uncle_rico

If boxing were dead, id be the first one to admit it. But boxing is not dead. In fact, from what im seeing, it seems to be very slightly on the rise. It certainly isnt dropping down in popularity any more. A sport is dead, when two of the best in the sport cannot sell out a stadium even when they fight eachother. But Klitschko sold over 15,000 seats against CALVIN BROCK. Miguel Cotto, who isnt even in his prime yet, Can sell out the garden when he fights Margarito in June. Manny pacquioa fights are shown in imax theatres in the phillapines. He could sell out football stadiums if the fought there. Floyd Mayweather, maybe the most skilled but definetly not the most entertaining, sold over 10,000 seats and 300,000 ppv buys to see him fight CARLOS BALDOMIR WINKY WRIGHT, a fighter everyone seems to think is boring, sold almost as many seats agaisnt QUARTEY as Klitschko did against Brock! JERMAIN TAYLOR sold over 12,000 seats when he fought KASSIM OUMA! JAMES TONEY and SAMUEL PETER nearly sold out the Staple center when they fought for the first time. Hell, The contender Finale nearly sold out the Staple Center! MAYWEATHER-DE LA HOYA will sell over 18,000 seats when they fight in may. With nearly 2,000,000 ppv buys. How can a sport be dead, and still draw the people. Boxing may have been dying, but when the best fighters of this era, and the most exciting fighers of this era, do very well in ticket sales and ppv sales... the sport isnt dying... THERE IS JUST A LACK OF TALENT!!!! Lets assume for a second, that the average ppv sales for an HBO event is 300,000. And, i know i watch all ppv fights with at least 2 other guys. Im sure people watch the fights with a lot more, and some watch with less. but lets call 3 people the average. Well that means there are almost 1,000,000 people in the US, watching the BIG fights on HBO. please... enlighten me... And lets also consider, when a BIG fight rolls around, like MAYWEATHER-DLH, the fight dominates the media for months. Lewis Tyson did it, DLH-Trinidad did it. It gets a looot of attention. Just becasue boxing HAILS in comparison to the 137,000,000 million people who watched super bowl 37, doesnt mean it is a dead sport. Or even dying. It may be losing some lust, or some popularity, but when u attract that amount of people you are a struggling sport, but not a dead one. Kball, You make some good points but I think in some very real way boxing is, in fact, a dead sport in this country (talkin usa here). It is true that more networks show fights now than ever before. It is true that more fights are broadcast now than ever before. It is true that more money is generated now than ever before. Unfortunately it is also true that if you go into Brooklyn, NY, and ask someone who Collazo or Judah is, you'll get a blank stare. One could easily argue that the increased exposure and extra revenue of boxing is attributed simply to the fact that we have data flying all of the place nowadays (internet, hand held devices, satellite, cable, etc...). This means for fans of boxing, you will see more fights (great), but what is being done to get more/new fans? The fact is, there are more fights being shown now and there is more money being generated. So, how is it possible that the sport generates more money now than in any other point in its history yet can be a "dead sport"? Two ways: 1 - American Culture 2 - Lack of structure within boxing Allow me to elaborate on those points... #1 American Culture: The big three here are football, baseball, and basketball. You can buy things like trading cards, sneakers, and jerseys. Anything like that exist for boxing? no. How about publications? Sports illustrated is out every week covering these sports. When any boxing mag comes out it's literally months out of date. These other sports are in people's faces 24x7 (think about how huge fantasy sports are as well). More importantly though, is the built-in audience these other sports have that boxing doesnt have. People grow up playing these other sports. People grow up playing little league baseball and pop warner football; how many people grow up boxing? Very few. This is important because people contine to play in high school and in college. Even if they never turn pro, the love of the game (from playing all those years) is there. Boxing has no such audience. This is why mma has the potential to be much larger than boxing; wrestling is a fairly popular sport in the US at the high school and college level. Now these kids have a pro sport to be interested in when their hs/college careers are over - again, a built-in audience that boxing simply does not have. It's an uphill battle. #2 Lack of structure within boxing: I love the fact that despite my busy work schedule I can go online, check out the mets schedule and make plans to see a game months ahead of time. You can't do this in boxing. Let's say you're a diehard winky wright fan and you wanna plan your schedule to see him fight. ok, when is he fighting next? who is he fighting? where is he fighting? See, it's bullshit, you can't do that. Boxing needs scheduling structure. How is this possible? Take boxing's biggest weakness and turn it into a strength. I am talking about the different sanctioning bodies (ibf,wbc, etc...). Consider this, in football (american) you have two conferences (afc and nfc) and within each, 4 divisions. Boxing should do the same! Let's say we have ibf, wba, wbo, and wbc. Each one ranks, say, 12 different fighters. Each "division" has fights like final four brackets (12 vs 1, 11 vs 2, etc...). The winner of each division, fights the winner of another division, until there's one champ. That person is the undisputed champ for a time, and then the brackets start all over again. By doing this you know when, where, and who a fighter will fight. There will be no bullshit about one fighter ducking another. No bullshit 10 month layoffs, etc... Structure. Might seem a bit unrealistic and tough to actually implement, but who knows maybe it would work in one form or another. I think it would be good for boxing to mimic the other sports in some cases. I also think it would be good for boxing to take advantage of some of the things it has that other sports do not: fighter access. Consider this, my brother currently works out at Gleason's in brooklyn, ny. His trainer is Raul Frank. How cool is that? You have a pro training you (not only that he's fighting for #1 or #2 ranking (ibf) tonight). Yesterday afternoon he walks in and looks in one of the rings and sees John Duddy training. Again, that's pretty cool. Imagine you go meet up with some friends to play ball and Jason Kidd and Dwayne Wade are shooting around next to you (ok, Frank and Duddy aren't Kidd and Wade, but you get my point ;). So, is boxing dead? No, it's not, but there's a saying that "if you're not getting better, you're getting worse". Boxing is not doing anything to be more mainstream and because of this you can argue it is dying (go to espn, you'll see dropdowns for all sports but not boxing. you have to click "more+" and boxing is there with things like bass fishing. sad, no?).

