Another week is over, and we've had another strange week in the world of professional boxing. There has been some amazing moments in the ring, some brilliant stories outside of it, some hilarious bad decisions made in the governing of the sport, and some disgusting officiating.
The Good 1-Seki-Chan's attempt to buy boxing broadcasting rights We love free boxing, it's essentially something that helps show case fighters, invites fans into the sport, and gives people a chance to enjoy a sport that, sadly, has become very expensive to follow. With that in mind we're so, so happy to hear that Seki-Chan is looking to buy broadcasting rights for shows in Japan and give away the events on youtube to viewers. This is a truly original idea, backed by someone's love for the sport, and it's something we hope more fans can get behind, especially as the first show planned to be streamed by Seki-chan is at the of November! If you can support this then please subscribe to this YouTube channel and help to hit it's 1,000 subscriber target by the start of November. 2-Upsets! Boy did we have some shocking results during the week as boxing really did show that's an unpredictable sport at times. Potentially the biggest of those upsets was in South Africa, where Prince Dlomo stopped former Devin Haney opponent Xolisani Ndongeni, though we had shocks in other places, such as Belarus, with Germaine Brown beating Dmitrii Chudinov, and the UK, where Kane Baker, Marc Leach and Rylan Charlton each picked up shock wins! 3-Monstrous KO's! A moment ago we mentioned Prince Dlomo's KO, and it was a sensational one, but it was one of a host of great KO's this week. We also saw amazing KO's from Katsunori Endo, Aaron Aponte, Jan Marsalek and Daniel Robles among others. We're not sure what's in the water right now but we are getting a strong of brutal KO's in October, and long may they continue. For anyone wanting to know about the best, unheralded KO's of the year, we suggest you give a look over Tim Boxeo's excellent list of knockouts, which can be seen here. 4-Teofimo Lopez is the man! On Saturday we had the bout the boxing world was waiting for with Lightweight titles being unified as Vasyl Lomachneko faced off with Teofimo Lopez. Lomachneko was the betting favourite, and it was assumed that his experience would come into play against Lopez, who was stepping up massively. Whilst Lomachenko was genuinely disappointing, doing very, very little in the first 6 rounds, Lopez exceeded expectations, by some distance. He out boxed Lomachenko, he neutralised the Ukrainian, he shut him down, and even when Lomachenko tried to turn it on he was put back in his place. American boxing may well have the new star to carry it for the next decade! The Bad 1-British Scorecards...fucking stink! And now we get to our usual complaints! What on earth was going on in the UK on Saturday night? We had two awful scorecards from Terry O'Connor, who had Lewis Ritson beating Miguel Vazquez 117-111 and Thomas Patrick Ward beating Thomas Essomba 88-84. We also had a stinking cards from Michael Alexander, who had Ritson beating Vazquez and Ward and Essomba fighting to a draw. The fact the same two judges, both turned in awful cards in the two most meaningful fights of the show needs to be looked into. The fact Terry O'Connor has had a long string of these poor scorecards really is taking the piss now. Things haven't been helped by O'Connor seemingly glancing at his phone during round 8. Whether he did or didn't we'll leave to you to think about, but the scorecards he turned in are inexcusable regardless. 2-WBC's Super Cruiserweight Division Fucking hell. So the WBC have decided to create a new weight class, more than 30 years after the Straight divisions was created in the late 1980's. To do this they are resetting the Cruiserweight limit to 190lbs, which it was until 2003, and putting a division above it, up to 224lbs. This leads to so many questions straight off the bat. For example, are they expecting all their current Cruiserweight champions, such as World, Youth, Intercontinental, International, etc, champions to lose 10lbs to keep their current titles? Are they expecting the other world title bodies to follow suit or are we going to, essentially, have two different limits at Cruiserweight? 3-Lomachenko's tactics Earlier we praised Teofimo Lopez's performance as Vasyl Lomachenko but in reality we also need to be honest and say that Lomachenko's tactics were bizarre. The talented Ukrainian gave away rounds by doing nothing early on. He didn't seem to throw a punch in some rounds and instead skirted around the ring, doing little to even make the bout seem competitive. Whilst he did make a good charge late on it came too late for him to win without putting Lopez down. It was truly bizarre. When he put his foot on the gas in round 7, he looked brilliant, but having given up 6 rounds the best he could have expected was a draw. Real questions need to be asked as to who thought giving away 6 rounds was a good idea. Yes Lopez did great in neutralising Lomachenko, but Lomachenko didn't seem to really try anything to unsettle Lopez until it was too late. Absolutely bizarre game plan from someone as highly regarded as Lomachenko. 4-Julie Lederman's scorecard 119-111? Did anyone see Lopez beat Lomachenko that widely? We think most agree that Lopez deserved the win, we also think everyone would have given the Ukrainian at least 3, and as many as 5. So what Julie Lederman was watching is nothing short of a mystery, As with Terry O'Connor this is not a one off bad card, but one in a growing string of bad scorecards that really should be investigated. Too many bad cards from too many judges, are making this sport look a lot, lot worse than it is. The Ugly 1-Robert Smith of the British Boxing Board of Control Well in for a penny in for a pound! The British Boxing Board of Control's Robert Smith spoke on Sunday morning, after the controversial Ritson Vs Vazquez fight, and essentially did his best impression of an Emu, by essentially burying his head in the sand. Rather than standing up, saying their are issues that need to be looked into, and being clear in what is being done about judges with consistently questionable cards. We often sing the praises of the Japanese Boxing commission, and one thing they do really well is communicate with those who follow Japanese boxing. When officials need to be investigated they are, and if they need to be punished they are, and when they need more training they get it. And better yet the JBC make it clear what's happening. In the UK however things are done behind closed doors, and kept very secretive. It's no wonder discontent is growing among British boxing fans. Instead of doing what is good for boxing Smith has arrogantly come across as if fans don't matter, as if controversies don't happen in the UK, and that British judges shouldn't be investigated. Fuck Robert Smith! We enjoy boxing from around the world, but rarely does it seem any head of a national body is complicit in the issues that are causing it problem like the British board are. For years it was Germany, Italy, Thailand and Argentina that away fighters couldn't get decisions in. Now the UK seems to be among, if not the, very worst for questionable decisions.
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Another week is gone, and again it was a week of mixed stuff in the boxing world. We had some great moments in the ring, some good out of the ring announcements, some problems with broadcasters and, once again, some issues with the WBA.
