Boxing in the United States can sometimes make me wish I was Canadian…and I’m feeling like that right now. HBO on Saturday night had a couple of great fights, two African boxers who both won in my opinion. The first was scored fairly, the second was a complete farce. Vernon Forrest vs. Ike Quartey – I finished this one tonight after having watched the first bout live and the first 7 rounds ondemand w/ my sons…at that point I had it 5-2 Quartey, expecting him to slow down, but mostly kind of down knowing that after I put them to bed there wouldn’t be much of a chance that Forrest would be able to make up the difference, at least not by the looks of it. The glimmer of hope I had in the final rounds being special was that perhaps Quartey would tire as predicted and the contest would get close by the end.
Clearly, the one punch Forrest landed that had any impact at all was the right uppercut in either round 3 or 4, but after that Quartey tightened up his defense with his gloves and forearms closer together in front of his face, preventing that same punch from hurting him again. Forrest worked the body, but a hook to the head came back in return almost every time he went there. Quartey was blocking practically EVERY jab and hook to the head Forrest tried to land. Not only that, but it wasn’t like Quartey was making all his shots off of retaliation, but instead MOVED FORWARD ALL TEN ROUNDS and landed the more damaging blows from start to finish – – – Compubox had Forrest throwing twice as many punches, yet landing LESS (under 20%)…this was Quartey’s defense showing up in the stats. Now I mentioned that I’d stoped the taping after the 7th with it 5-2 for Quartey, so from there Forrest gets off his 3rd (by my count) low blow of the fight and loses a point in the 9th, so going into the final round I figured it was a done deal…6-2 at best, I could see a judge giving Forrest 4 rounds if they were drunk, but minus the point deducted for the low blow in the 9th, that should have sealed it for the African fighter. Quartey won the final round, and the fighters’ body language clearly indicated who won.
It wasn’t even close! Quartey won it hands down and yet…
Unanimous decsion in favor of Forrest! I’m so ashamed that tonight I’ve started looking at houses in Toronto…what a cheap representation of this great sport. I can’t say for sure that it had something to do with where the man was from (Ghana), but then again, that’s the only reason I can fathom such a decision. On the simplist terms, Forrest was outdone offensively (he landed less punches) and defensively (he landed under 20% and Quartey landed over 45%) AND was moving backwards the entire fight AND had a point deducted for too many low blows, yet all three judges scored it for him anyway. God Bless America?
That’s why I watch ultimate fighting instead of boxing. I stopped watching right after Tyson took a bite out of Holyfield. UFC is 3 5-minute rounds. And just about anything goes. Definitely better bang for the buck.
Lamont won. Hooray. Finally someone has defeated the evil Darth Lieberman. Kidding, I’ve got nothing against the guy, he just misread his base, and I’m not a part of the base, so again… Hooray.
Does Lieberman have a shot of attracting half the Democrats and a third of the Republicans, pulling off an upset victory in November?
Observe… Foxnews.com presents the Lamont win on their front page.
Guilt by association. Classic.
I wonder if Lamont is thinking “geez, I wish these guys hadn’t shown up”? How much political value did they provide? How much political power did they pick up? Enquiring minds are pissing their pants to hear the answer!
HBO boxing is great although most of the announcers are punch brain dead. USA Network and ESPN boxing – eh. Never been able to get into it.
I always thought UFC was for meatheads until I watched a $40 broadcast and saw that there was some strategy to it. Get the person on the ground so you can pummel them. Unfortunately, it ended up with a lot of stalemate time, two fighters facing each other upright in a defensive position.
The reason Joe Lieberman lost is the same reason a Republican is governor of California. He did his own thing and never explained himself sufficiently to his base. Voters finally said enough and fuck you.
2 problems with HBO boxing. 1) I don’t have HBO. 2) You can sit through a 10 or 13 round fight and wish that you had mowed the lawn or done the dishes instead.
Boxing just isn’t very exciting to watch these days. I think most of the strategy happens outside the ring when they are arranging fights and picking competitors.
With UFC I’m a Royce Gracie fan, but put alongside a top ranked pro boxing match, I’ll choose boxing every time…it’s a sport that requires more of a competitor to be great than any other sport at times, and it shows, as with Tyson, when he didn’t train up for the fight hard enough, the fact that he couldn’t really go past 5 rounds without his spirit being broken…
The Cooney factor though, something that happened the other night, where impressions or prejudices leading up in the minds of the judges…hope perhaps? Cooney-Holmes will always be one of my favorite fights because of how irrational the sporting fans of America tend to be at times, but unlike a lot of other sports, boxing isn’t one where a gimick trumps professionalism…Holmes was the professional, and Cooney fought his heart out, yet the result was inevitable.