i just made a thread deeply detailing what i mean http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95341 Black Jesus, just read your thread and i think you made some interesting points. as it happens, i don't agree entirely with what you've written, but your points are interesting nonetheless. I have another opinion regarding floyd's popularity (or lackthereof) which i think trumps everything else and it has nothing to do with race, attitude, etc... For me, i think it has to do with how the american people view boxing. to a lot of people boxing is not a sport, it is entertainment. there's football, baseball, basketball as the top 3. there are trading cards, jerseys, fantasy leagues, etc... people play these sports as kids, in high school, and in college! these sports are part of most sports fans lives; boxing isn't. in other countries boxing is right up there with soccer (think about trinidad and cotto. as big as they are here they are much bigger in pr). where would boxing be rated here in terms of popularity, behind hockey? most people (i say "people" and refer to the casual fan, not a real boxing fan) just want to see blood and knockouts, so they only pay attention to fighters who can provide them. case in point, a washed up mike tyson fights lennox lewis; before the fight when asking for predictions people who are fight fans gave tyson no more than a puncher's chance, while random celebrities who don't know much about boxing but showed up to the fight, pick tyson. this isn't to say that the issues like race and era are irrelevant, but imho it doesnt get much whiter than spadafora and if somehow he was as good/successful as floyd, i dont think he'd be popular either; why? just not "entertaining". gatti would be gatti regardless of race and ethnicity. floyd can be the biggest dick on the planet, but if he was puttin kids out like say, trinidad was, he'd be HUGE right now.

De la Hoya seems like a cool guy who is ready to be friends with anyone outside the ring, win or lose. He seems like a great guy overall. In the post fight interview he was smiling and all, while I remember some people here said he was hoping that Ouma was going to put on a good performance. So he seems like an allright guy. he prolly isn't a bad guy, but those rumors about him doing gay porn in california is disturbing. i really hope that shit was just talk and those videos were put together by some bored kid in his basement.

theres actual videos of delahoya having gay sex ? what about sending me a link or something :eek: :luvbed: :D ok, perhaps i exaggerated a bit. i heard he was planning on doing some kind of boy band or something. so, boy band, gay porn... same shite, no?

i was happy when he got dropped, fuckin white trash showboat, just what boxing needs, another deuchebag. i can't wait till he fights a real puncher or a decent counter puncher. someone should get this litzau jerkoff, and paul malinaggi (yes, he's from bk, but he's a dildo, he'd rather be on "growing up gotti" than a good proud fighter from brooklyn) and joe tesatore (he's just a tool) put them all in a ring together and beat the piss outta all 3 of them.