The Good 1-Multiple huge KO's! We've been really, really, lucky in recent weeks with the sheer number of great KO's scored around the world. This past week was no exception, and they just kept coming and coming. In the middle of the week Brandun Lee scored a scorcher against Jimmy Williams, just a few days later Janibek Alimkhanuly blew out Gonzalez Gaston Coria. Then, on Saturday, we got Matteo Signani scoring a sensational KO against Maxime Beaussire, Nathan Augustine blowing out Tarek Derfoufi and Robin Krasniqi scoring a sensational upset KO against Dominic Boesel. Seriously we got some of the best KO's of 2020 all one after the other, after the other! A great week for Knock Outs! 2-Garcia Vs Campbell a done deal (at last) After several cancelled purse bids, several announcements that a deal was done, only to then be cancelled, we're so glad to finally see a date being announced for the WBC "Interim" Lightweight title. It feels like this bout has been in the works for months, but to now have December 5th circled on the calendar for it, it appears we are finally getting this very interesting match up. It's one we're looking forward to, even if it is clear that the WBC Lightweight title situation has become a huge joke in recent years. 3-Boxing is back in the Philippines! After months of boxing being suspended in the Philippines we finally saw the sport resume service there this past week with a low card from Omega Promotions. The sport still isn't truly up and running there, but it was still a boost in the arm for Filipino boxing after such a long and lengthy lay off. Fingers crossed we see more and more of the sport in the country in the near future, but only if it can be done safely, as this show was. 4-Dubois Vs Joyce - NOT ON PPV! We've spent so much time complaining about PPV in recent months that we feel we need to give credit where a bout we expected to see cost fans more turns out to not be behind a further paywall. With that said well played to BT Sport and Frank Warren for putting the bout between Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce on normal BT Sport. It's just a shame that it appears the decision was one that comes with a caveat. Stories out of the UK suggest the same weekend BT Sport will have PPV Football, meaning BT Sport took the decision not to put boxing on PPV on the same day. Still sometimes we, as boxing fans, need to take the positives when we can. The Bad 1-BT Sports card was dire So we've just praised BT Sport and it just so happens that karma is in effect as they put on one of the worst shows we've seen in 2020. Their card on Saturday night was nothing short of terrible. The highlight of the card was Luke Jones taking an upset win against Muheeb Fazeldin and the segue that the broadcast had to Steve Bunce talking about black history month. This was an awful broadcast, with very, very few redeeming factors. Thankfully it finished relatively early as well! 2-ESPN make fans chase their broadcast Another complaint about a broadcaster we're afraid. What on earth were ESPN doing making fans literally chase a broadcast across 3 different channels. ESPN+, ESPN News and ESPN all hosted different parts of the same show on Friday night. There was no reason at all for this, and it really was awkward, made things tricky to follow and saw a lot of fans missing parts of the show. Come on guys, keep things simple for fans and don't confuse them! Don't make the sport harder to follow than it needs to be! The Ugly 1-The WBA interims continue to be a joke Okay we don't have any mega ugly this week, but we do have something that we want to fit in here and that's the way the WBA continue, still, to create interim titles. This time it was up at Light Heavyweight where Robin Krasniqi stopped Dominic Boesel to become the new WBA interim champion. The bout, which ended in brutal fashion, was an interesting match up that, in the past, would have been a European title bout or a world title eliminator. Some how however the WBA slapped their interim title on here, despite neither man having a world class win. Come on folks, stop devaluing your own fucking titles! Well the last week has certainly been an interesting one. We've had some amazing fights, some crazy officiating, some interesting announcements as a big event in Pakistan. It's been a really varied week, and now we'll try to round up the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the week we've just had!
The Good 1 - Toshiki Kawamitsu Vs Kenshi Noda On Saturday from Japan we got something a little bit special as Toshiki Kawamitsu and Kenshi Noda gave us an absolute thriller of a fight. The two unbeaten prospects gave us high intensity action, brilliant exchanges, amazing back and forth and this was easily one of the best fights we've seen in Japan this year. Given that the fighters were 4-0 and 2-0 coming in to this one we really did get a treat, and the two out performed any expectations we had. A really, really good bout and, were it not for something absolute amazing later in the day, this would have been the bout of the weekend. 2 - Usman Wazeer scores big win for Pakistan! It's fair to say that we want to see boxing spread to more countries. We want typical boxing strong holds, like Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the UK, the US and Mexico to continue producing great fighters, but we also want countries without big boxing scenes to join the party. For that to happen those nations will need their own stars, and will need someone to act as a figure head. It now appears Pakistan might have their man in the form of Usman Wazeer, who appears, already, to have a huge Pakistani following. His win this weekend was massive for Pakistani boxing and fingers crossed it will act as a catalyst to Pakistan having a thriving boxing scene in the future. 3 - Great all Thai bouts being announced! It's fair to say that 2020 has been a really, really crap year. However for all the crap that's gone on there have been some positives to take from it all and one of those has been the interesting all-Thai bout's we've been seeing. In recent months we appeared to have been getting more and more good, solid, all-Thai bouts. We had Srisaket Vs Amnat Ruenroeng a few months ago, and we had Campee Phayom Vs Pungluang Sor Singyu, and Nattapong Jankaew vs Samartlek Kokietgym. This week we saw a trio of interesting all-Thai bouts being added to the schedule to look forward to. We love the look of Nattapong Vs Petchbarngborn, Amnat Vs Pungluang and Wanheng Vs Petchmanee. Well done to the Thai promoters for finally giving us what fans have been screaming for for years, good, solid, competitive looking, and interesting All Thai bouts! 4 - Jose Zepeda Vs Ivan Baranchyk In less than 5 rounds Jose Zepeda and Ivan Baranchyk put on a bout with more action, more drama and more excitement than many full shows have. For those that haven't seen this stop what you're doing. Go and find this fight online. Enjoy. For those that have seen it, go watch it again! And again! With 8 knockdowns, a KO of the Year contender, several Round of the Year contenders the bout is a clear front runner for Fight of the Year. We knew this would be good, the styles of the two men was always going to give us something great, but this exceeded even the wildest of expectations. We saw something truly amazing, and given 2020 has been...2020 this was the escapism that we needed. This was the type of fight 2020 needed, and we dare say this is the fight we all needed. 5 - Daniel Dubois Vs Joe Joyce is on! Talking about bouts that we need it now appears the on again, off again, on again, off again saga between Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce has been sorted, at last. The bout is now expected to take place behind closed doors in November or December, and was one of the bouts that British boxing really needed. This was the bout British boxing needed and the logical bout to eliminate one of the two unbeaten Brits from the world title conversation. Well done to the two guys for agreeing to this one! The Bad 1-Terrible state of judging through out the weekend We know judging can be terrible, but we don't think there's been a day recently with more "WTF" scoring. In Thailand we had two judges giving Apichet Petchamee 6 of the 8 rounds he fought with Musheg Adoian, only giving Adoian the two where he scored knockdowns. In Japan had judges missing the success of Kiyohei Endo in Japan, in what was a super close fight. In the US we had poor scorecards turned in by Lou Moret and Rudy Barragan, both scoring Paul Kroll beating Lucas Santamaria 99-91, and both turning in confusing scores for Mark Magsayo Vs Rigoberto Hermosillo, a bout that Barragan had 100-90 and Moret had 96-94 the other way, Chris Flores and Patricia Morse Jarman, who both had Kingsley Ibeh and Guido Vianello fighting to a draw and Adalaide Byrd scoring Frevian Gonzalez Robles' bout with Carlos Marrero a draw. Things didn't get better on Sunday when Ian John Lewis, the scoring referee, had John Hedges beating Jan Ardon in their 4 rounder. A pathetic score bit of officiating to try and save the supposedly talented debutant, at the cost of someone who deserved the W. Judges world wide turning in such dud scorecards really does harm the sport, and needs to be sorted out. Now! 2 - Eddie Hearn being infected Given Eddie Hearn's push to have fans back at boxing and Snooker we're not hugely sympathetic to the recent news that he had to leave the bubble following a positive PCR test. In many ways it was almost expected that someone who thought just eating properly and having a healthy diet would prevent him from being ill. However it is still bad news and we do hope that Eddie gets well soon. Sadly him being ill did force the cancellation of a planned meeting between himself and Frank Warren, which could have been huge for British boxing. The Ugly 1 - MMA Heavyweights in Boxing On the same show as the amazing bout between Jose Zepeda and Ivan Baranchyk we also saw a bizarre, but very short, bout between James Barnes and Mitchell Sipe. The two fighters, who both have an MMA background, really shouldn't have been a televised fight. In fairness to Sipe he looks like he could box a bit, even though he was making his debut, he also looked like a professional athlete. Barnes on the other hand looked like he really needed to hit the gym, hard, and learn how to box. He seemingly had no idea what he was doing in the sport, though some how has a win under his belt. Whilst this was stupidly entertaining, it doesn't do the sport any good to see fighters like Barnes being licensed and NSAC really shouldn't have let him in the ring. 2 - No Social Distancing in Pakistan Whilst our complaint about Barnes is a bit of a moan we do have a genuine worry here, with the show in Pakistan. The rest of the world have generally brought in mask wearing in public and social distancing but in Pakistani there was neither of those things. There was also crowds storming the ring to celebrate Usman Wazeer's win, and anyone could have been carrying something. Whilst want boxing in Pakistan to survive, we also need it to be safe, and hopefully in future we'll see some general well being brought in to the country when it comes to the sport. If Wazeer's big win becomes a super spreader event or if the next card there sees someone getting stabbed, or a brawl breaking out it could kill the sport before it's even off the ground. Come on folks, show a bit of common sense! Well...that weekend is behind us, the matchsticks have been removed form our eyes, the coffee has had to be replaced, and our bodies are still feeling the effects of one of the most incredible weeks this sport has had in a long, long time. Whether you're a fan of mainstream boxing or the sport at wide you would have enjoyed something from this past week. Boy we know we did! With that in mind we've a lot of good to go along with some bad and a couple of true uglies.
