most sense lately and it isn't even one of the credited four. They are all irrelevant. Keep track of the lineal champions which is usually but not necessarily the Ring champ and that is all that matters.
Who might actually face some minor drama tonight is Lara. I can't see him losing, but Darnell Boone has a deceptively bad record. He isn't a bad fighter.
Boone highlights:
• Only lost to Craig McEwan, a semi hyped Scottish prospect who beat Brian Vera by split decision last time out.
• Close decision loss to Brian Vera
• Only lost a majority decision to Zuniga
• Won a couple rounds against Jean Pascal
• Had a draw against Lajuan Simon who went on to give Abraham a few problems
• Dropped a close decision to Enrique Ornelas
• Hurt and dropped Andre Ward
He also fought and lost to Jean Pascal, Anthony Thompson, and Curtis Stevens. Every time he has fought at 168 he has lost easily, but below 160 and Boone has been competive with decent to good fighters. Lara is a higher class than him and will win, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him lose a round or two for the first time as a pro.