So you thought guys llike Hakkar, Joppy and Eastman were going to take down the Executioner but you dont like Taylor's chances? Interesting... Hakkar... oh man, do you remember that fight? and it was in philly... embarssing. i think that was the day i stopped liking hopkins. how do you not ko that guy? roy used to do that same shit later in his career, box around and dance and shit and not ko absolute clowns. i'd think to myself, "ok, cool, you're clearly a better boxer, and you look great tonight, now put it all together, stand in the pocket and ko these losers?". never happened tho... i hope bhop loses.

fans like you make the sport look bad. fucking sadist..you are only there to see someone get ktfo. lol, slip you're killin me man. that fight sucked. hakkar sucked. i can appreciate boxing skills like anyone else, but that guy was a clown and hopkins made himself look bad. if a guy wants to put on a clinic against another decent guy without ko'ing him (for example, roy vs telesco), i'm cool with that, but the hakkar fight? get the fuck outta here. that sucked.

It's very difficult to KO a runner....& Hakkar was motoring around that ring. Hopkins did exactly what he should have in there. Had he really pressed Hakkar, or rushed him....he would have gotten nothing done. for the first round, i totlly agree. but first of all, hopkins shoulda never fough that guy. second, i'd rather see hopkins press him and get no where, then try to dance and turn his back on hakkar and all that other shit he was doin. know what i mean? he was tryin to be a showman and be flashy when first of all, he's not roy and that's not his style and second he's doing it against a guy who barely had enough strength to bend the ropes to get into the ring... bad fight for hopkins, he was booed in his hometown. he said that would be his last fight in philly. no one to blame but himself on that one. even great fighters have bad fights, this was one of them for bhop.

LOL during the fight when hopkins was dancing around the ring, Larry Merchant said something like.."this is an absolute insult to philly boxing fans," and after the match he asked Hopkins.."aren't you embarassed for what you did?" LOL hehe, funny that you brought that up. in the new issue of RING (The one with ali, robinson, and tyson on the cover) on page 150 there's an article about merchant talkin shit to bhop about that fight. :)

fans like you make the sport look bad. fucking sadist..you are only there to see someone get ktfo. just noticed you gave me some kind a poor rating, citing i'm a "sadist cunt". slipx you fuckin pussy, that hopkins fight sucked and if you can't see that you got that stupid ass snorkle gear wrapped too tight around your head. pussy.

actually, there are big asian fighters, just maybe not in america. for example, wwww.ring-japan.com has tons of info on japanese fighters and different japanese boxing organizations, and you'll find fighters of all weight classes. so, there are big asian fighters, just maybe not common in american boxing. as to why they are not common in american boxing? that is a deep subject. if you are curious as to why there seems to be more blacks in sports than other races, sport illustrated produced a nice article like 8 or 10 years ago called "what happened to the white athlete". it was nicely written and gave an objective look at the trend of athletes and race at the time the article was written. back in my college days, i had a sociology prof that touched on the subject, it was really interesting. for example, throwing out basketball and hockey for a moment (predominantly black and white sports, respectively), let's focus on say football and baseball. football, is at this point in time, mostly black, yet some positions (O-line, kicker, qb) are still commonly white. if you look at baseball, there are plenty of both black and white athletes (amongst other races), why? my prof speculated (and the SI article alluded to this as well), that it comes down to being able to associate yourself with an ideal. perhaps a young black kid growing up watching say, michael vick on tv, thinks to himself, "hey, there's a black athlete and i'm black too, if he can do it, so can I". at the same time, maybe there's a white kid saying to himself "geez, look at vick, i could never do that, white guys just can't do that". but maybe that same white kid says, "look at roger clemens, he's white, so am I, maybe i can be a pitcher one day as well". case in point, peyton manning and ken griffey jr. both those guys grew up thinking they were gonna be pro athletes. why? their fathers' were awesome and they were able to identify with that, they said "hey my dad did it, so can i". now, manning is a big boy, but you know how many 6'4 white qb's out there never made it? tons, and it's not cuz they are white. and griffey, know how how many black outfielders out there that never made it? tons, and it's not cuz they are black. so, why did those two guys do so well? i believe it's because they really believed they were gonna go pro one day and they worked hard at such a young age. that combined with their god given tools, they eventualy turned pro. so, alot of it has to do with perception. That, together with the fact that as a society, americans are obsessed with material goods and money, a kid will make a choice very early on (unless otherwise encouraged by an outside influence) to pick a career path where they will be likely to succeed becuase other people (of the same race) are successful in that field. now, bringing back hockey and basketball, the SI article brought up the issue of genetics, and it was very interesting. look at basketball players - very tall, fast, agile, and almost entirely black. perhaps this is a case where physically, you have to be black to play? the article (if i remember correctly) also took a guess as to why hockey was all white and suggested it had to do with the shape of the legs and hips of whites and blacks. now, i think there is some validity to those statements, but i think it's more of a perception issue than a genetic issue. have you ever watched beach volleyball? tons of explosive 6'4" - 6'6" white guys who can jump all over the place. so, there's an example where the "genetic" argument doesn't hold water, so, imho, i think it's all about what people can relate to and where they think their success will come from. really, it's an extremely interesting subject.