The Good 1-Lots of free boxing! Lets start with the best thing of the week and that was all the free boxing that was available. We couldn't possible guess on how many free cards were available world wide but over the course of a week we had no less than 5 Asian cards for free, as well as a show from Latvia! Seriously we can, and will, bitch about PPV, but we also need to say well done to promoters putting on free shows during these trying times. During the week we had a live card from Kazakhstan, two from Thailand, two from Japan and one from Latvia. Yes boxing can be a very expensive sport to follow, but we, as fans, should be making the must of all the free action we can! Thanks to our good Friend Tim Boxeo (@Hock1717) we've come to the total being at least 20 free boxing shows world wide this past week! 2-Melvin Lopez helps Yeison Vargas to sleep Jesus fucking Christ what a KO! Not sure we need to add anything here, but we'll try. A single left hand from Melvin Lopez knocked Yeison Vargas out cold, with Vargas still standing, before he crash to the canvas. This was another in a long line of great KO's we've seen recently is certainly in the running for the KO of the year. An absolute thunderbolt that sadly saw Vargas essentially being concussed standing and then concussed again as he crashed to the canvas below. If you've not seen it we seriously suggest you hunt it down! 3-Julio Cesar Chavez Sr and Jorge Arce III Whilst we've seen the upcoming Mike Tyson Vs Roy Jones Jr exhibition getting a lot of attention the reality is that we're not expecting anythign too spectacular there. Thankfully for fans of fun exhibitions we got something hugely entertaining this week as Mexican icons Julio Cesar Chavez Sr and Jorge Arce put on a show for charity. This is exactly what an exhibition is supposed to be about. Two guys, past their best, putting on a showcase performance for fans. This was fun, high octane and showed that two guys have still got the tank to go a few rounds. 4-WBSS Cruiserweight II Final We had a lot of great bouts this week and one of the best was the, well over-due, WBSS Cruiserweight II final between Mairis Briedis and Yuniel Dorticos. We know that the Crusierweight division has long been the bastard child of the Heavyweight division but once again it has seen two men knock 7 lumps out of each other in a truly incredible bout. The iron these two guys have in their chin needs investigating, with both taking monster shots through the 12 round bout. In the end the skills and ability to adapt of the 35 year old Briedis were the difference maker, but that just added to the bout. We had bombs, skills, action drama. If you missed it go and watch it. Now! 5-The Hitman Vs The Mechanic We've just mentioned one great bout, now let us talk about another! This WBC Middleweight title bout between Jermall Charlo and Sergiy Derevyanchenko was expected to be a really interesting match up, and boy did it ever live up to expectations. Early on it looked like Charlo was going to have an easy time with the Ukrainian, who struggled to get past the jab of the American. Then we saw Derevyanchenko adapt, get close and begin to work up close on Charlo, suffering for his success. Then Charlo seemed to re-sume control, before a late surge from Derevyanchenko, who tired in the championship rounds. Whilst the Showtime PPV on Saturday gave us some great action, this was the best back and forth bout. 6-Rentaro Kimura..Japan's answer to Vasyl Lomachenko? On Sunday morning from Shizuoka we saw Rentaro Kimura fight for the second time in the professional ranks and he put in a sensational performance showing amazing offense, brilliant movement, defense, angles, punch selection, defense. His debut, back in July, seemed to be about getting a win first but this was about shining and boy did he shine. His opponent, Takafumi Iwaya, played his part by being tougher than a pair of old boots, but what a show case from Kimura. Folks, we may well have Japan's new must watch fighter! The Bad 1-Kohei Oba's return After more than 6 years out of the ring we saw former Japanese Bantamweight champion Kohei Oba return to action, to face Yoshiki Minato. Sadly Oba didn't look good at all here. He looked slow, he looked clumsy, his reflexes weren't there and he never got a chance to get himself into the bout. For a man who was once dubbed the "Mayweather of Nagoya" this was a humiliating showing ans made it very, very clear that Oba needs to retire and stay retired. He's very lucky Minato wasn't a big puncher, or this could have gotten very ugly, rather than just embarrassing. 2-Shun Kubo Vs Takashi Igarashi Whilst Kohei Oba could be excused for his disappointing performance, given he'd been out of the ring so long, we don't have much of an excuse for why Shun Kubo Vs Takashi Igarashi was such a poor affair. This was just very much a "meh" fight that never really caught fire. Both men seemed far too cautious through out, neither man ever fully committed and as a result it just sort of meandered towards a nothing win for Kubo. If you missed this one live, don't both catching it, it's not worth your time. 3-Scoring again an issue! Whilst we had some truly brilliant fights this past weekend we really do need to wonder what some officials were watching at times. We had poor scores over shadow some very good good bouts. How judges in Lativa scored the Arturs Gorlovs vs Felipe Nsue bout a draw is a mystery, as was a judge having Ricards Bolotniks Vs Hosea Burton 100-90, a score we can't get to no matter how we try. It wasn't just Latvia that left us scratching out heads though. I n the US Don Ackerman's 118-110 in the Luis Nery Vs Aaron Alameda fight was a terrible score, as was David Sutherland having the same in the Jermall Charlo Vs Sergiy Derevyanchenko bout. We felt the Daniel Roman Vs Juan Carlos Payano bout was super close, yet the judges had it a rather clear win for Roman. Also two judges in Mexico somehow only had a point separating Mario Abel Cazares and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, more about him later. Oh and one in Germany had Mairis Briedis vs Yuniel Dorticos level at 114-114. As we can see this isn't isolated to one country, but is a worldwide issue. Lets have it sorted out guys! The Ugly 1-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr Quits... again We said we were going to get back to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and here we are. Erm...Yeah Quitting once is pretty bad, but for Chavez Jr to do it a number of times now is beyond the point where even his most ardent of fans can suspend him. He quit with a relative small cut, he then bitched about Cazares headbutting him. Dude, find a new career, get out of the sport and...become a catwalk model or something. We'll admit we loved seeing Jr come through the ranks , and his bout with Sergio Martinez was fantastic, but recently he has become a joke and has dragged his father's name through the mud. 2-Intermizzzzzion The Showtime PPV was...interesting. The in ring action was good, and the pacing for the first half of the show was perfect. It felt quick, sharp and moved on from bout to bout with no issues. It was enjoyable, exciting, and a nice mix of great action, and excitement. Then we hit the intermission and oh boy was that shit. We're sure Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are lovely chaps, and the idea of an intermission was a good idea. But this just failed. The guys didn't seem to be fully coherent of the subject matter, they both seemed like they were being paid by the word, and it completely killed the pacing of the show. This was ill judged and if Showtime are going to do a similar type of PPV in the future they need to reconsider how they will split the different parts of the show. 3-Lack of research from Showtime! Staying with our complaints about Showtime there was at least 3 occasions where they mentioned "John Riel Casimero's US debut", seemingly unaware he had fought in the US around 18 months ago, fighting for the interim version of the title he defended over the weekend. Whilst that bout wasn't shown on TV it did happen, and it was strange that Showtime were either not aware of it, or tried to act like it didn't happen. Very very odd that no one seemed to twig that they were repeating the same mistake. It didn't help that in there intermission the people doing the show seemed to suggest that Casimero was a slow starter, despite the fact 10 of his 20 stoppages prior to last night had been in the first 3 rounds. It was one of those cases where a quick look at his record would have done the broadcast the world of good. Whilst it might seem like a little thing it it's also something that shouldn't have happened, and calls into question other things they say. Come on folks, do your research! 