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Open thread: Holyfield fight
By Zach Arnold | November 10, 2006
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Reviews: Fight Report | Reuters | Associated Press
And then there was Wladimir Klitschko knocking out Calvin Brock on Saturday night.
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Zach,
Very few people, if any, ordered this PPV so there’s probably no need for a comment section.
The PPV ran about 4 hours long and was hosted by Chris Rose, John Salley, Chris Byrd. If you’ve ever seen FSN Best Damn Fight Night you know how obnoxiously terrible these guys are.
They ended up airing only 3 fights including the Holyfield main event; I was hoping for 5 fights to be shown.
Golden Johnson versus Oscar Diaz was the fight of the PPV and made me feel like I had wasted $35 dollars instead of $45 dollars.
Jose Navarro versus Gabriel Elizondo opened the show but since it followed the fight of the night it was hard for me to judge how good it actually was. The fans sure seemed unimpressed.
Fight of the Night was on Telefutura’s Solo Boxeo, Martin Honorio versus Rogers Mtagwa. It was an absolute dirty brawl. Honorio should’ve been DQ for punches to the back of the head or had more than 1 point deducted. Honorio ended up winning a SD (115-112, 114-113) with the third judge giving it to Mtagwa (114-113).
With proper refereeing Mtagwa might’ve gotten the decision but I suspect even with more point deductions Honorio would’ve won by a slim margin anyway. (corruption and all that)
It could be worse. Calvin Brock is fighting. I’ll be sure to have media links up for that. 🙂
Nice try by the HBO announcers to sell Brock. At least Wlad did what he was supposed to and finished his opponent. Pretty Boy Floyd should take notes on that.
Holyfield is going to get killed in the ring. I’m not joking. He’s going to keep producing his own shows with him fighting on them and he’s going to get his shot like he wants next summer or fall and it is going to go terribly wrong. If you put Holyfield in there with any of the title holders, Sam Peter or Sergei Liakhovich he could be incapacitated for life.
Does Oquendo have any recourse whatsoever for that horrible judging?
Actually, Roadblock, Lyakhovich just got KTFO by Shannon Briggs, so his potential title-holding opponents (as of now, and remember that Maskaev is fighting unknown Peter Okhello on 12/10 and according to Boxrec, Valuev may fight on 1/27) are: Wladimir Klitschko, Shannon Briggs, Nicolay Valuev & Oleg Maskaev.
As for the judging matter, I do not believe so as I remember in the 1920s or 1930s there was a famous case where a decision was switched around by an athletic commission (the NYSAC, I believe) from one guy to the other and the court basically said the commission has no jurisdiction to change results as they wish. If they can get proof of bribery, they can make the fight a ‘No Decision’ (and later on, in the case of illegal substances found in the winner’s body, it gets turned into ‘No Decision’ as well), but other than that, you’re screwed.
Of course, the WBC did force Samuel Peter to re-fight James Toney for the ‘privilege’ still being considered their mandatory even though tons of other questionable/close decisions have never had those types of orders happen (and I would imagine Peter could successfully sue the WBC for breach of contract just like Graciano Rocchigiani did and potentially bankrupt them if he really wanted to).
In conclusion, screwy judging is the nature of Boxing (and really all contact sports). Unless you want another ‘No Decision’ era where you either (T)KO the opponent or no one wins as there are no judges, that’s the price you pay for potentially put your future in the hands of 1-3 other people (depending on the judging format used by the state/country).
Oh, never mind on the Lyakhovich part at the start, as I mis-read it as though you listed him and Peter as title holders (sorry!). But, to add to those two, I’d say Brewster would also murder Holyfield at this point.
Neverminding all of the regular “My GAWD the heavyweight division sux!!!!11111one” talk, I think we can all agree on the following about the heavyweight division:
1) It really isn’t THAT bad (not really good, but not as awful as many would like to proclaim)
2) It never gets boring (maybe the fights themselves are somewhat boring) because there isn’t just one guy on top for a long period of time (admit it, when Lennox Lewis was champ, you all wanted someone to knock him out just to see a new guy on top for atleast just a little while. Their should be a RING magazine heavyweight champ, but that is up to them to recognize one. The last RING champ at heavyweight was Vitali Klitschko).
3) Wladimir Klitschko is the best god damn heavyweight in the world
4) Tommy Zbikowski (not a typo, his last name starts with a Z) should say “fuck Notre Dame and fuck the gridiron, I should stay exclusive to boxing”. But he should lay down on the entourage
5) Nicolai Valuev isn’t THAT bad. No one that is as bad as people like to proclaim Valuev is can be 45-0 (33 kos). He is seriously flawed, but he is pretty good for being a sloppy seven feet tall dude. The only man over seven feet tall that is as athletic of a fighter and has good combonations with his strikes as Valuev is would be Choi Hong Man. Sorry if that last sentence seems grammatically incorrect, but you all get my point.
6) The current heavyweight division is probably better now than it was just a few years ago.