The other night aggrivated me a great deal, as Forrest’s claim to fame was that he knocked out Mosley twice, but there are times when boxers who trained together, fought in amateurs, one just has the other one’s number, whether it be timing or something that just naturally takes over them, elevating their game to another level based on familiarity…put alongside the top 3 in his weight class at any time in his career, Forrest was on the outside looking in.
Here he came in without his left jab even being able to hurt his opponent, which was realized early enough for Quartey to just start moving forward from the 2nd/3rd round on, meaning Forrest was unable to unleash his right hand (his weapon, the only one you have to fear), and even if he did, Quartey was blocking 90% of the headshots anyway.
I’ve gone over this already, but the strategy involved in a boxing match is on another level when compared with UFC where the combatants are quickly put into situations of necessity, where their full range of moves are cut down to just one or two for the sake of this other guy who’s either on top of below…wrestling, leverage and the ability to create room for strikes…wonderful for what it is, but these fighters are trained in such a way that they could probably kill you or I in under 10 seconds, but at the same time, when matched up against someone like themselves, the fight generally ends up where MOST fair fights between humans end up, on the ground.
Deadwood had a fight between Dougherty and Captain Turner earlier this season…whereas TV and movies generally show a fight with two people on their feet exchanging blows…reality is, the ground is where they’re destined to end up, just like on UFC…and that’s the purist in me appreciating what the UFC really is, a FAIR FIGHT, something rarely seen in this world of fiction.
I just have a tricky stomach when it comes to knees to the head, elbows to the head…you can say these guys are “professionals” all you want, but the football field shows us a few times a year that the human body is fragile in particular ways, and when one of those ways plays out on the field, the potential for death at times is very real.
When the UFC fighters are abroad, many of the rules they’re fighting under here are thrown out, and the whole thing changes for me from sport to cockfighting…I mean, do Japanese fans really want to see a man die in the ring from a knee strike to the top of his head, crushing a vertibre?
I feel for these guys who make a living off of this, as that reality is a real one, and aside from that, many live on painkillers and not a lot to show for it upon retirement…
So I have mixed feelings…boxing is a love of mine, not likely to be outdone.
2 problems with HBO boxing. 1) I don’t have HBO. 2) You can sit through a 10 or 13 round fight and wish that you had mowed the lawn or done the dishes instead.
That’s funny. Yeah, a baseball game is the same way but agonizingly longer. Maybe this instant gratification society is ruining our ability to enjoy our favorite past times.
It wasn’t even close! Quartey won it hands down and yet…
The scoring is too subjective. In football, you have to cross the goal line to make a touchdown (unless, of course, your name is Rothlisburger and it’s the superbowl, but in general you have to cross the goal line)
Boxing just isn’t mainstream anymore – as it seems to take a strong heavyweight division to bring the public in…also, our culture has become divided between safe suburb and dangerous city, and the ability to identify with the fighters tends to be less over time as the true distance between these two habitats grows larger each year.
I was an avid chess player growing up, and boxing to me is a chess match much like the one that takes place between a pitcher and a hitter, but it’s not something quick, immediate, so a lot of times what CM said rings true for a lot of people. I’ll admit that there are bouts where the two aren’t fighting, but you’re not talking about top ranked opponents there. The two fights this past Saturday were both great bouts, both fought from wire to wire with an enormous amount of energy and thought.
You have to be a fan to appreciate it, but also to understand that something incredible can and does take place…Zab Judah a couple months ago, got schooled by Floyd Mayweather on pay per view…they scheduled a tune up before that against a 35+ year old Argentenian fighter in Brooklyn (Zab’s hometown), the guy had 9 losses, but hadn’t lost in his last 15 fights…hype was Zab’s most gleaming attribute leading up to it, but it was hard to know that by looking at his fights leading up to it, where his gloves were bombs and opponents were falling down left and right…
Zab lost that fight against Baldomir by decision, rightly, and Baldomir defended his title beating up Gatti a couple weeks back, while Zab moves onto the already schedules (now not a guaranteed cash cow of a fight) against Mayweather, embarrasses himself, throws low blows, fights dirty…looks much like the punk he turned out to be.
Though, I suppose the judges could have stolen that fight from Baldomir like they stole it from Quartey a couple nights ago…and who stands up for the foreign fighter getting robbed in the US?
Did they have big money hopes for Forrest in the upcoming year? Did they see what happened with Zab and decide it wasn’t going to happen again?
Does HBO have the power to swing a decision?
I guess all this is what interests me, pisses me off…but above all else, it seems that today I get the most enjoyment out of a hyped up fighter running into a more complete pro who has been ignored for a long time…that hyped up fighter getting beaten. I think the money guys in boxing hate it when that happens…I love it, it’s what gets me excited sometimes.