4-Vazquez Vs Figueroa..What was everyone doing? Okay now we're just picking on the Showtime PPV. For 3 or 4 rounds the WBA Super Bantamweight bout between Brandon Figueroa and Damien Vazquez was an enthralling all action war. Absolutely brilliant from both. But then Figueroa began to turn the screw and from round 7 the bout was becoming painful to watch. Quite why the referee, the ringside doctor and Vazquez's own team let him go out for rounds 8, 9 or 10. Everyone had a duty of care to Vazquez who couldn't see the left hands that Figueroa was throwing, had a swollen face, lacked fight changing power and was being beaten up. There is a duty of care that those in the position to stop fights have and watching this one it seemed like they all neglected that duty of care. Sadly the 23 year old Vazquez too almost 3 rounds of unnecessary punishment, and it felt like we were going to see a young fighter beaten into retirement. The corner, the referee and the ringside doctor should be dragged in front of the commission and forced to explain why they allowed this beating to continue as long as it did. This was ugly by the end and didn't do anyone any favours. Last week was a rather quiet one for fans of Asian boxing, but it wasn't a totally silent week, and there as plenty of boxing to watch from around the glove, as well as giving us a bit of a "calm before the storm", with some huge bouts coming up next weekend. It was also a week that had a lot of disappointment, some strange stories circulating in the sport and a truly terrible scorecard.
The Good 1-Huge weekend up coming! Lets start by looking a a fantastic good thing. We are now less than a week away from a massive weekend of fights. We have great action all over the place next weekend, with big bouts in the UK, Germany and the US and two live streams of shows from Japan. After a couple of quieter weeks we really see things going through the ceiling next weekend, and it's hard to not be excited. Showtime's stacked card if fantastic, the WBSS Crusierweight final in Germany promises fireworks, the bout between Downua Ruawaiking and Josh Taylor should be worth a watch and the two Japanese streams sandwich in all that world class action. Genuinely should be one of the best boxing weekends of the year, and we should all be very, very excited about the action we'll be getting. For once we, as boxing fans, should be incredibly proud of what the sport can give us, even if it doesn't provide these types of weekends as often as we'd like. 2-Katsuki Mori is a star in the Making! Japanese youngster Katsuki Mori claimed his most recent win in the middle of the week and despite only being 7-0 (1) he already looks like he has connected with fans. It's very, very early in his career, he wasn't a top amateur, but his performances have been excellent, he knows how to put on a show. Although he could easily stink the house out, boxing and moving, and staying safe, he instead looks to excite and the 6th round of his bout last week was tremendous. He's one of the youngsters who understands what it's going to take to be a star, and he delivers with his performances. 3-Boots shines with sensational performance Talking about a man who delivers with his performances, Jaron "Boots" Ennis is quickly becoming a must watch fighter. His TKO win over Juan Carlos Abreu on Saturday night was another step in the direction, and he, like Mori, realises he needs to entertain and make fans care. He could have picked and poked at Abreu all night long, but instead he boxed, he fought, he countered, he lured Abreu into mistakes, he looked calm, confident, cool, relaxed and shone. Now 26-0 it is time Ennis stepped up his competition and took on a top 20 type guy, but his performances so far have been great and he's generating buzz the right way, with his talking done, mostly, in the ring. 4-Bryan Lua returns in style! American fighter Bryan Lua had been out of the ring for more than 2 years until this past Saturday when he returned on took on Luis Norambuena. The fight wasn't the greatest but Lua's KO was something to behold. Poor Norambuena was caught by a sensational right uppercut-left hook combination that turned out his lights. He was stood out cold for a moment, before the signals got turned off to the rest of his body, sending him crashing down. This is up there with the best KO's of 2020, and one of the most visually pleasing that we'll see this year. The Bad 1-Floyd Mayweather Vs Logan Paul Why? Just why? We understand Floyd likes his money and Paul likes attention but we, as fans, should completely ignore this. What they both want is attention and we're giving them it by talking about. Lets turn our focus elsewhere, and if this ends up signed, stream it. Don't put more money in to pockets of fighters for these types of fights. Talking about this gives them what they want, and paying for it rewards them for taking the piss out of the sport. 2-Kudratillo Abdukakharov's Visa issues As we write this it's unclear whether Uzbek fighter Kudratillo Abdukakharov has managed to get a visa sorted for his scheduled October bout with Sergey Lipinets. Unfortunately the on going global situation has caused a backlog of visa applications around the world, including at the US Embassy in Uzbekistan. This has meant that Abdukakharov may not be able to leave Uzbekistan in time to acclimatise for his bout with Lipinets which may need delaying. The bout has already been delay and delaying the October date would be a shame, albeit and understandable one. Finger crossed this is cleared up and Abdukakharov can fly off to the US for this anticipated Welterweight clash. 3-Jukembayev turns down Ergashev More Central Asian woes as Canadian based Kazakh Batyrzhan Jukembayev has turned down a fight with unbeaten Uzbek Shohjahon Ergashev. This one had been targetted for November, in what would have been a sensational Kazakh Vs Uzbek bout, but sadly only one party seemed to actively want it. With Jukembayev turning down this opportunity, and others offered to him in the past, his relationship with Eye of the Tiger management is starting to look very strained, again. Although we know promoters are in it for themselves, and are typically the bad guy, it does appear that Jukembayev is doing himself no favours, and the goodwill shown to him will dissipate quickly if he's not careful. 4-Erickson Lubin Vs Terrell Gausha We want to start this by stating, the Light Middleweight division is one of the most interesting in the sport right now. Sadly however Saturday's fight between Erickson Lubin and Terrell Gausha did a lot to undermine what the division has done in recent years. The first 7 rounds of this were among the worst 7 rounds of boxing we have seen this year. The low output from both, the lack of drama, the absolute nothingness in a number of rounds really did make this feel like torture. The only thing preventing it from being an ugly was the way it finished, with Lubin being rocked in one of the later rounds before almost stopping Gausha in the final round. Sadly 2 good rounds, from 12, do not do enough to precent this being a bad. If you missed this one live, do not waste your time watching it now. The Ugly 1-Don Trella's 115-111 Thankfully we didn't have much in terms of ugly this week, but we did have one massive stinker of a card from Don Trella who, somehow managed to have Cobia Breedy beating Tugstsogt Nyambayar 115-111. We thought Cobia had a great performance, a genuinely great performance, but unfortunate he was also knocked down twice. Given those knockdowns Trella must have given Breedy all but 1 of the subsequent 10 rounds. A frankly ridiculous view of what happened. This is the sort of scorecard that should have a real investigation, but in reality it will merely be swept under the rug and forgotten about. We would love to see the veteran judge try to explain how he got to his score as we simple can't see anyway a judge could have those final 10 rounds scored 9-1 to Breedy. It seems like the last week has genuinely flown by, and whilst that might just be us, it really does seem like time is starting to tick away, and we are starting to head towards some exciting times in the sport. We have big bouts around the corner, we have some interesting returns coming up and we have something to look forward.
