Good fight. Pedroza was a great fighter, but he was lucky to keep his title here instead of losing by DQ
I had sort of misremembered things about the 2 bouts. The first one is better than I had thought. I had remembered it being known more for its shifts in momentum and strategies rather than being a good action fight (except for rounds 6-7, 13-14) I remembered rounds 9-12 being light on action and thinking more of the fight was like that. But the first 5 rounds had some vicious exchanges and was much better than I had remembered. I had remembered the rematch being more action packed than it really was, despite it having its moments. They also looked older and slower than I remembered. No surprise that they had little interest in fighting a 89’ Michael Nunn or other top MWs around that time. Still a pretty good fight though. Marvin Hagler’s biased commentary is amusing. “You know how dirty Ray is!!!” “Come on Tommy” The draw was obviously extremely generous to SRL. One judge had him ahead, while the even scorecard gave Ray two 10-8 rounds despite not scoring any knockdowns.
I had actually never seen this one before. I only saw the rematch, the fun foulfest. This was a pretty good fight as well. Hopkins’s bouts with Echols were probably the most entertaining of his title defenses at middleweight, along with the Tito masterclass.
Agreed. At this point, Hopkins was fighting on FSN and even though he was the champ, he hadn't yet gotten the credit he deserved. But Hopkins put on a beautiful performance, just outsmarting Echols the whole way.
Hopkins was never just a defense first fighter his whole career. He was actually a very aggressive fighter who threw a lot of punches in his early years. His fights with Gilbert Baptist and Segundo Mercado (1) shows that he can be in great fights.
Beautiful performance by McGirt. Brown had success and pushed him hard hit McGirt would withstand the attacks and come back strong.