Comments Thread For: “Fighting Words” – How Dirrell Fell and Conspiracies Flew

[eli porter]

im havin hard time believing that dirrel is in such bad shape fom that ONE punch from AA. Ray Mercer hit Tommy morrison with about a dozen, clean, unanswered punches. i dont recall morrison having neurological problems. thats just one example, i can give a dozen more: cooney/norton, phillips/tszyu, whitaker/hurtado, tua/ruiz.

maybe those people suffered from the same syndrome but never said anything. mcclellan had problems but still fought. maybe dirrel is more susceptable, and he did get knocked out after all.

Your a guy I see that usually uses his brain when posting. You seem like an intelligent person that knows "boxing" unlike 80% of the people here, including me. How would you see that fight shaping up? It would be nice to hear an opinion that unbiased and based on skill set.

personally i think abraham isnt a particularly skilled inside fighter. he doesn't turn is elbows into his body punches and can get smothered (like ward did to green). On the outside he probably has the reflexes to keep away from abraham's longer punches. He could have trouble like dirrel did in the later rounds but there's no reason he couldn't get on his bike for the last three rounds or so.

abraham will do what he always does and let loose in the last rounds after his opponent has tired and he can throw more awkward punches from lower angles (after he drops his hands). it's less risky for him and his opponent may be less able to defend himself. but ward i suspect might be too capable defensively later on.

It's ward by decision or abraham by ko (i think ward by decision personally, im not a fan of his)

[xAUGUSTUSx]

Does anyone remember that Dirrell came up with an "injury" last spring to have his fight with Abraham delayed and moved from the Palm Springs area to Detroit?

Abraham had spent a month in California and was well-adjusted to the time zone change, but after that he had to return to Germany for a couple of weeks.

I know everyone forgets these things.

[frankisdead]

Sources tell me Cry-rrell has some neurological problems wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy before this fight

[Tiozzo]

good read

[vrodz]

I think AA's defense would neutralize Ward and when AA starts punching, I dont see Ward winning in exchanges. I also dont see AA knocking Ward out because I feel Ward, like AA is hard to KO.

Before the Dirrel Fight I had AA winning the tourney. Now it's a whole different story Ward would box circle around AA, in an out all night long. AA would not even hit Wards Shadow. Ward wins this hands down.

Any way Dirrel seemed heartless before the AA fight, although AA did hit him while he was down, it seemed kind of fishy the way Dirrel played it out after the blow. I mean he sat thre for about 5 to 10 seconds before dropping and going into a crazy convultion???? And then he got up like in a second after the DQ. Something was wrong with the whole thing as it went down.

[BattlingNelson]

As it is we must believe Dirrell I think.

Still there's lingering doubts as outlined in the fine article by Greisman, and one cannot help think that Kessler's injury outlined a blueprint on how to escape the tournament without being fined and there's several indications pointing towards Dirrell and Ward didn't really want to fight each other.

So I guess what needs to happen is either:

1: Dirrell retires.
2: Dirrell returns after a layoff and fights Ward.

[apunchnotseen]

The truth,in boxing, rarely enters the equation. What I am sick of is journalist throwing there opinions around without an ounce of investigation. Why try to get to the bottom of anything, when you can pen ten articles with an opinion on either side or better yet on the fence. The moral of today's story: time will tell. What? No time will further cloud the issue. What's it been a week and dirrell hasn't made a statement or given an interview. Like a defendant who doesn't take the stand in his own defense.

[Mr. David]

Thanks, all, for the comments. Here are some responses to continue the discussion...

plain and simple,.why do these writers make up all these stories and conspiracies..if a boxer refuses to fight for whatever reason then you can't force him to fight *******...if he doesn't fight then he doesn't get paid, simple!

To your first point, if you're talking about Steve Kim and Chris Mannix, they're citing sources, albeit anonymous ones. I've ranted before about how I feel about the way a lot of anonymous sourcing is done within the boxing media. But they're at least sourcing people said to be in the know... I made sure to point out the distinction between Rafael and Iole and what was told to them on the record, and Kim and Mannix and what was told to them with anonymity granted.

To your second point, as another poster responded... there are contracts and penalties for not fulfilling those contracts (except, I imagine, in case of injury).

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/leave-i...ballero-and-ev

not even the writer here seemed to know about this

dirrell DID mention the headaches and whatnot recently after the abraham fight

There's a wee bit of a difference between someone talking about having headaches and whatever in the days following the knockout and someone talking about still having these problems months and months out.