Whilst the last week might not have had a lot of in ring action we certainly have a decent amount to talk about, both in the ring and out of it! The Good 1-A lot of bouts being announced! So lets start with the best thing, the sheer number of announcements we've had in the last week or so. In the space of around a week we've had Naoya Inoue Vs Jason Moloney announced, along with Hiroto Kyoguchi Vs Thanongsak Simsri, Daigo Higa Vs Seiya Tsutsumi and the Taisei card in November. For the first time, in a long time, we are seeing the schedule getting more and more stacked and it feels like we are heading towards some exciting times. Fingers crossed the bouts that have been announced all take place. If they do we will have a whirlwind of activity in October and November! 2-Boxnation is still going! British boxing channel Boxnation showed there is still life in the channel this week as it showed a Russian card. Whilst the show it's self was nothing great it was fantastic to see the channel pick up some fights. It seems unlikely that the channel will ever become what we all wanted it to be, but it's a great thing that it is still out there, and fingers crossed they do manage to pick up obscure cards going forward. Given the issues DAZN are having the idea that Boxnation is still out there is great, and although it's limping around like a wounded animal looking for a place to die, it's still got some fight in it. 3-Drive in Boxing in the UK! Staying with the UK it's great to see that, finally, Drive In boxing will be tried in the UK. We loved the German Drive In boxing show from earlier in the year and it's brilliant that it will be tried again. Just a shame that it's being tried in the UK in November, and will almost certainly not be the type of conditions needed to best enjoy the sport. November in the UK tends to bet wet, windy, and dark super early, so we can see this being a failure, but it's glad someone tried. Just a shame it wasn't possible to try over the summer and run the event as a proof of concept. The Bad 1-What on earth happened to Boxrec this week? It night just be us, but erm...Boxrec looks goofy recently. Records are loading weirdly, and there's other small but very notable graphical issues at times. We suspect it's due to how adverts are loading but it's making the site awkward to use at times. Fingers crossed they can sort this out, before it becomes a bigger issue. Whether you love Boxrec or not it's one of the most vital resources for fight fans and it's a shame to see so many issues creeping in to it in regards to how things look. 2-WBA rankings We don't pay attention to the rankings that we once did, mostly because it's a waste of fucking time and they make it up as they go along, but this week we did glance at some of them including the WBA's. And let us just say these are laughable and bizarre. Every division has at least one "WTF?" fighter rankings. For example Christopher Lovejoy and Fres Oquendo at Heavyweight, Juergen Uldedaj at Crusierweight and Tomoki Kameda, of all fighters, at Featherweight. Whatever the folk at the WBA are smoking, we want some! We want some badly! The Ugly 1-Canelo Vs Dazn and GBP It's hard to really understand what anyone is expecting out of the messy situation between Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, DAZN and Golden Boy Promotions, but lets just be honest, it will end up a car wreck. Whether DAZN have done anything wrong or not, and that's for the courts to decide, is going to be pretty damaging to Canelo's career if they decide to actively fight it. They could, potentially, force him to sit out a very, very long time whilst this goes through the courts. For DAZN it's a learning experience in the boxing game, and why the sport wasn't a great option for them to pursue the way they did, and for Golden Boy, well this could end up being the end of them. If this gets as messy as it could be we might see Canelo sitting on the side lines for a year or two, DAZN dropping boxing after current contracts expire and GBP being hammered into the ground. A total mess up on a mess. 2-Danny Williams Still fighting Why? Just why? Aged 47 Danny Williams was once a great servant of British boxing, and one of the better British Heavyweights from the 1990's. Now however he's a shell of a man who needs to hang them up...10 years ago. It's long been said that he's fighting for his kids to go to an expensive school, but lets be honest, if his kids are his priority maybe him being a lucid parent to them later in their lives is a more important thing than their schooling. Whoever keeps licensing him stop it, stop it now, or there will be blood on your hands one day soon. What a weird week we've had this week. We had some amazing action, some real times to be happy, we had a real life hero in the sport, some amazing performances. We also had some people not giving it a real try, some mismatches, and some officiating that left so much to be desired.
