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Friday Night Fights
By Zach Arnold | September 1, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Results and show recap.
Top fights on the telecast
- Emanuel Augustus defeated Courtney Burton by KO in R8
- Allan Green defeated Emmett Linton by decision after 10R.
Review
The Augustus-Burton fight was a re-match from their infamous first fight (in which Burton won a controversial hometown decision in Michigan two years ago). I vividly recall the first match, as Teddy Atlas was screaming on TV after the decision about crooked judging. On the telecast, they stressed that Burton had lost four of his last five fights by KO. Sure enough, the foreshadowing was in full effect as Augustus put a beating on Mr. Burton. It wasn’t necessarily spectacular (even with Augustus’s usual antics), but in the 8th round Augustus caught Burton with a couple of body shots and finished him off. Burton did not look good here at all.
The main event was hometown fighter Allan Green (the show took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma) versus Emmett Linton, a man who had only fought once in the last 15 months and was driving a bus as his daily job in Washington state. If you recall, Green fought on Friday Night Fights a few months ago and was humiliated when jobber boxer extraordinaire Donnie McCrary knocked Green down to the canvas (only for Green to come back a couple of rounds later to KO McCrary). This time, it was the hometown judging that saved Green and kept him undefeated. This was a very close fight. I don’t know if I would call it exciting like Joe Tessitore did, but it was an interesting “styles makes fight” kind of bout. Linton frustrated Green round after round until the 7th, when Green connected with a couple of shots and Linton went down for an 8-count. Afterwards, Linton recovered and survived the rest of the way. Teddy Atlas had the fight 95-95 on his scorecard, which I thought was somewhat generous for Green. When the ring announcer read the scores, Linton immediately knew his fate was sealed once the announcer said, “We have a unanimous decision.” And the scores were a joke. 97-92 and 98-91 twice. How can you possibly come up with 98-91 for Green, essentially giving him 8 out of the 10 rounds in the fight?
The bad judging at the end of the show somewhat tempered the ending to a rather good year of boxing on ESPN2, which will be taking a few months off and coming back in 2007. Atlas & Tessitore will be doing the play-by-play for The Contender finale in Los Angeles in late September.
Teddy Atlas confirmed the rumors that he would help train Henry Maske in a comeback fight against Virgil Hill. Also, Atlas talked about an upcoming HBO fight between Jermaine Taylor & Kassim Ouma in Taylor’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas on November 25th. The TV studio team (Robert Flores & Larry Holmes) also did a quick preview of the upcoming James Toney vs. Samuel Peter fight, which looks absolutely dreadful. Holmes held no punches back when he stated that he didn’t think either guy would knock each other out, but said that if the possibility existed that it would be Peter who would knock down Toney.
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
crap. I know Courtney Burton, we are from the same area. He’s a good fighter. This is too bad. Glad I missed it.
I saw last nights fights. Good stuff. It is heart wearming that, once again, Zach has decided to cover the fights like BOXING MATCHES, not pro wrestling. Gee, I hope that Augustus’ fight style wasn’t totally inept when it came to fight psychology!
Ok, I have to stop it with the “inside” jokes…
Good reporting Zach.
Burton should retire. Green is still green (or just not as good as everyone thought he might be).