Fights You Watched Today

Watching Bowe-Coetzer. Early 90s HBO shits on all other broadcasters. Except maybe early 2000s HBO when Manny was on there often.

 

Lara vs Canelo

Just rewatched it today. It's no secret I'm Canelo fan and I think my scoring will probably reflect that. I tried to score round by round and be as objective as possible. It was a close fight. Difficult to score because of Lara's tactics. It came down to preference. Do you favor Lara's amateur looking style or Canelo's poweful body attack. It didnt help that Lara landed some beautiful combinations that made Canelo's head snapback like a bobble head. But they were so few and far inbetween that it was hard for the judges to give it to Lara. I know I'm probably going to get shit from people but I thought Lara got on his bike a little too much. Some would say he ran in a lot of rounds. He was in there to outpoint and survive not win take the fight to Canelo. I know I know its called boxing hitting and not getting hit. But still he ran a bit too much for my liking. Hard to look good against a guy like Lara.

I gave Lara round 1, 3, 5 and 8 and the rest to Canelo.

 

Completely agree. Lara did not win that fight and i was rooting for him

 

Rewatched Arguello vs Castillo.

Castillo put up a great effort, but of course, the master turned up the heat in the late rounds then closed the show.

I would consider Arguello the 4th best offensive fighter of all time, behind only Louis, Robinson, and Duran.

 

Rewatched Mel Taylor vs Crisanto Espana.

Taylor took a vicious beating, but Espana was quite a good fighter. I think he could make a lot noise in the current welterweight division, as it's possible none of the current crop are as good as prime Quartey.

 

You dont think Crawford is as good as Quartey?

 

I think the whole 90s era of Quartey, Trinidad, Whitaker, DLH would all beat Crawford.

 

Tommy Fury vs some bum.

Fury has movie star good looks, Mr Olympia's physique, no skills and even less brains.

 

Rewatched Palomino vs Stracey.

Palomino totally dismantled Stracey, especially to the body. Carlos was quite an excellent fighter, who had the terrible luck of being around in the Leonard, Benitez, Duran, Hearns era.

 

Watched Vazquez vs. Rojas. Really good fight and great finish by Vazquez.

 

It was a great fight. Been awhile since I've seen it. I might watch it next week.

 

Random fight, but I watched Jamie McDonnell vs Julio Ceja yesterday. I had never seen it before. It was a good fight, and good performance by McDonnell.

 

Rewatched Leo Randolph vs Ricardo Cardona.

I swear, this was one of the most underrated wars of the 80s.

 

X, you put me on to this a while ago and I really enjoyed it. Strange to think that at 22, Randolph would only have one more fight after this one.

 

Glad to hear it!

And yup, Randolph got completely destroyed by Sergio Palma is his first defense, and would never fight again.

 

Watching Sugar Ray Robinson courtesy of Flo's thread. I like obscure Boxers, but man is it good to go back to the staples. SRR was just an incredibly artistic puncher, his movement and style is just so aesthetic. This clip was a particular highlight for me.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna go through some of the staples soon. Talking about Pep recently made me wanna look at some of them.

Chucho Castillo as a 'The Thread' will be a fun little project. I might give it a week or so before I start writing it, but I'm always down to watch some Chuhco.

 

My first time watching this one. Erik Morales vs Pablo Cesar Cano. Lovely veteran performance from Morales. He goes from looking slow, getting outboxed and not landing anything, to setting and changing the timing and landing lovely veteran combos for the eventual cuts stoppage. Cano was a solid young fighter too - much better than the supposed 'world beaters' you'd see someone like Hearn promote the hell out of nowadays. Nice clean fight which I recommend. Also, a brilliant delayed right in round 4 was probably the highlight punch for me.

 

How weird. I re-watched Olivares vs Castillo 1 the other day on a whim. A fantastic smooth fighter was Castillo

 

That footage is remarkably good quality.

 

Yeah, Pathe etc. are always remarkably good releasing the original film. Wish they, alongside TV stations, would release full films. No one else is interested in them except guys like us anyway. I mean, there's a 'HQ' version of Canzoneri vs Chocolate out there, the BHOF has it, since they uploaded a clip of the first round once. But they won't release the full thing. Drives me mad.

 

Some beautiful feints from Morales. Coincidentally, I just watched this one last night. At one point, Morales feints with an uppercut then turns it over into a right hand. Beautiful.

 

Watching that fight makes me wonder if Golota got his fight strategy for the Bowe fight from watching Bowe himself.

 

Yoko Gushiken vs Juan Guzman

First, this is quite the underrated little war. A fierce work rate (measured in Canelo fights, it would be at least 2+ in terms of work rate by 6 rounds ::) from both men, especially Gushiken, with just a non-stop rain of awesome form. The guy was really just a pleasure to watch stylistically - smooth feet, awesome punching mechanics even under duress and a cool head. However, he did struggle at times here, being rocked by Guzman at one point, even, and not having the most constant head movement. This fight does show me what I had already envisioned, really - a stylist like Zapata would be an absolute nightmare for Gushiken. He would do much better against a Roman Gonzalez type.
The highlight of this one was round 3, a belter. Competitive but clear that Gushiken is the better man, which he proves with a 7th round stoppage.
Also, the quality of this video is simply superb.