man, i was watching this fight before the Turpin bout, was Robinson vs some guy named Rocky something, sounded italian, white guy was fucking him up, knocked down robinson and shit..robinson held his ground though unfortunately i had to get up and do some other shit and didnt finish that fight ,watched it til bout the 7th rd slip, which fight you talkin about? cuz srr knocked graziano out in 3. i know they showed the basilio fights the other day, but his first name was carmen...

well i kidna have to agree that SRR wouldnt beat some 80s MIDDLEWEIGHTS, but he woulda owned any welterweight ever at any time, blindfolded to gonna have to disagree with you there. i don't think there's anyone in history under 160 who coulda beat that man in his prime 2 outta 3 times. closest woulda been hagler and roy. srl showed that a guy who moves alot can outpoint hagler, but where srl stopped and pittypatted, srr would inflicted some serious damage (woulda taken some as well). roy skills wise at 160 or 168 woulda been a great matchup but he woulda been in trouble tryin to brawl with srr. i just can't see anyone under 160 routinely beating that man.

i think it would be a much better fight than mayweather gatti, but if floyd can move and counter the way he wants, it will be 12 rounds of hatton gettin beat up. OTOH, if hatton can stop floyd from gettin off by stayin in his chest, and actually keep his hands up when floyd throws (unlike gatti) and work the body, there could be a major upset. it would be a great fight to watch if each round hatton and floyd took turns doing what they do best; you'd see floyd's incredible speed, skill, and (underrated?) power. And you'd see hatton's relentlessness. my gut feeling tho tells me floyd is just too good. i can see this guy cleaning up 140 and 147 (i'm from bk, so, i'd hate to see zab lose, so, maybe floyd loses to zab ;) i think a confident mosley can prolly beat anyone under 154, but, has he lost all his confidence? he coula/shoulda knocked out estrada, why's he holding back? but i digress.. interestingly enough, i think tzyou would do better against floyd than hatton would. tzyou has seen and dealt with that kind of speed before, so, i think that'd be a more competetive (and potentially a little boring?) fight. in anycase, i like both guys, i love to see 2 completely different styles at the same weight, keeps things interesting and makes for the best fights.

I thought u gys would try to kill me for my post against SRR,I really liked the tactful disagrence, thats what makes this site so great. Someone spoke of his fight with Lamotta, Lamotta was more like Gatti, you see how PBF raped Gatti, the fighters i mentioned would have been smart enough to out box SRR except Hearns, who maybe could have KO'd him. well, i like gatti, but he's no lamotta. not even close. lamotta woulda have given pbf much more trouble than gatti. gatti's style is kinda in no man's land right now; he's not a speedy boxer like floyd,judah,ssm, and he's not an in your chest pounder like lamotta or hatton. so, his style is sorta in the middle, a style that guys like floyd pick apart. lamotta would be in floyd's chest, not only that, the man had a face of granite, so, lamotta would give floyd a hard time just like he did srr (tho he's prolly lose to pbf a bunch of times like he did to srr). but, back to srr, thing is, he has all the skills of the fighters you mention. his speed is just as good or better than roy in his prime, he's willing to brawl just like hagler and he could punch like hearns. it's hard to give him his due cuz the film on him is so shitty, and even when it's not, the angles are horrible. for example, i'm in baltimore now, at like 6pm tonight espn classic showed srr vs turin and the fight was perfectly clear but the camera was so far away and the angles sucked, so you can't appreciate what he did. it was hard to gauge his speed and see him counter, but really, he was awesome. back in the day he was doing all the cool shit slicksters like pbf and mosely do. i don't think it would be possible to outbox srr. so, if hagler can get him to stand and trade, he'd be closest to beating srr. but let's not forget, he was beating maxim before heat exhastion got him. so, his power and chin are sick (he's never been knocked out) and 16 of his 19 losses came after he was 34 and of those 12 after he was 40! unless i am mistaken, the maxim fight was the only loss where he didn't go the distance. i think he beat like 20 world champs and 12 hall of famers... to me, it doesn't get better than srr. he's timeless.