With that said lets look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from this week! The Good 1-A-Sign show surpasses expectations The week began on a high with a brilliant Japanese domestic card being streamed live, around the world, by A-Sign Boxing. This card really had a bit of everything. It had skills on show, thanks to the highly talented Hyoga Taniguchi and Kosuke Tomioka, it had drama in the thrilling bout between Ryugo Ushijima and Ryukyu Oho, action in the brilliant main event between Shoki Sakai and Hironori Shigeta, and a sensational performance from teenager Jin Sasaki. This was brilliant, free, and a great sign of what great match making can do. Hats off to Ichitaro Ishii and the team at A-Sign Boxing. 2-Jesse Rodriguez wows The Light Flyweight division is one of the sports most interesting, but sadly seems to get almost no attention at all in US and in Europe. This past Saturday however we saw Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez put on a show that saw him look amazing and had people actively talking about the 108lbs weight class. Rodriguez look absolutely amazing as he destroyed Janiel Rivera, dropping him 3 time in just over 2 minutes. Aged just 20 the US have a real potential star in the lowest weight classes, and the weight classes have someone that could open the door to a US market. Whether we see him getting big in the US or not, he's certainly one to watch. A brilliant, destructive, exciting prospect. 3-Samir Ziani and Alex Dilmaghani trade blows in a war Talking about brilliant and exciting the European Super Featherweight bout between Samir Ziani and Alex Dilmaghani was something amazing. This had everything we could want to see in a fight. The early rounds were competitive, there was controversy with Dilmaghani using his elbow, there was then determination and fire from Ziani who stepped up the tempo, there was some awful refereeing in the later stages, and then Ziani pulled it out with a TKO with just seconds left. If you've not seen this one you really need, it was a true FOTY contender 4-Such much boxing for free! It's fair to say that we hate PPV, and have never hidden our dislike of PPV. We understand subscription services, and whilst they still aren't perfect they are generally very good value for money, and we will never have a problem paying for a service like Boxing Raise. Saying that however the best thing is free boxing and in the last 7 days we have had a lot of free boxing. There's been live shows in Japan, Russia, the UK and Thailand and a tape delay broadcast in Japan. The old idea of PBC making boxing "free" was great but now we are actually getting a lot of free boxing, and it's set to continue, with more free Japanese and Thai shows coming up in the next few weeks. We might all have had a horrible year, but thank you boxing gods for all the free content! 5-Deandre Ware, the real life hero It was great to hear about American fighter Denadre Ware playing life saver this week, with the fighters good heart and medical training kicking in as he gave CPR to Top Rank official Pete Susens. It's a shame he didn't finish the weekend off with a win, but regardless of the result of his bout he proved himself a real hero. Well done Deandre, and it's fair to say the whole boxing world respects what you did! Whilst the 32 year old might not be a world class fighter he's a world class person, and that is much, much more important. The Bad 1-Shota Hara's effort We loved the A-Sign, genuinely it was brilliant, but Shota Hara's effort against Kosuke Tomioka was terrible. He seemed unwilling to make a fight of things and as a result the bout became an awkward one to watch. We all know Tomioka is being viewed as a special talent, but Hara looked like he had no intention of trying to fight here. A real shame as the event deserved a fun, fan friendly opening bout and instead got an awkward stinker between a counter puncher and a fighter unwilling to do anything. 2-Chainoi Worawut in another mismatch We need to start this by saying we like Chainoi Worawut, a lot. Sadly however he is being given too many light touches to pad his record. He's world ranked and holds a number of minor WBC titles, so it's time he was matched like a fighter going places rather than a fighter beating up poor competition. Joel Kwong, who Chainoi beat this week, shouldn't have been in the ring with the unbeaten Thai and whilst he tried he really was no match for the Thai. Come on WP Boxing and Nakornluang, lets see Chainoi facing a test now, rather than a full year of mismatches and easy wins. The Ugly 1-Tony Weeks and the commission forget the rules The ending of the WBO Super Featherweight title fight between defending champion Jamel Herring and challenger Jonathan Oquendo was a clusterfuck. The bout was a messy slop fest at times, due to Oquendo barging in head first, and although Herring showed some great skills they were glimpses, and he didn't do enough to make Oquendo think twice about being a human billy goat. That however wasn't the big issue with the bout, that was the ending. The ending saw Tony Weeks essentially offering Herring a way out of an ugly bout with a win, which he took. The cuts around his eye were a mess and had come from fouls. However the question is how did both Weeks and the commission officials both forget the rules here? It should have been a technical decision, not a DQ. The mental gymnastics to get to the DQ is beyond us. Had the doctor stopped the bout based on the damage, which he really should have done, we'd have gone to the scorecards, and we'd have had a clear decision for Herring. Do not get us wrong, Herring was the deserved winner, and the much better fighter, but for an experienced referee like Weeks to blow this was just ridiculous. 2-Andre Ward's scoring Staying with the Herring Oquendo fight, we need to wonder what on earth Andre Ward was watching. Ward, who recently signed an extensuion with ESPN, left us confused when he seemed to have no idea how much of an inside Josh Taylor was, but this week confusion rose to new levels. In a fight where Oquendo's clean punches could be counted on one hand, whilst his headbutts would needs all your fingers and toes, Ward somehow had the bout scored 76-74 for Herring. What was he watching? Ward may have been one of the best fighters of his time but the reality is that he is really disappointing as an analyst, and has now had a few very odd scorecards whilst working on ESPN. Given ESPN have some excellent people working on their "B Team", for the international feed we really do wonder how Ward, and Timothy Bradley, have managed to keep their feet at the table for the main broadcasts. 3-Idris Virgo acts like a pillock If there was a class clown this week it was Idris Virgo. The 27 year old British fighter showed that he was a total prick in the way he treat Scott Williams ahead of their fight. For an unbeaten prospect to treat a journeyman the way he did was pathetic and shows a real lack of decency. We understand fighters trying to sell themselves, and make themselves marketable, but Virgo has just made people think he's an absolute pillock. Given the level he's fighting at it would have made far, far more sense for him to focus on improving, rather than turning the British boxing world on him. He perhaps should ask Prince Patel how the "be a prick with an ego" tactic has works. Idris should maybe take a leaf from Deandre Ware in his to be! 4-Giuseppe Quartarone's bizarre attempt to be a referee Italian official Giuseppe Quartarone was the third man in the ring for the brilliant bout between Samir Ziani and Alex Dilmaghani and seemed to be the only negative from the fight. He let Dilmaghani off with elbows early on, and then ignored a clean knockdown, before letting a clearly out of it Dilmaghani continue, in the hope that the Englishman would make it to the final bell. Absolutely awful decision making to the point where he made accusations about him being bias very easy. This is the same referee that neutralised Joseph Parker's inside work against Anthony Joshua in 2018 and he's made our "Shit list" this week. He was terrible! This past week we've seen plenty of action, with the sport continue to go in the right direction and more, and more events taking place. Thankfully the out of the ring bullshit seems to be calming down and we can spend more time looking on the in ring action rather than the political mess outside of it. With that in mind, lets take a look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the past week.