I never pay to see a fight…perhaps DelaHoya-Mayweather would justify it, but nothing short of that would…because for me it’s just as satisfying watching a fight on tape as it is live, if I don’t know how it turns out of course…and that plays into my favor because boxing is out of the spotlight in the mainstream media…which I don’t watch or listen to anyway, and since my last siezure, I no longer visit ESPN.com…my doctor says the front page can mess with the human mind much like those Japanese cartoons…
I need to get my friend Phil in on this discussion, he’s a huge boxing fan, and hasn’t been around in over a year.
I sometimes forget anout the strategy in boxing. it is more than land blow = knockout. These punching combos – they have a purpose. If you choose one, and your opponent guesses correctly, your big open smiley face head will get rung big time. That’s something boxing commentation doesn’t point out evnough, the constant decision-making by the fighters in the ring.
Maybe I’m guilty of wanting instant gratification. I’m just not down with sitting through an entire fight and letting the judges tell me who won.
I really liked Gatti (years ago), he had real heart. Bum deal that he cuts so easy. Dela Hoya was good, Jones Jr. good, but I haven’t heard much buzz about replacements for these giants. I think my all time favorite fight (actually fights) were the Bowe vs Holyfield matches. Ah, those were the days my friends.
I was actually off when I said I stopped watching boxing when Tyson bit Holyfield. What was actually the nail in the coffin was when Lewis became heavyweight champ. Watching that guy fight is bbbboooooorrrrriiiinnnnggggg. Snooze, snooze, snooze. Strategy, schmategy. I can watch History channel shows about war if I want that kind of strategy. In a fight I want some quick action, and aggression.
Well, maybe it’s just that I don’t have HBO, and ESPN boxing is all I can get??? I’ve been thinking about getting HBO. But then I would just watch more TV. I’m already fanatically addicted to a silly rock-n-roll reality show, which TOTALLY RULES!
Lewis was a bum – and they just kept lining up worse bums to suck 50 bucks out of millions of idiots 2 times a year (remember Tua?)…HBO and Showtime boxing are worth it (not to mention HBO’s original programming!)…very entertaining, and plenty of fights you don’t have to pay money for (I stay away from all those, Lewis left a bad taste in my mouth…although I never paid to see his fights either, someone always would though)
Gatti was favored the other night against Baldomir, but couldn’t hurt him even with his best punch. Really good fight, you should check out Baldomir, his fight against Judah was probably my favorite of this year so far. Mosely-Mayweather or Delahoya-Mayweather will be great, whichever one ends up going off…timing will be key.
In terms of the analysis, I agree that it’s poor…it’s tough to pick out what’s significant in a fight, it took me years to figure it all out. Now I’ll watch a fight and read the articles the next day, wonder how any of these writers got jobs…one yesterday talked about how Quartey was pounding Forrest’s body with shots…I didn’t see Quartey go to the body at all really, all his punches were to the head, so even the “experts” (the people getting paid for their opinion) can be total hacks.
I like HBO’s crew though, especially when they’ve got Emmanuel Stewart commentating…a couple fights this year and last they had Lenox Lewis and I felt like punching the TV…Jim Lampley is great, and Merchant asks the best questions of any post sporting event journalist in the business.
It’s something I’d like to do professionally in my golden years – always wanted to follow a sport, do commentary. Boxing would be a blast.
If you don’t have HBO/Showtime, it’s really tough to get satisfied as far as boxing goes these days…they get the top prize fights, usually without exception.
Lieberman has about as much charisma as a brown paper bag. The guy bet on the wrong horse, but it’s too late to count him out now. We’ve got to see how many Republicans give him their vote in November.
He’s been a Senator for 30 years – and it shows. I pegged him as a VP candidate for the next election, a guy who could bring out the GOP vote (goes to show how great of a Democrat he actually is!)
HBO would be a great investment, but with the impending end of both Deadwood and Sopranos, I don’t know anymore…
Milch has a new drama coming out, and there will be something else, you know there will be…I wish they’d continue Carnivale…I can’t understand how HBO could cut the 4th season of Deadwood into 4 episodes (2-2 hour episodes), yet blow money on Tourgasm and Lucky Louie!!!!
Entourage is great!
Deadwood is the best show on television. Hands down. I wish it got more notice.
Never will unfortunately – – – you watch, Ian McShane will be up for another best actor, and they’ll give it to someone even worse than James Spader…they’ll give it to the lead actor on CSI or something like that…shit, maybe they’ll give it to Kiefer Sutherland…
Anything to convince America that network TV still has a reason to exist.
I just rented the first two seasons on “The Wire” and I plan on renting the third season, in anticipation of season four…yet another HBO series I’m hooked on.
Ah yes, The Wire. I always forget about that show.(Not that it is by any means bad, I just forget about it.)
The Wire is my favorite show out of them all. Second season is ondemand right now, w/ the 3rd one coming up right after that.
Ziggy…