Does the boxing commissions require that the gloves are taped? And does it make the glove more comfortable to the fighter? on more than one occasion, i've cut and been cut by laces. taping that shit up stops that from happening. i can't imagine having laces all over the place is legal, so, i'm gonna guess that pros are required to tape up the gloves. as for comfort, i've always found it more comfortable to be nice and tight. then again, to each his/her own.

Estrada is/was one of those opponents who would make any fighter look average because of his no surrender attitude and always coming forward throwing punches...he never wants to make it easy for you Agreed. i think shane coulda knocked him out in round 4, matter of fact, the old shane does knocks him out in round 4. 40 wins 35 knocks outs? he used to be a sick finisher. one of the reasons i used to love watchin him, he was lookin to knock people out. i think he coulda knocked him out, but in a weird way underestimates himself now, cuz he has had it rough for what, 3 years now? during the fight i thought he showed some flashes but was disappointed he didn't go in for the kill. but... i taped the fight and watched it again today, and you know what? he did look good. he was sharp, moved well, and strong. showed some slick d as well. he just wasn't aggresive, which is expected after doing nothing but losing for a while. so, here's my 2 cents, i expect him to do very well at welterweight. i can see him dominating zab, seriously (and i;m from brooklyn, so i love zab). when has he ever had a problem with anyone his size? anyone 5'9" and under at 147 he'll beat. margarito beats him, but i think that's about it at welterweight (forrest beats him if they ever fight again).

huh? which fight did you watch? margarito stood around pickin off shots instead of throwin. when he finally did throw, he hurt williams. Your Rocky references make no sense. cotto and margarito are completely different fighters. cotto will get inside and break ribs instead of standing around smilin. cotto destroys williams and a year later williams shares playing time with the professor for the And 1 team.

Cotto breaks every rib in williams' body. this is a good fight for williams for about 3 rounds, then cotto gets inside and begins to break him down en route to a mid-late round stoppage. following the fight williams calls roy jones about a tryout for a usbl team. PAUL WILLIAMS IS A BEAST: *Now that we have our pleasantries out of the way lets toss the fat into the fire shall we, *Paul Williams is a freak of nature, I don’t need to run down what makes him so special, still the internet boxing community only wants to talk about Cotto and its starting to remind me a lot of last year when people were talking about Antonio Margarito as this mythic warrior who would trounce everyone… *well a funny thing happened one warm evening in California…he got punch in the face…repeatedly…and just looked flat out outclassed like some sort of laboring scorpion who showed up to compete at a beauty pageant…excuses were made for his awful performance against a one handed Josh Clottey and so the story goes, well actually his story ended…he has essentially fallen off the map now in favor of Cotto who I respect and would pay to watch fight if he watch Paul Williams... *I get the hype…he’s exciting to watch he’s young and he’s an undefeated titleholder…but he never beats Paul Williams…who’s also exciting to watch, young and an undefeated titleholder… *this kid is going to eventually run the division and it kills me that all these brainwashed hypocrites completely ignore him and clamor for a Mayweather Cotto fight….if you are a boxing fan how could you not want to see two completely different yet undefeated young title holders scrap it out (unless your bob arum)… *and you cant say Paul Williams is not worthy of a fight with Cotto…he dusted off everybody’s last guy Antonio Margarito…there’s so many great fights to be made at 147 I just don’t see why people (for better or worse) have to remain fixated and obsessed with Floyd Mayweather vs. Cotto right now when Floyd said he is not fighting in 2008. What about Paul Williams.....

huh? what fight did you watch? margarito stood around trying to pick off shots instead of punchin. when he did punch, he hurt williams. your rocky reference makes no sense. cotto and margarito are completely different fighters. instead of sittin around on the outside, cotto gets inside and breaks all williams' ribs. williams ain't as fast as judah and cotto did fine with zab, so, if speed ain't a problem for cotto, what will williams have, height? no, cotto gets in and breaks ribs. a year after the fight williams shares playing time with the professor on the And 1 team. Didn't Margarito already done that to him? :chomp: As a williams fan i didn't discredit Margarito in the past, what i said and still say is that Rocky style "It's not about how hard you can hit... but how hard you can be hit... and still come forward" only works in: a) Movies featuring Sly; b) Incridible missmatches ie 27 year old vs 36 year old, 154 pound guy vs 148 pound guy, so on Both Cotto and Margarito share that style. People think Rocky and reality vanishes...