The Good 1-Nakagaki and Matsumoto both show a lot of promise! On Monday Ryutaro Nakagaki and Keisuke Matsumoto made their professional debuts in Tokyo. Both men picked up stoppage wins and looked really promising, showing very advanced skills, and development thanks to their time in the amateurs. Of the two Nakagaki looked the more impressive, and seems likely to be fast tracked. Although less impressive Matsumoto was certainly not disappointing, despite being dropped in the first round, and it was impressive that he managed to fight so well after being dropped. These two both looked like real prospects, and the Ohashi Gym clearly have two more talented youngsters among their very strong ranks. 2-Tim Tszyu shines Talking about talented youngsters we can't ignore how brilliant Tim Tszyu looked in his demolition job of Jeff Horn in the middle of the week. This was a potentially tough task for Tszyu against the ugly and awkward Horn, but the young and unbeaten prospect made it look extremely easy, despite hugging, holding and wrestling from Horn. The clean, hard, single shots, smart movement, and good ring control were the keys to Tszyu's win. We were really impressed by the youngster, who proved he wasn't just his father's son. There is still some area's to work on, and we do worry about his 1-punch power, but we're nit picking there. He looked great and it will be brilliant to see where goes from here. 3-Vladimir Hernandez makes the most of his opportunity Of course it wasn't just youngsters who were great this week but also Mexican veteran Vladimir Hernandez. Hernandez got a late notice call to face Alfredo Angulo, after Caleb Truax was forced to pull out, and managed to show what he could do by out working and out fighting Angulo, who was on the verge of a world title fight. Whilst we don't imagine Hernandez will get a world title fight of his own following this win, it was still an excellent performance, given the situation, and hopefully he ends up with another solid opportunity down the line. The Bad 1-Judges cost Baraou We don't want to rant about judges every week, but once again they left a lot to be desired at times through the last week. Thankfully a lot of the poor cards didn't matter this week, as they either got the right guy or they weren't needed, but one of the times we did need them was Abass Baraou's bout with Jack Culcay. Sadly they were called upon and they got it wrong. After 12 entertaining rounds two of the judges some how had the bout scored in favour of Culcay, who certainly didn't look like the winner to us. This was an ugly scoring mishap, and wasn't a massive, inexplicable robbery, but it was certainly a decision that should have gone the other way. We really hope this loss doesn't impact Baraou too badly, though he may quickly become part of the "Who needs him?" club and become an avoided fighter. 2-Chauncy Welliver's shape We'll start this by explaining that Chauncy Welliver has never been a svelte fighter. The best weight he's been has been in, or around, the 230lb range, which is not a weight that looks good on his 6'2" frame. If he looks big at 230lbs then we don't need to tell you he looked grossly unfit this past week when he came in at 378lbs for his bout wish Cassius Chaney. He looked ridiculously out of shape, with breasts that would have required a bra to stop them jiggling. This was an insult to the sport, an insult to Chaney and an insult to the fans. Whilst he may have taken the fight on short notice that's hardly an excuse. If he wasn't fit he shouldn't have said yes, and the commission shouldn't have allowed this bout to go ahead. A total joke. 3-Daniel Dubois Vs Ricardo Snijders The development of Daniel Dubois is weird. He's a very, very young Heavyweight hopeful and has got time to develop into a star. Sadly bouts like his one this past weekend, against Ricardo Snijders, will not do him any favours. Whilst we do know that Snijders was a late replacement his effort was terrible, and he came to lose. The 26 year old Dutchman was a natural Cruiserweight, who hasn't fought in almost a year, offer no resistance and was massively under-sized and under-powered. Bouts like this will not help with Dubois' development or fan base and it's really a time to get him better opponents. Instead of facing limited regional level Cruiserweights it would make a lot more sense to see him take on the likes Christian Hammer, Johann Duhaupas or Joey Dawejko. Someone who will put up some resistance. We understand the world isn't what it once was, but we also know that a fighter like Dubois can't be wasting his time with under-sized fighters like this. The Ugly 1-Jeff Horn's corner The corner work we see in this sport is absolutely bizarre at times, and it was at it's ugly worse in mid-week. We're still wondering, days later, why Jeff Horn's corner tried to make him verbally quit between rounds, when they should have stood up, taken he decisions out of his hands and saved their man. A fighter never wants to quit, and if they are at the point where they are willing to say they want no more then you, as a corner, have failed your man. Don't ask him "if he has a punch" of if he "wants another minute". You should know what he has left to offer, everyone else watch did. He was done. Thankfully we didn't see him come out for round 9, but it's a scary though to think his team wanted him out there. Boxing continues to move forward, it continues to try and rebuild after a that has been a very, very odd few months. Thankfully as we move forward it seems like we are getting closer to normality in the sport, and we are getting more positives than negative to talk about. With that in mind, lets take a look at The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from this past week!
The Good 1-Povetkin's KO We saw some amazing action over the past week, and we'll get on to some of that in a few moments, but the moment of the weekend came from the UK where Heavyweight veteran Alexander Povetkin pulled himself off the canvas, twice, in round 4 to blast out Dillian Whyte a round later with a peach of a shot. The punch, which was a left uppercut, sent Whyte crashing backwards to the canvas in one of the punches of the year. This is one that will be on highlight reels for years to come and really was something special. 2-Hajime No Ippo 30th anniversary final bout On Saturday we got a Dangan promoted event from Korakuen Hall. This was headlined by the Hajime No Ippo 30th anniversary tournament final between Daisuke Watanabe and Shingo Kusano and boy did they deliver! The bout was a sensational contest which saw momentum shifts, action, intensity and 3 of the best rounds we've seen all year. If you have Boxing Raise and missed this one, we highly recommend giving it watch, it really was a brilliant war. 3-Katie Taylor Vs Delfine Persoon II Talking about great wars we got to give Katie Taylor and Delfine Persoon a shout out for their brilliant war in the UK. The two had previously given us a very special fight and their rematch was another cracking contest that will down as one of the best female fights this year. In all honesty the current "no fan" era of boxing in the west has been great for female boxing. In the space of just a few weeks we've had some amazing female bouts, and hopefully they continue when fans do come back to boxing. Genuine hats off to female boxing and hopefully they have convinced some of the naysayers about the quality of the action and fights they can be involved in. 4-Free boxing from Russia! Saturday really was a strange day. Not only did we have a great show in Japan, events in the US and the card in the UK but we also got two totally free cards from Russia. On a day when PPV boxing raised it's ugly head in the UK the Russian's over-delivered for free. Whilst not all the bouts were great we did get some great highlights. We saw a notable upset, with Stanislav Kalitskiy losing to Dmitrii Khasiev, a brutal beat down by Zaur Abdullaev, against Pavel Malikov, a sensational KO by Magomed Kurbanov, and a brilliant bout between Albert Batyrgaziev and Erzhan Turgumbekov, which if you missed it is one worth watching. 5-Kazakh debutants We've spoke a lot about Saturday but Sunday also delivered some great action with the most notable being a trio of debutants in Kazakhstan, all of whom were touted former amateurs who look like they could make a real mark on the professional scene in the coming years. The trio of Talgat Shayken, Tursynbay Kulakhmet and Kamshybek Kunkabayev all look fantastic and all three have the potential to be stars. Keep an eye out for all 3. The Bad 1-Yoan Pablo Hernandez's return Comebacks seem to be the thing in 2020. Some are yet to happen, such as Oscar De La Hoya's, others have seen fighters pick up wins, as Sergio Martinez did, and another had ended in spectacular fashion. The one that has ended badly was that of former Cruiserweight champion Yoan Pablo Hernandez's. The 35 year old Cuban returned on Saturday more than 6 years after his last bout, and was destroyed by Kevin "Kingpin" Johnson of all people. The "Safety" pin showed more aggression here than we've seen from him in years and we suspect this will be 1-and-done for Hernandez. 2-The WBC Super Middleweight Mess So this past week the big sanctioning body news came in two forms, one we'll get on to in the Ugly's and one is the situation regarding the mandatory mess with the Super Middleweight title. After David Benavidez was stripped they had several fighters wanting to fight Avni Yildirim, who was previously owed a shot, and from the fighters tossing their hats into the ring they've gone with Saul Alvarez. To no ones's surprised. The bout isn't wanted by TV, it's not wanted by fans, it's not wanted by media. It's literally wanted by the WBC, Yildirim and his team, and Canelo. The IBO, of all organisations, have trolled the WBC for the decision, fans are pissed about it, and DAZN have said no. On one hand "it is a fight", but it's not one any would deem title worthy, or worthy of Canelo's time. On the other hand we actually want him to have it, just to get the "Who will face Canelo next?" Question answered after several months of names have been mentioned. The Ugly 1-Happy Daudi and the IBA Talking about messes Happy Daudi really needs to ask her team about the mess they got her into. The terrible Tanzanian fighter should never have been allowed near the ring with Firuza Sharipova given the gulf in levels between the two women. Daudi looked pretty much inept, and whilst Sharipova didn't look great this a totally pointless match. It was so pointless and mismatched that it makes the proposed Canelo Vs Yildirim match up look good. Amazingly the IBA actually put one of their female titles on this line for this. Whatever, little, credit-ability the IBA have has been slashed by that decision. She should have been as far away from any claim of a "world" title as we are. 2-WBC want a new weight class We might be annoyed at the IBA but we know they are total garbage, the WBC on the other hand are supposed to be taken seriously. Despite their long list of issues, mistakes, and confusing decisions. The latest is the idea of creating a new weight class around 225lbs. If we look at top Heavyweights right now the decision to even consider this becomes a joke. Smaller Heavyweights like Povetkin, Michael Hunter, Deontay Wilder, Filip Hrgovic, Evgeny Romanov, Frank Sanchez and Otto Wallin, have all been under, or around, the 225lb mark in recent years. Given the fighters, in the sport today, a fracturing of the Heavyweight division isn't needed and the timing is ridiculous. Whilst there might be a need in the future, as big Heavyweights begin to dominate and become more and more dominant, at the moment it's not something that's required. The smaller Heavyweights of today are not in need of such a hand out from a title body. Lets start this week's "The Good, the Bad, The Ugly" by just mentioning, once again, that it's great to see more and more boxing. Almost every week now we are getting more bouts, at a higher level, on a more consistent basis. That's not just a good, but that's a great! Sadly however with more bouts we see more chicanery, really odd stuff going on and some horrifically bad match ups. With that said lets take a look at The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for this week!
