I thought about this a bit in light of HBO's Larry Merchant referring to Taylor-Spinks as a "walkout bout" having witnessed not just the Miranda-Pavlik fight but also the savage manner in which that fight was played out. I'm thinking that Merchants basis for saying what he said can be broadly summed up as follows: 1. Pavlik vs Miranda was a wild fight where both combatants threw caution to the wind, and thoroughly entertained the crowd. 2.It was a 160lb contest, with the winner widely anticipated as the next legitimate contender to Taylors crown, both fights therefore were linked to begin with. 3. Taylor had been up to his old tricks, fighting smaller men not regarded as a legit threat to his title, as opposed to the mutually high risk nature of the Pavlik-Miranda fight. Obviously, what made Pavlik-Miranda so especially "eclipsing" was that it involved guys that Taylor should have been fighting to begin with being forced to fight it out between themselves for scraps, in wars, while the erstwhile champ pranced about unimpressively in tepid fights with smaller, less deserving challengers. Can anyone else think of Cards where this sort of thing may have happened?? The key element I suppsoe we should be looking for is the relation between the combatants in the respective fights: obviously a good featherweight brawl can eclipse a dour heavyweight main event- but it would never render it a "walk out bout" per se. One Card I can think of was in Kiev when Wlad got KTFO by Purritty...and kind of nobody gave a fuck about Vitalis more significant European title fight against Francesco Spinelli, which, on paper, was of more importance. Once Wlad had lost, nobody cared, though Vitali did batter Spinelli.
Another example of the relationship that can exist between the undercard and main event: Roy Jones saying he was concentrating more on Gainers undercard title fight than he was on his own main event. For Roy, at least, the undercard eclipsed the main event.
Kevin Kelley-Derrick Gainer I on the undercard of Roy Jones-Eric Lucas Mickey Ward-Shea Neary on the undercard of Hamed-Bungu Mickey Ward-Antonio Diaz on the undercard of Hamed-Sanchez Gatti-Ruelas on the undercard of Lewis-Golota Corrales-Garcia on the undercard of Tyson-Norris
Yeah. Gainer's foul-fest with Norwood was far better than Jones-Harding. Jones-Harding is one of the worst fights of all-time.
In that vain: Kevin Kelley knocking out Derrick Gainer, providing the only televised entertainment in a bout that preceded Roy's snoozer over Eric Lucas (the infamous "two sports in one day" fight) Trying to think of other examples that fit your other criteria...
I agree with the first as there was a linkm thanks to the close friendship between Gainer and Jones, and how the Gainer loss, and its dramatic fashion, kind of affected Roy. You see, what made Taylor-Stinks so, well, less important was the fact that REAL middlweights interested in fighting other middlweights had gone to war on the undercard. Like I said, its not about great undercard bouts per se, its about great undercard bouts and the relation or link they have with the main event they upstage. As said, Wlad vs Purritty in Kiev is one of them. On paper, Vitali vs Pinelli was THE BIG ONE, but after Wlad got KO'd, they might as well all have gotten up and gone home. Vitalis fight was seriously unimportant by then.
The Hopkins-Allen III snooze-fest was the 2nd fight of the PPV card. De La Hoya-Sturm was the main event. The first was J.L. Castillo-Lazcano.
Wtf are you talking about? Besides being unknown for the most part in the us, those of us who did know of the Klitschkos knew that they were so much better than the opponents on this night that it is only notable because it was such a big upset. The fight itself (wlad purritty) was monotonous and one-sided until wlad ran out of gas. Yee haw. You say "The key element I suppsoe we should be looking for is the relation between the combatants in the respective fights:" So we have brothers fighting on the same card and the first one loses in a big upset in an interesting manner, but in a rather dull fight. zzzz
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by Neil lewis vs tua </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> If you want to stretch it - Ettiene/Clay-Bey was one of, if not the, best heavyweight fight of the year, whereas Lewis-Tua was perhaps the most disappointing HVY fight of the year.
Well now thats a pity. If OScar had been on the Undercard then I think we would have had a winner. Cos all thru the Hopkins fight, people would be thinking: this guy {Oscar} is NO middlweight, Bernard will kill him. It would have made the Hopkins fight even MORE irrelevant!!!
If Etienne and Clay had been real HW contenders, and if Tua had not been rated such a dangerous opponent, then that would fit the frame perfectlY:bears:
Right, that's why I said it's a stretch. Ettiene was being groomed by HBO as a future star. How bad is it when Fres Oquendo of all people is the one to expose you ::
For me, Trinidad-Barnes was the real main event over Whitaker-Rodriguez. Both were basically showcases, but Whitaker was literally fighting his sparring partner. Barnes was no world beater, but at least somewhat of a more formidable challenger going in, than Rodriguez. A lot of people in the crowd that night left once Tito's fight was over. So, there's my entry.
That's THE 1st Time REED EVER Saw Tito Fight... Whenever Peeps Refer to Tito as JUST "A Brawler",REED References the Barnes Fight... REED
That's a good fight. Trinidad-Thiam is also a good showcase of a prime Trinidad's ability to be a boxer-puncher. It seems after the Vargas fight, Trinidad fell in love with his power and forgot he had decent boxing skills beforehand. :dunno:
Trinidad got lazy like that in a number of fights, both before and after the Vargas fight. At heart, I agree he was a skilled offensive technician...but everyone takes short cuts here and there. There was no one fight where Trinidad became one-dimensional, IMO. That tendency was always there.
Oh, I see, we're still on topic then? Because for a minute I thought this had turned into A TITO FUCKING TRINIDAD THREAD
