If there is anything I have ever learned from watching fighting sports is that there will always be an audiance for guys that are freakishly big.
If basketball fans can have a place in their hearts for a Manute Bol or a Georghe Murisan, fighting fans can have a place for Valuev.
In K1 there are already marginally competiant guys that are 7 feet tall or slightly smaller. Schilt, Choi, and Nortje are all 6'11 or taller and they are marginally competant, just like our boy Valuev. People watch them for their size, not their technique or their personality.
Unfortunately, that is real and it is something that happens every once in a while in kickboxing or other MMA sports that involve kicking. The guy will either break his ankle kicking the other guy, or the other guy will kick his ankle when there is weight on the ankle and it buckles.
It is much more common for the ankle to crack and to be repaired after the fight, like the time Donovan McNabb (pro american football) broke his ankle and finished a game.
This fight would be a better fight than Mayweather Gatti, especially if Hatton came to the US to fight Gatti before Mayweather walked all over him.
Gatti will still have an easier time with Hatton than he did with Mayweather. I am not saying that Gatti will win, or even make it out of the 6th round, but Gatti is at his best when he takes a beatdown and then comes back to make the fight more competitive. Hatton will give him that opportunity. Mayweather's defense was just too good and Gatti's corner would not let him go on because he was taking too much punishment and not giving anything back. If this fight was made, Gatti would keep hitting back and landing, and ultimately take more punishment from the bigger stronger guy.
I don't think that Gatti deserves a shot at the lineal 140 pound title, but this is a more interesting fight and a bigger money fight than his mandatory, Junior Witter.
Benjamin T. Witkowski, ACAS
I agree that it is much harder for a guy to make money at 112 than for a heavyweight.
However, Arce is a pretty big guy and he cuts a lot of weight to make 112.
This is a tuneup fight and he doesn't want to have to cut all the way down to 112 and he is fighting a guy that he should KO early just to make a few bucks while his managers try to get a 112 or 115 pound title shot.
In 2002 this would have been a great fight.
Now, I don't care and if it is PPV, I will not watch it.
I would have given Vargas the edge back it the day, but I think that Mosely has enough in the tank to win just about every round.
I agree. He hit Gatti with everything but the kitchen sink and he was just standing there. Mitchell will move and use his spead to slow Mayweather down. I don't know if Mitchell will win more than two rounds, but Mayweather will not walk right through him.
What a ruckus.
The reason that they picked McBride is because he is big and slow and has a horrible jab. Fighters that can jab against Tyson and pick him apart do well, fighters that want to brawl get killed. McBride knows in his heart that if he had a shot to win, he wouldn't be fighting.
McBride is stumble along for a round or two and then get knocked out and everybody and their grandmother will be back on the Tyson bandwagon talking about how Tyson is going to clean up the division.
Tyson can make some marginally entertaining fights in the future and can make some money, but to think that he will ever be what he once was is rediculous.
Tyson's quote says it best. "If I win, he's a bum. If he wins, I am a bum. Either way it is going to be a train wreck."
Here it is. It is in German, and in Valuev's corner, they are tranlating from another language (probably russian). I am also a little unclear about how the knockdowns were scored.
http://s28.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2GJX6TBEULRTN1EEXHUNQQXEPY
IF Cotto can put on 17 pounds in the 24 hours or so after the weigh in, I see no reason that Taylor could not put on at least that much.
It is actually quite common for professional fighters to fight at about 10% more than their weigh-in weight.
After seeing how badly Margarito beat Cintron and how badly Wright beat Trinidad, I changed my pick from Hopkins to Taylor.
A Taylor win would be much better for boxing, but Hopkins will do whatever it takes to win.
Gomez is a cute heavyweight that will play the "hit and don't get hit" game to perfection. I can see him winning a boring fight, but I can't see him taking out a serious contender.
I agree that Gomez would have been a better test than Diaz.
Yep,
Valuev is one of the p4p worst fighters ever. The thing is that he has more lean mass (weight - body fat) than all the other fighters that he faces has weight.
The guys he is fighting are legit B level fighters and he is taking them out early. I think he beat Nobles, Levin, and now Ettine in his last three fights. He is more deserving of a title shot than that Liakovich gut that beat Guinn 6 rounds to 4.
His next fight has to be with someone that is cute and will not just stand there and try to trade. That guy that beat Holyfeild last Larry Donald could be a good step up. I would not be surprised if Donald won all 10-12 rounds.