The Good 1-TYC Play Stream A big shout out to TYC for their English coverage of Payne Boxing Series from Daytona. This was free to watch, high quality and interesting card. Don't get us wrong the quality wasn't amazing and the card was easily over-shadowed by other bouts, but anything truly free that this sport gives us gets a thumbs up from us! The card featured some interesting prospects, and whilst the match making left something to be desired the show ran well, was decent, had some nice fighters in action. Fingers crossed this continues going forward! 2-Zelfa Barrett's finish There's a lot of fighters that we are very unsold on and Zelfa Barrett is one such fighter. Whilst we certainly don't regard him as a top prospect, like Sky TV were pushing, he is a really fun guy to watch and his bout with Eric Donovan on Friday night was a really good fight. It was technical, competitive and then Barrett's power showed as he scored a truly devastating KO. Whilst we often want wars and high intensity battles we do love a well fought technical battle and that's what we got through much of this bout, until round 7 when Barrett's power told and he dropped Donovan twice, before a brutal finish in round 8. The Bad 1-Frank Warren's dull show When Frank Warren and Queensberry promotions get a chance to shine, they really do mess don't they. Their latest show was on BT Sport and ESPN+ and it was a torture to watch. Whilst the two under-card bouts were competitive neither was a joy to tune into. It wasn't helped by both bouts resulting in questionable decisions for the house fighter either. The co-feature saw Michael Conlan claim his latest win, but in reality it was a slog to watch, whilst a very rusty Carl Frampton struggled to get going against a domestic class fighter on a weeks notice. No one came out of this show looking good and ESPN came off looking terrible, by being on a delay broadcast as well. This was not an advert for boxing. 2-Teiken Delay Show Sometimes a "bad" is predictable, and that's the case with Teiken postponing their September 5th show to October 2nd. It's disappointing news but not a surprise, at all. The Teiken gym has been closed for over a week following the positive result in a PCR test given by Jorge Linares and with the gym still not open the fighters haven't been able to train. It's disappointing, an we certainly want to see more fights, but full understand the decision and expected it when the gym was forced to close. Thankfully the delay is only about a month so it's not a major issue. 3-David Benavidez loses title on the scales YoungThe Super Middleweight division has long been a mess, with fighters showing little intention of unifying, or trying to prove who is the best at 168lbs. Things got even muddier this week when David Benavidez was stripped of the WBC due failing to make weight. It's currently unclear if Benavidez will try to continue at Super Middleweight or will move up in weight, though what is clear is a unification bout with Caleb Plant is now off the table, and Benavidez again has question marks over his head about his professionalism. Some will state he has a great work ethic but he has be drug issues and now this problem making weight. At 23 years old he is still a youngster but the fear is that this is a pattern of behaviour that will see him fail to reach his potential. He's a talented fighter, but one who needs to begin to live the life if he's to fulfil his potential. 4-WBA Creating more and more belts! We saw several Japanese fans joke over the weekend that the PBC should be re-named the IBC, the Interim Boxing Champions, and that's certainly got some weight to it after the WBA created another worthless and unnecessary Interim title to help PBC out. This time it was the WBA "interim" Lightweight title, that ended up, some how, around the waist the over-hyped Rolando Romero. Romero is a charismatic guy but he had beaten no one of value before this weekend and was given a repugnant decision against Jackson Marinez to give him the title. Whilst Romero had fought no one coming in to this bout it also needs to be said Marinez hadn't either. The WBA said they'd review the result, but really the need to review their title whole title policy. This was a great match up on paper, marred by awful judging and a pointless title. Not every promising, prospect needs a special title created for them. They should have to earn it. The Ugly 1-PPV this coming weekend in the UK In a year that has seen a huge amounts of financial hardship for people, unemployment rising, and real tough times for British people, Sky Sports and Matchroom boxing thing it's an ideal time for a PPV. We know people live in their own bubble, but for PPV to be running at this current point is simply ridiculous. We genuinely hope the numbers for this bomb and that Matchroom come in to the reel world. They are holding the event in a private garden the size of a public park and expecting fans to pay in a real example of not reading the room. The show, although decent on paper, should be the standard level of card expected on Sky Sports, after all the main bouts are an "interim" world title and a female world title bout. Not exactly the huge fights that need PPV money behind them. 2-Garry Ritter's botch Boxing is a dangerous sport, and incredibly dangerous sport. So with that in mind we really need to ask what the fuck was Gary Ritter doing on Saturday night? Given that performance the experienced referee needs to be put out to pasture as he genuinely endangered one of the fighters, and blew a call that massively changed the a fight. He was the third man in the ring for Israil Madrimov's bout with Eric Walker and in round 9 Madrimov dropped Walker, hard. Instead of giving Walker a count Ritter made an excuse not to count, and allowed the bout to continue, after giving Walker time to recover. We're lucky that Walker managed to recover, though we did genuinely worry about his health. Interestingly it appears Ritter, although experienced, is rarely trusted in 12 round bouts and according to Boxrec this was his first in more than 2 years. An appalling call, and a dangerous one that risked Walker's health. |
Oriental Opinions
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March 2024
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