Here's a guy who's biggest acomplishment is gettin woop by Cotto, had a draw in my book against Ngoudjo and yet ppl see him as one of the best pure boxers today, is he overrated? He can't hit for shit and defensively gets hit more than a "pure boxer" should. When you consider this sport is about hitting and this kid can't hit, I'd say it's pretty impressive that he's got the ibf belt at 140. Contrast him with someone like cintron, who has a ton of power, but not much else. Where would cintron be if he hit like Paulie? Considering his natual lack of power and all his hand surgeries, I'd say he deserves every/any accolade he gets. Witter and/or Hatton will be the ultimate test of how Paulie should be rated. Hopefully his next fight will be against either of those two guys.

These are my predictions of what they will weigh in the ring tomorrow night. Miranda is going to look like a monster next to Banks. regardless of what he weighs, when he fights pascal he will get ktfo. pascal is too strong and has too much skill for this guy. slightly off topic, but whatever :)

Richard Pryor Martin Lawrence lol, not bad, not bad... but the following, especially considering how short it is, is funny as hell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLDd0Oq978

cedric the entertainer made fun of Zab Judah's KO against Tszyu AFTER WHICH ALI FIGHT WAS PRYOR TALKING ABOUT????????? yeah, it was the zab one i was referring to in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLDd0Oq978 funny shite.

what about winky wright? Did he wink alot growing up? The story of how tarver got "magic man" is interesting; basically during one fight he had early in his career, everyone in the audience was awake during round 1. Then after watching him fight people began dozing off. Someone said the way he was putting fans to sleep was like "magic". Similar story with corey spinks; his original nickname was "nyquil" cuz he's so fucking boring and puts people to sleep, but don king made him change it.

You fucking stupid idiot. Hang on man, I think T.E.S has a point. While what you pointed out is correct (boxing does have geat athletes and tons of guts) you have to wonder - do the casual fans see it? Probably not. Unfortunately, the casual fan does see the negative things ianwigley pointed out. The casual fan doesn't appreciate what a fighter has to put himself through and focuses only on the end result. This would explain why most people know who Mike Tyson is (even before all the controversy) but have no idea who Pernell Whitaker is. But the main problem is, boxing just isn't part of pop culture. There's no link, no connection. Think about why people love football, baseball, and basketball. Most people played at some time in their lives and fall in love with the sport. Not true for boxing. There is no little league boxing or high school/college boxing. This explains why UFC is becoming so popular; wrestling is a huge hs/college sport and kids can relate to UFC - there's a natural progression from wrestling to ufc. Regarding the original post by souza, I agree; the casual fan only wants to see wars (certainly the diehard fans appreciate a good technical match). I find myself feeling the same way about UFC; I watch a little every now and then, but once these guys get themselves on the floor and start elbowing, huggin, and kissin each other, I get bored and find something else to watch. I realize and appreciate what they are doing takes tons of practice and skill, but to be honest, it bores me to death. OTOH, some kid who spent his whole life wrestling might really appreciate that part of UFC. So, I suspect the people who don't appreciate the technical fights in boxing simply never boxed. So, what's the solution? Getting kids boxing! Make boxing more popular for kids and teens. Otherwise, no matter what boxing does (better fights, no more sanctioning bodies, no bullshit, etc...) it still won't matter.

It's time for James Toney to retire. He's had a great career - how many boxers nowadays have 70 wins? Five years ago he would have easily beaten Batchelder, he wouldn't have had to settle for a split decision. He can retire gracefully with his last fight being a win. here's a newspaper article to verify baller's review of the fight: http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_5984893 very sad, toney is literally my favorite fighter. hopefully this is a wakeup call for him to get down to cruiser. losing weight can turn back the clock for someone with his skills (or am i trying to hard at this point? :)

I couldn't agree more. Stamina and strategy are the key for this fight which is why I actually think Buddy Mcgirt woulda been the best choice. Buddy was a slickster himself and look how he helped tarver deal with roy, who, even though is washed up, is still much faster than tarver.

2 English guys on there, John Murray not bad up and comer and some other guy called O'donnell bt i dnt no him where did you hear about the english fighters being on the card? will it be televised? I ask cuz according to espn there's only 2 televised fights on the undercard: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2826374

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/61090?utm_source=nation_rss_1 hehe, funny. The onion is a funny paper (funny for a long time for computer geeks mostly). Interesting to see how big this fight is that it's reached the onion of all papers!