HBO's Coverage of Taylor-Wright

[cupcrazy01]

This is long but interesting, please read...

First off all, I attended the fight and decision aside, it was a great experience I was able to share with my wife and I am honored to have been able to do it.

As you may know from another thread, I had it 116-112 for Winky on my "100% objective" card and 115-113 for Wink on my "judges influenced by crowd and think Taylor's punches are landing when they're not" card.

Now, we TIVO'd the fight on HBO and we finally got to watch it last night. One word comes to mind: sickening.

Lampley's love for all things Olympics is well-documented, but this exceeds even his "best" efforts in hyping fighters, edging out even Hopkins-Taylor I and Mosley-DLH II.

Lennox Lewis was the only one of the three consistently pointed out what Winky was doing right, jabbing effectively, controlling the pace of the bout and unexpectedly yet brilliantly taking the lead. Merchant would throw some credit Winky's way, but it was more of a "he's got guts coming forward even if it's not working too well" attitude. It was working tremendously well.

Lampley is in a league of his own. So many of the Taylor shots that were easily blocked or picked off by Winky were "BIG RIGHT HANDS", and we all know how that was in the two Hopkins fights...Taylor rarely EVER misses according to Lamps, but look at the CompuBox and there's the story. Someone on maxboxing.com (Fischer or Raskin) mentioned that it's amazing how HBO preaches CompuBox unless it tells a different story that what they are...case in point right here...

DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THEY STOPPED TRACKING JABS THROWN/LANDED AROUND THE 6th ROUND???? This is unbelievable!

Winky's jab was consistently the most effective punch throughout the fight, and headbutts or no that eye didn't magically close. Even in the post-fight recap, as Lampley struggled to fight through the truth that not only did Winky land a shot or two more than Taylor (even power punches), his connect rate was much, much better. THEN THEY DIDN'T SHOW THE JAB TOTALS! Has this EVER happened before? And don't say whenver it's lopsided they don't show it, they always do--Lamps will sometimes just say "jabs (que graphic), not that big a factor in the fight" or somesuch, but they do show it.

Lampley tried to discredit CompuBox by declaring Taylor landed the much harder blows...yeah, WHEN he landed. Just because Wink moved when he blocked Taylor's big shots, doesn't mean they landed. He couldn't set his feet in concrete, he's going to move; it's called physics. Taylor got a lot of credit for partially-blocked shots as well.

As for the 12th round, read my post in the other thread, Winky didn't run, he didn't give it away, and Taylor SURELY did nothing to win the round AT ALL. I want to see CompuBox numbers for the 12th.

Thoughts?

[strongisland24]

for taylor's shots to go through winky's tight defense and move his head around, they had to be hard punches. i have to say that hbo wasnt as biased in this fight because it was two HBO fighters. merchant wasnt that bad as he was in mayweather judah.

[RAESAAD]

Lamps is losing it........I have noticed it alot the past year or so.Winky did even more than I expected from him and got little or no credit from Lamps or Merchant really.I mean if people would have said before the fight Winky was going to be stalking Taulor and trapping him into the corner while throwing combos a good part of the night people would have thought you were nuts........Winky did a great job and Taylor did well too but not an impressive Champion IMO.......**** the HBO crew they are full of **** and I am considering watching the next broadcast on mute.

[Kball15]

i dont think hes going out of his way to make a prospect more exciting, he is simply a veteran of the business. He knows that if he wasnt more money, BADs ratings have to go up, and in order for that to happen he need to make exciting commentating. If Taylors throwing punches that are more "crowd pleasing" he'll overreact for the viewers sake.

I think he overdid it for the fight, but usually he does just the right amound!

[Sinisterevo]

interesting, although I do believe Wright won the fight. I think Taylor was clearly the stronger fighter and althought most punches were blocked, some did get through and did eventually tire Wright. His jab was doing good damage but he didn't throw it enough. If he would of thrown that jab more he would of made it loopsided. Wright tried to do the same game plan he did vs Trinidad but Taylor was much bigger and stronger.

[Xol]

The only time WInky controlled the fight was when Taylor was against the ropes. Other than that it was an either way fight and I respect the draw. You can't say Winky deflected all of Taylor's punches because his face was pink and swollen at the end of the fight. He can shake his head all he wants, he WAS getting hurt. On the other hand, Winky was landing the better jabs as seen by Taylor's swollen eye, however I think the fequent clash of heads made it much worse that the jabs ever would have.

I personally think Taylor won the fight and can't wait to see it happen again.

[DiegoFuego]

Jabs are all well and good, but when Taylor is landing 5-10 straight right hands through the gloves that are knocking Wright's head this way and that, I don't care if Wright is landing 40 jabs. Rounds are scored by damage you know. If Wright lands 20 jabs to every 3 big rights from Taylor that send Wright staggering about, you gotta go with Taylor as being in the lead. That's boxing.

[SquareCircle]

Jabs are all well and good, but when Taylor is landing 5-10 straight right hands through the gloves that are knocking Wright's head this way and that, I don't care if Wright is landing 40 jabs. Rounds are scored by damage you know. If Wright lands 20 jabs to every 3 big rights from Taylor that send Wright staggering about, you gotta go with Taylor as being in the lead. That's boxing.

Rounds are not scored by damage..If they were then Hopkins would have won both Taylor fights...

and only a tool like yourself would really think 3 partially blocked/non flush straight rights equate to 20 flush jabs on the jaw/eye

The only reason Taylor keeps getting these gift decisions is because he's a rarity- a marketable young black fighter that everyone can have an appeal to, unlike tarver,and hopkins, and golata, taylor has a good personality and seems like a good, respectful young man and is even someone youd want your kid to see as a role model. He has a family of his own, doesn't have a rap sheet or get into trouble, and speaks with yes sir, no sir, etc. He even speaks without what some people refer to as 'ebonics'.. To top off all that, if it's even possible to top that off, Jermain Taylor has a very exciting style,unlike wright and hopkins, who they wanted out of there. hbo doesn't want to lose this, so even if he really does lose a fight by 2-3 rounds, he'll get a draw or win by 1 or 2 points until he ends up getting forced out of there. HBO's guys are no fools, they know what they have in Jermaine, a black version of DLH who is young, hits harder and that every person can appeal to because he has a good personality, and to protect that they will **** other champs over in the process.