Luis Ortiz-Bryant Jennings, Gonzalez-Shabranskyy RbR Fight Discussion Thread

[Hougigo]

Don't know what could await either man for winning....but i'm interested to see what happens

Only possible title shot is against Stevenson, and he has a mando if the june unification doesn't happen...which it most likely won't

[mlac]

i rate JDJ as one of the best trainers in the game, i like jennings here.
hopefully the cheater get's taught a lesson.

i reckon this is gunna play out like Tony thompson v Solis.

[BOXEO _]

It ain't gonna be enough, WAAAAAR CLOTTEY!!!

[el_locoteee]

quoting Steve Kim:

Steve Kim doesn't know that Cubans boxers are in no position to cherry pick.

[The Hammer]

Vyacheslav Shabranskyy goes back in deep

by Steve Kim

http://ucnlive.com/vyacheslav-shabranskyy-goes-back-in-deep/

On the night of June 30 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, light heavyweight Vyacheslav Shabranskyy was paired with Paul Parker in what was thought to be a rather easy match-up for the heavy-handed Ukrainian. Yet, there he was, on this summer evening, being sent to the canvas twice, dazed and disoriented.

It was, quite frankly, stunning. This wasn’t part of the script that Golden Boy Promotions had envisioned as it made this fight. Shabranskyy did rebound to stop Parker in the third round but there was certainly a scare for him and his handlers.

And it’s precisely why he was able to get this fight with Yunieski Gonzalez this weekend at Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, NY, televised by HBO Latino (Dec. 20, 12:15 a.m. ET/PT). Without looking so vulnerable in his previous fight, it’s doubtful that Gonzalez and his team would have accepted this assignment.

“Absolutely not,” agreed Shabranskyy’s trainer, Manuel Robles, “but there’s a lot of things that people don’t know. As you know, Yunieski gave (Jean) Pascal a helluva fight. We were with Pascal’s camp when he fought (Sergey) Kovalev the first time and so we know what we did to Pascal. We know what happened in training camp with Pascal and so, coming into this fight, Yunieski did not do what we did to Pascal in training camp. So we’re feeling pretty good about the fight.”

Coming into the fight with Parker, Shabranskyy had looked so sturdy, if not indestructible. To see him having to survive in the first round was a shocking sight. “Absolutely, absolutely. I was stunned but, at the same time, if you look at the overall performance, what ‘Slava’ had to go through to get off the canvas – not once but twice – to get up and win in the fashion that he did, that’s saying a lot about a fighter,” said Robles, last week at The Rock in Carson, Calif.

“And then, coming into the fight, we had a couple of issues that hurt him mentally and it might have been a distraction coming into the fight. I don’t take anything away from Parker; it just might’ve been a distraction for Slava. But, overall, I think (Shabranskky) did a great job getting off the canvas and stop him in the third round.”

Robert Diaz, matchmaker for GBP, admits to being flabbergasted by what he witnessed in the summer but he explained, “At the time, for that particular fight, we went through 15 different opponents. One reason being that it’s very tough getting approved in Philly and the commission was being very difficult there, very tough and I respect that. If they’re not comfortable with the opponents, fine, but we went through a lot of opponents that would take the fight and then pull out and then (say), ‘Yes, I’ll take it’ and then come back (and say),’Y’know what? I want more money.’


“So we went through a total of 15 opponents. When we finally got this kid, Parker, to take the fight, he’s undefeated, not too many fights; he comes in there.”

But there was an upside to what took place – Shabranskyy looked human. This suddenly made Diaz’s job much easier as a matchmaker. “I said to Evi (Avrahami, Shabranskky’s manager), ‘This is the best thing that could’ve happened. I guarantee you now it’s going to be easier to get fights.'”

And lo and behold…

“Well, a couple of days later, Sullivan Barrera’s manager reached out to Evi, ‘Hey, we’ll fight you now’ and, just all of a sudden, we started getting calls from all kinds of people, ‘We’ll fight him!’ I said bingo. That’s how we landed this Gonzalez fight. If it wouldn’t have been for the Parker fight, it was high-risk/low-reward. Now a lot of people think, ‘Hey, y’ know what? He’s suspect. His chin, he can’t take a punch’ and that’s a blessing in disguise because I’m very confident. It’s a tough fight, Yunieski Gonzalez should be undefeated. In my eyes, he beat Pascal but this will prove who Shabranskyy really is. His power’s natural and this kid can fight.”

But you wonder, after the harrowing experience he just went through, would it have been prudent to perhaps let Slava dip his toe back into the shallow end of the pool instead of facing an attacking, swarming fighter like this Cuban?

Diaz counters, “Those shots (versus Parker) would’ve knocked out anybody else. Shabranskyy gets up, gets really rocked with the next shot, gets dropped again. He shouldn’t have gotten up and, in fact, went at the guy. Second round, he comes back and takes charge and knocks him out a round later. He was more upset with himself because he knows he’s a better fighter than that.”

You never really know the depth of a fighter till he faces adversity. On this night, Diaz says Shabranskyy “showed heart, not just power.” The hope is that what happened with Parker was just an aberration, not a ***** in the armor.

So what was learned on this night by the rugged ****er?

“Not be over-confident, not to take anyone lightly, there’s no such thing as a small fight, no such thing as a tune-up fight,” explained Diaz, who actually brought in Parker as a sparring partner late into this training camp. “So I think he learned that and just getting back to the drawing board, coming back into the gym and us – very single one of us, not just Slava, myself and the entire coaching stuff included – doing a better job.”

Shabranskyy-Gonzalez is another example of Golden Boy making tough fights for its young boxers.

“That’s one direction (Golden Boy President) Oscar (De La Hoya) has put into us – we don’t want to baby our guys,” said Diaz. “Two, as a matchmaker, that’s music to my ears. It sucks whenever you hear, ‘No, no, no, he’s too tough.’ So, this era of Golden Boy boxing and promotion, that’s what we’ve been doing and we’ve been following it. Tough fights.

“Now, of course, when you’re at a younger stage, a young kid, you can’t just throw them in. They have to be developed but fights at a certain point have to be a test.”

[fourtheboys96]

So Walters, a former 126lbs champ, is still bigger than a 130lbs fighter? How big is this guy? Like Brandon Rios big?

[The Hammer]

[1hourRun]

HBO Boxing Insider @KieranMulvaney chats with @BYJennings ahead of Saturday's clash on @HBO. #JenningsOrtiz https://t.co/5rCOrTcUq5

— HBOboxing (@HBOboxing) December 18, 2015

[Hougigo]

Jennings is the underdog....a little surprising to me

[SHO_RULEZ]

Bold prediction by big Dan at ESPN, Ortiz by KO ...I respect Jennings and John David Jackson too much to go that route. I think they will utilize Jennings' advantage in athleticism, a lot of movement, and outbox Ortiz for the UD. I'm interested in Ortiz's stamina if Jennings can take him into the later rounds.