the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

My recent appreciation of Vasquez definitely included this fight in my study. As I mentioned at the time, that kind of loss can be very difficult to bounce back from. While competitive, Vasquez took a man-sized beating, and it was a deflating, comprehensive stoppage. That kind of thing never seemed to bother him that much, though.

 

Today I watched Dick Tiger take a clear 10-round decision from Rubin Carter. Carter was felled hard three times by leaping left hooks, and seemed out of it in the second after being felled twice in the stanza. He climbed to his feet somehow and fought back with some sporadic effectiveness from that point on, but Tiger was the deserving winner.

 

Tiger a G.

 

Been watching Antonio Esparragoza today, he's never really shined on me before, but I'm really digging him now.

He's such a patient and confident ring general, takes his time to get started and dosent waste a thing. The way he moves through the gears is brilliant, he starts of with the long jabs, then all of a sudden he's sliding in off lead rights and left hooks, and the thing is everything is a combination. And his combinations, ever shot is solid and thrown perfectly, you dont see that much.

But the thing I love mot about him, he is just so sure he will win, all the time.

His fight with Jose Marmolejo, stood out for me so I'll expand on it.

Marmolejo is a tall Panamanian, he shows good lateral movement and instinctive counters, as you expect from a Panamanian, but lacks polish and to me experiance.

Marmolejo starts out brilliantly moving laterally to keep Tonmy Asparagus from starting any attacks, and when he does he generally falls short and walks on to lovely short right hands. Jose does this for the first 3 rounds, although in the second I thought Essparagoza edged it with workrate.

In the fourth Esparragoza makes a concerted effort to keep the pressure on the tall awkward Marmelejo. He does this with a few things:
-Feints, he feints his movements forward and then attacks an off-balance Marmelejo.
-A Double Step, instead of stepping in with his shots, Antonio steps forward whilst being defensivly aware, then steps in again with his punches, meaning he is getting his range without punching, and keeping the pressure on without opening himself up.
-Combinations, he just keeps punching at times, but more importantly , he is falling in after shots to keep Marmalejo in range. And Antonio's defensive radar in the pocket is superb, I loved the way he would throw his right then dip to his left to avoid any retaliatery shots.

A sustained barrage of punches knocks Jose off-balance and he goes down. Antonio does a back flip in the middle of the ring. But Jose is back up and fights back, however he is in survival mode. He circles without doing much in return, by way of counters, and when he does throw he leads then stands in front of Esparragoza, rather than countering then moving off.

Esparragoza really starts to take over, and has him down in the fifth, and dominates the sixth and seventh (the seventh I scored 10-8, as Esparragoza just poured forward with non-stop combinations), however every now and then Tony walks onto that counter right, and finally in the ninth a sharp right cross catches Marmeljo who falls into a clinch, but then falls to the canvas and is counted out.

Really interesting fight IMO.

 

I've got Vilasana-Esparagoza on the way, should be fun.

 

Got around to watching the Khan-Peterson fight tonight.

R1: 10-8 Khan
R2: 10-9 Khan
R3: 10-9 Peterson
R4: 10-10
R5: 10-9 Khan
R6: 10-9 Khan
R7: 10-8 Peterson
R8: 10-9 Peterson
R9: 10-9 Khan
R10: 10-9 Peterson
R11: 10-9 Peterson
R12: 10-9 Khan

TOTAL: 114-112 in favour of Lamont Peterson.

Overall, I was not happy with the ref in this fight. In my opinion, he cost Khan the fight (I don't think Amir would have won, but there was a chance of a draw there). The ref neglected what was an obvious knockdown in the first, and took points away for pushing, which I thought was ludicrous. I mean pushing, really? If he had taken points from Khan for grabbing Lamont's head, then sure, but come on, pushing? Anyway, it was a great fight and is definitely a serious FOTY candidate for me.

 

Pushing because he couldn't defend himself. Essentially stopping his opponent from working without doing any work himself.

It was spoiling. And pretty consistent spoiling at that.

 

I'll have to rewatch the fight, because I was unsure on rounds 6 and 10 and I didn't think the shoving was bad enough for point deductions. What surprised me though was that Khan persisted in pushing, despite being warned several times by the referee, and I think that this cost him the fight. All in all, Khan's performance was pretty underwhelming for a guy who was talking about how he could beat Floyd Mayweather a couple of weeks ago.

 

Just watched parts of Hiroyuki Ebihara finally regaining a title against Jose Severino in preperation for youtube upload.

Decent entertaining fight, though it's clear to me that Ebihara has lost a couple of steps here.Not nearly as sharp as he had been earlier in the decade and Severino was a rather ordinary unimaginative slugger.

It's a shame Ebihara wasn't able to maintain his prime form for longer as he deserved a championship run.

 

:happy
:good

 

Yeah I've got that fight as well.

Maybe I'll upload Ebihara-Torres II instead :think

 

Antono Esparragoza vs Jean Marc Renard.

Pretty entertaining fight this.

Renard is a basic, if slightly ugly/mauling, pressure fighter. Nice high hands and straight shots. Solid guy though, and strong.

This is the worst I have seen Esparrgoza though, defensivly he was not sharp at all and as he went back, he loves room and time, and as Renard was not giving him it, he seemed to flounder a bit and his defence was terrible.

After some feeling out and that Esparragoza established his combos and took the second and third rounds, however at the end of the third Renard won a few exchanges with sharper punches.

From the fourth on Renard began to bullrush his way in, waiting for Esparragoza to move back, then he bgan firing, and he was really troubling Tony. Tony did his best work in the middle of the ring firing off the hard combos, but he was too eager to give ground.

The finish in the sixth was a suprprise as after a few hard combinations Renard started to hurt for the first time in the fight, but he kept soldeiring on until another combo sent him down and out.

But this fight got me wondering, maybe Aparagus wouldnt treat McGuigan as his ***** as I Previously thought.

Also the amount of cleanm KOs Antonio has is pretty amazing, most guys he takes out are actual out for the 10.

Esparragoza: 2,3
Renard : 1,4,5
Total: 48-47 Renard (3-2)

 

I just watched a great fight McGrain uploaded a while back, Betulio Gonzalez MD15 Guty Espadas. What a display of stamina and infighting! Espadas tatooed Gonzalez early, but the taller Mexican rallied over the last half of the fight, at least on my card. Here's how I had it..........

Gonzalez: Rounds 5,7,8,9,11,12,13,14
Espadas: Rounds 1,2,3,4,6,10,15