 

This is an excellent little scrap. I enjoyed it this time and the last, but I've always thought it showed some of the flaws in Gushiken. He leant into the left hook, and occasionally squared up at mid-range. Guzman had him hurt with it at times, and it's when Juan did his best work.

On the whole though, Gushiken is very appreciable from a fundamental view. Not a swarmer per se, but someone very adept at enforcing the pace which he's comfortable with. More of an aggressive boxer-puncher than a swarmer, I think. Comparisons to both Jiro and Ebihara are apt in different ways IMO, and he's sort of like a lower-level hybrid of the two. Similar pep in his step and pawing, 'opening' jabbing but also the same snap on it when he stepped in with it. He set up the cross like Hiroyuki, but was more like Jiro in the manner he stuck a right hook on the end. Very smooth combos, and someone who certainly knew how to get in range with them. His work down the centre with straights, head or body, is brilliant as well.

He seems to have the same sort of meandering inconsistency that someone like Chartchai has IMO. Although be seemed able to snap himself into shape and finish things off. He can often seem a little defensively naive, but other times has an excellent radar and gets under multiple shots in a row in an almost Tyson-esque manner. His ring generalship wasn't unwavering in the same way an on-form Chang's was, but it was very good.

I agree that slick fighters like Zapata are pretty bad for him, and I think a tidy little technician like Calderon would make for a good, close fight. The physical bulls like with massive workrates, like Yuh, Matlala, Chocolatito, Chang, Chiquita, Alvarez etc; would make for great fights, but I tend to think they're the type he'd shine against (although I'd take him to lose a couple, there). I think a fight with Lopez would be brilliant.

 

I just watched Kennedy-Ncita I. It's a proper good fight, and a brutal KO. I could watch 30 rounds of that action - although I can hardly stomach the twelve in their rematch, in comparison. The KO here obviously made Ncita far less aggressive in the rematch, making it far less entertaining, in turn.

That said, Ncita was good here. He came in with good head-movement, showed a good jab, a massive overhand and was a truly debilitating body puncher. The fact he did so well before the KO (I thought he was clearly winning), is testimony to this. Especially when compared to how Bungu did vs Kennedy. He had similar success in similar ways, but wasn't as reckless and was tougher. Ncita is underrated, and McKenney was one gutsy muthafucker.

 

Rewatched Alexander Munoz vs Celes Kobayashi.

One of the greatest superflyweight wars

 

One of my absolute favourite fights - just brilliant from both men.

 

Rewatched Charles Williams vs Frankie Swindell.

Helluva performance by Williams, the sharpest I ever saw him.

Williams was an excellent infighter, really tore Swindell to pieces on the inside.

 

I've just been watching through Loma - Nakatani. There's absolutely nothing here to suggest he beats Lopez in a rematch - Nakatani was an absolutely ideal style and temperament for Loma to look good against. He throws single looping shots which are ideal for Loma to defend against. Nakatani doesn't really punch with people. As I explained in a more detailed comment on ESB, all the same stylistic components are there for Lopez to exploit. I think Loma's gonna have another shock if the rematch ever happens.


'I think it's a style thing. Lopez did what he needed to do - he controlled centre ring and punched with Loma whenever he initiated. Loma is pressure and volume oriented, not counter oriented. The core of his style is to initiate - turn the angle - reset / regain centre - repeat. It is very Soviet in its application, similar to the older Soviet Boxers such as Arbachakov, Nazarov and many top amateurs from that system. Loma does not punch with the opponent. In fact, he doesn't even actually counter that much compared to other top fighters. He pressures with his feet and head-movement to throw a combo and then start an angle switch then reset, repeat. Loma's offense isn't actually that varied either, just incredibly refined and smooth. A fighter who is classy or ballsy enough (and good enough, obviously) to punch with Loma will land and consequently reduce his output - which is exactly what Lopez did in combination with his physical advantages. Loma's output for the first 6 was abysmal because of this, not because he was 'cruising' or any of that crap. Loma was beaten legitimately through Boxing strategy, and only really came on due to a combination of realizing he was down on the cards + Lopez losing focus in his Boxing.
Even if Loma tries to change his style in a rematch, he massively struggles in terms of physical attributes. I just don't see it happening. Even against Nakatani he didn't box differently - Nakatani just did not have any sort of ring IQ or style to deal with Loma. The worst thing you can do with Loma is wait for him to initiate without countering.

I don't think Loma will be able to adapt massively - he is too old and is also quite arrogant in the quality of 'his' style. I think repeat is the likely scenario, though I'd rather see Lopez move up and fight at 140 instead.'