I will try to post this fight in the next hour or so.
For you guys that think that Judah will not fight in June because he has a mandatory in May.
Think of it this way. If you had three belts at 147 and needed to defend one of them for about 200K or it would be stripped. Would you let it be stripped for the chance to fight for about 2 million?
This is simple economics, Judah wants to fight Rivera, but what it come down to is that Judah does a lot more for his career and marketability by fighting Gatti.
BTW- This would be more of a mismatch than Gatti Mayweather.
Joval is in there for one reason. He is a hard nosed guy that will come forward that Vargas can look spectacular against.
Don't make anything of this fight, it will be another couple of months before he fights an opponent that has a shot at beating him.
Even some of the guys on the Contender would give Vargas problems.
I saw Holt vs Diaz on Showbox. I think Holt's footwork (ie running like a madman to get the hell out of the way) will give Cotto trouble. Holt fights going backwards and will want Cotto to try to throw from too far away so Holt can counterpunch.
This has a chance to be a real stinker with Holt winning some rounds and everyone getting frustrated.
This also has a chance of Cotto cutting off the ring and blowing out Holt early.
How bad could his leg be?
All VK has to do is stand in the center of the ring and jab-jab-one-two Rahman all night until Rahman can't get back up.
How on earth did that guy beat Lewis?
In the Guinn SL fight, SL did not do anything that made me think he was special.
SL is the caliber of fighter that Wlad just plowed through about two years ago.
Wlad TKO 5.
Tyson and DLH made their money becuase they convinced the non-boxing public that they were great people that happened to be boxers.
There will not be another like them for a while.
Don King in his years of being a promoter has earned the most money in the sport overall.
DLH has the opportunity to be the first athlete billionaire if he becomes the next Don King. Michael Shumacher has the chance to beat him to it though.
I would hate to say it, but Ruiz did win almost every round.
It wasn't pretty, and the corner of Ruiz was creating a ruckus, but at the end of the day, Golata was not working enough.
There comes a point where punching and holding is better then getting punched and being held.
Does it really matter?
If arm size really meant something, this guy would be the new heavyweight champion.
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=211hate
Morales is also tough as nails, and as I recall, he was significantly bigger than Barerra in their last fight.
I think the person that beats Corrales, picks him apart from the outside like Freitas did for about 6 rounds.
There are other fighters in the 135 division that could challenge Coralles, namely Juan Diaz.
Also, just like Jeff Lacy,, Coralles will be exciting even if he is fighting a mis-mandatory.
Once Coralles figured out what to do against Casa, he was able to land some good shots. Unfortunatly his mouthpeice was going thought his lip and the fight was called. Coralles may very well have been behind, but he was not out of the fight and had a great chance to win.
In the interview after the fight, Corrales was asked about it by Jim Gray and he said that the first time the mouthpiece fell out from being punched hard in the head, and the second time he said he was out of breath and he took it out with his glove and it slipped because it is hard to hold a mouth piece with a glove.
Either way, I think he learned that from Freitas, even though it did not ultimately save Freitas, it bought him some time.
I was actually excited about PBF Gatti, almost to the point of going to AC to watch it.
After watching last nights fight and the PBF Corrales fight, I would not be surprised at all if PBF wins every minute of every round like Winky did last night.
I may not even buy it on PPV.
I am also going with Hopkins against Taylor now.
Last night made me switch two future fights.
I watched Friday Night fights a few years ago and Julio Diaz got knocked out in the first round.
About a year or two later he beat Courney Burton for the 135 pound title and just recently lost it by TKO10 to Castillo.
dont sleep on tyson..
Dumbest thing I have read in a long time.
There is a reason that he is only a 6-1 favorite over some enormous Irish guy.
Also, anybody that thinks that Riddick Bowe will do anything marginally productive in the remaining "exhibition" bouts in his career is greatly mistaken.
I will watch Bowe for the same reason that I will watch Tyson. I like to see a good train wreck every once in a while.
I will however, agree with the assessment that Tyson is ever so slightly less shot than Bowe.
This looks like it is erily similar to Cintron Margarito.
Taylor has never been close to being in trouble. This will be a test to see how well he deals with adversity because Hopkins will get his shots in.
I am predicting Hopkins KOs him in the mid rounds after eating some jabs and right hands first.