That aside, no, I never listened to the interview. If I were to listen to every single podcast and online radio show out there, I'd never have time for anything else.

Does anyone remember that Dirrell came up with an "injury" last spring to have his fight with Abraham delayed and moved from the Palm Springs area to Detroit?

Abraham had spent a month in California and was well-adjusted to the time zone change, but after that he had to return to Germany for a couple of weeks.

I quoted Steve Kim's reference to this within the body of this article.

Dirrell just lost most of whatever fans he did have; he should just retire and save us boxing fans from that negative fighting style of his.

Most boxing fans don't want to see someone killed in the ring and if his problems are real then he needs to quit, otherwise if he's lying, then he gets no respect from a lot of people.

What if the problems will clear up after more rest, just like sometimes quarterbacks need additional weeks to get their post-concussion symptoms to go away?

im havin hard time believing that dirrel is in such bad shape fom that ONE punch from AA. Ray Mercer hit Tommy morrison with about a dozen, clean, unanswered punches. i dont recall morrison having neurological problems. thats just one example, i can give a dozen more: cooney/norton, phillips/tszyu, whitaker/hurtado, tua/ruiz.

And Keith Richards has done enough drugs to fell a herd of elephants, and he's still alive. Not all biology is created the same. Not all circumstances are the same.

Chris Henry never suffered a concussion in his college or pro career and still had a degenerative brain condition before his death. Mick Foley's taken tons of chair shots to the head, and yet he doesn't exhibit any of the brain problems that Chris Benoit was apparently suffering before he killed his wife and son and himself.

It's just not an apples to apples comparison.

Dirrells fighting on HBO within 4 months. The Haymon-Goosen story is'nt a story at all. Haymon is'nt too great for boxing. Whenever he's involved good fights don't happen. People need to pay more attention to this man. Fighters he's involved with are pretected too much and there is just too much behind the scenes cover ups going on. Too many lies!

Wanna cite a source, or do you just want to be some random message board poster putting something against the wall to see if it'll stick?

As it is we must believe Dirrell I think.

Still there's lingering doubts as outlined in the fine article by Greisman, and one cannot help think that Kessler's injury outlined a blueprint on how to escape the tournament without being fined and there's several indications pointing towards Dirrell and Ward didn't really want to fight each other.

So I guess what needs to happen is either:

1: Dirrell retires.
2: Dirrell returns after a layoff and fights Ward.

Indeed, but as Dan Rafael wrote... if you're going to come up with an injury to get out of tournament... why a neurological problem?

I think so much of the anti-Dirrell conspiracy comes from the anti-Dirrell sentiment due to his style. It's similar to the Kermit Cintron "dive" theories which come out of people not liking Cintron due to his past whining and breakdowns in the ring.

The truth,in boxing, rarely enters the equation. What I am sick of is journalist throwing there opinions around without an ounce of investigation. Why try to get to the bottom of anything, when you can pen ten articles with an opinion on either side or better yet on the fence. The moral of today's story: time will tell. What? No time will further cloud the issue. What's it been a week and dirrell hasn't made a statement or given an interview. Like a defendant who doesn't take the stand in his own defense.

Not at all representative of what was written in the article.

This was a look at how the sequence of events led to conspiracy theories, how the lack of information led people to fill in the blanks themselves.

The "in time" reference at the bottom was that we'll need to wait to see whether Dirrell is able to recover. This is the element of humanity -- the most important element of any story -- that is getting lost in all this talk of conspiracy.

Thanks again, folks, for all the comments so far.

[SplitSecond]

it's a wee bit different but it should stop the majority from sayin "oh, how come he never brought this up before?"

[BattlingNelson]

Indeed, but as Dan Rafael wrote... if you're going to come up with an injury to get out of tournament... why a neurological problem?

I think so much of the anti-Dirrell conspiracy comes from the anti-Dirrell sentiment due to his style. It's similar to the Kermit Cintron "dive" theories which come out of people not liking Cintron due to his past whining and breakdowns in the ring.

1:
Because it's believable after AA's suckerpunch.

2:
Because It's not possible to diagnose from other sources than the patients mouth (not sure about that though) and hence he cannot be proven a liar which is why redemption can only come from Dirrell retiring or calling out and fighting Andre Ward.