Smith vs Bivol- My takeaways from this fight. One Bivol has a great jab and a decent check hook that could make it a long night for Canelo. Joe Smith was able to land and hurt Bivol with an overhand right but Bivol showed he has the ability to recover and come back to win a fight. I'm excited for Canelo vs Bivol on May 7th and I think Canelo will finally have a real challenge at 175. Bivol is a worthy challenger and a real champion.
trinidad vs. moore hadn't seen this one before but tito's illegal wraps were on full display with jabs pushing moore back, glancing blows causing moore to retreat, and damage done right through moore's gloves.
another fighter with an incompetent camp that let trinidad cheat. pretty alarming that all his opponents teams had this same oversight, bar 1.
Question to Neil and Double L....do you guys honestly believe Tito was using loaded gloves ala Margarito or Resto? I don't buy it. I know Hopkins claim his team caught Tito cheating but to me that was more mind games from Hopkins who was obviously able to get under Tito's sin and get him off his game plan. Tito is a legend I doubt he needed to load his gloves to win.
Alan Rudkin vs Walter McGowan II. Very underrated British gem of a fight, and also a very brilliant technical match.
castano vs. charlo castano easily won. not to mention, he knocked jermell down in the third round and ref didn't call it. bad robbery in a very important unification fight.
Holmes Vs L Spinks Couple or three observations *Cossell knew nothing about boxing. Nothing. 12lb weight advantage is "inconsequential" !!?? He missed the big right that started Spinks demise. Said Holm's dwarves Spinks at the weigh in because of "the reach". He also referred to Berbick as being of "no note".... *Spinks was good and fought in a fashion and with sufficient skill and durability as to have given any 200lb or sub 200lb fighter a good fight. It's a short list of 200lb guys that beat him and they're probably all greats of some nature. *Holmes really had everything and probably only loses out to the guys that came after him, bar Tyson, on size and strength issues. Cossell was babbling about Holmes not being "self possessed" or some shit. I can't stand when these guys try to get metaphysical and deep. Moments after Cossell says this...Holmes right elbow can be seen drifting away from his body just before he threw a giant right that Spinks slipped. A few moments later he landed that same shot and that started the demise. Cossell called neither of those two shots Holmes knew what he was doing and Howard Houdini should have seen that.
Hearns had an underrated left hook. It was short, quick and accurate. He could really dig it to the body too.
Flo, did you score this one? If so, how close do you think it was? I thought Soto was in control for large parts of the fight and knew exactly when to step on the gas. I had it wider than the judges.
I honestly didn’t think about scoring because I was so engrossed with the action. I think Soto won 8-4 but I really didn’t score much of it at all. Soto won pretty handily but just has the tendency to make fights tough.
Recently got the chance to rewatch this fight in much higher quality and it’s still a helluva scrap between 2 underrated fighters. Lora showing some dog in him against Vazquez.
Just watched Bernard Hopkins vs Joe Lipsey, and I think this is an underrated performance for Bernard. He showed some rapid hands and big power, as well as the real mean streak he showed when he had settled into his own rhythm and tempo. After some early struggles due to the pace of the first two rounds, he managed to block and roll the hooks he'd been caught with previously, and then dismantled his man. Culminating in a vicious KO. He'd have been live with anyone, and would beat all these guys today.
Haven't seen this one in a while, thanks! Solid fight overall and a great finishing combination. Hopkins was a complete fighter at his best.
That was a devastating KO. Lipsey never fought again. Hopkins when he sat down on his punches was a really good puncher.
Joel Casamayor vs Michael Katsidis. Almost forgot how great of a fight this was. This was Casamayor’s last good win.
First time watching this one and it’s a beauty. Nonstop punching from start to finish. Combined totals of 2k punches. Will watch the rest of the trilogy later. I also just realized that Joshua Franco is the brother of Bam Rodriguez. And he’s also scheduled to face Gallo Estrada as well. That should be an exciting match up. If he manages to beat Gallo then that would really shake the division up much like what Bam has been doing.
Just rewatched Gerry Penalosa vs Ponce De Leon. I'm sorry, but there isn't a fucking chance in the world where you get bashed up, schooled, get out performed in every aspect of scoring and miss 1,140 punches and win the fight 120-108. De Leon winning this fight that wide is a fucking disgrace. The entire time the HBO crew was trying to pretend he was winning via volume and were clearly bracing for such a shitty decision, with the whole "well this is what Vegas judges love to see" shit. Gerry got screwed over a lot, and while a good amount of it was his own doing, but this one is particularly sour.
Trinidad’s power was there at 160. Hopkins was just that damn good, and a big middleweight whereas Joppy wasn’t the biggest middleweight.
Hopkins vs Tarver...domination by Hopkins and listening to Naazim Richardson was great... Tarver fked up gaining/losing the weight for the Rocky movie..same thing he did to Roy after Ruiz...
Rafael Herrera vs Chucho Castillo 2. Such an exquisite, high level, skillful fight from 2 great technicians.