The 'what fights did you watch today?' thread

Gary Russel Jr-Heriberto Ruiz and Yordanis Despaigne-Cornelius White.

What I haven't got a great attention span :tired

 

Hiroshi Kobayashi Vs Shozo Saijo

Having only seen a few rounds of this before, I was absolutely pumped to find the time to watch the complete contest.

KOBAYASHI: 2; 3; 4; 5; 8; 9; 10
SAIJO: 1; 7

Kobayashi 98-92 Saijo

Kobayashi, who was WBA Super Featherweight champ’ (stripped of WBC and well known to most as one of the first notable opponents Roberto Duran crushed) and Saijo, WBA Featherweight champ’, meet in a non-title ten round fight a lb over the Super Featherweight limit. Saijo had seen bouts with THE MAN Vicente Saldivar and 4th ranked fellow Jap’ Kuniaki Shibata fall through. A week after this bout took place Shibata claimed the lineal title with an incredible win over Saldivar! This was a very good match to make IMO. ‘Most Japanese boxing writers predicted a toss-up’ (A.P)

It was the first contest fought between two Japanese who simultaneously held ‘World’ honours. Neither man was an all-time great, but both were very good IMO. I found it highly enjoyable, a nice blend styles, never a dull moment, competitive throughout. Not a great fight, but a good one.

Saijo, a lanky, gutsy banger (don’t be fooled by his miniscule looking 8 stoppages in 29 wins) is the taller man here despite moving up in weight and weighing half a lb or so less than Kobayashi. He looks to have benefitted from the move up, retaining his snap and poise in the early going.

Best way to describe Saijo (in terms of style) to anyone who hasn’t seen him is square on boxer-puncher; straight up, straight consistent jab, textbook punches, hurtful body shots, think Arguello but sub-par in terms of all-round offensive attributes, although still an ‘Elite’ fighter. Paired with the same kind of vulnerabilities and dangerous powers of recovery as a Nigel Benn or Danny Lopez. He could be hit, he could be (dramatically) hurt but could instantly come back and turn the tide with a devastating barrage, unable to remain poised when hurt as the stylistic example I provided, but instead a frantic and ballsy force when he was caught with a good one.

In the 2nd, Kobayashi starts to gain the measure of stiff Saijo (no homo) and, with more bounce in his step finds Saijo’s timing, slips his jab and starts to land with sharp and fast right hand counters. In the 3rd he gains more confidence and starts throwing combos, first to body and head, which briefly stirs Saijo into action, and then doubling his left hook from body to head, landing flush on the Featherweights face more than once. Kobayashi starts to look stronger, gaining a foothold with his own jab and pushing Saijo back. In the 4th, Saijo forces exchanges but landing a right cross counter a few times when Kobayashi is mid-flow, but the Junior Lightweight ‘champ landed enough shots unscathed, and briefly rocked Saijo with a cracking right hand off a left hook, but was unable to drop him. More of the same in the 5th, but Saijo looks more likely to force Kobayashi into exchanges and becomes more gung-ho, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Saijo when he throws caution to the wind.

In the 6th Saijo comes out trying to slip punches more, but Kobayashi quickly finds him, only for Saijo to force another exchange by trying to punch a hole straight through Kobayashi as he’s in full flow. Kobayashi lands the last blow, but quickly looks to clinch. Even Saijo’s jab makes a nasty thwack as it lands, but I still edge to Kobayashi, who did more in a closer round.

7th round: Saijo’s. For the first time he thinks to step out of range after his jab to anticipate Kobayashi’s right hand counter over the top, but still the speed advantage is showing, Saijo’s relative lack of handspeed evident against a nimble, well-schooled fighter like Kobayashi. Both men sit down on their shots in a back-and-forth 8th round. Saijo never stops trying, and get his licks in, but Kobayashi is too quick of hand and foot and stylistically suited to getting off first against him.

Rounds 1-3
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKGFEfok4Ms[/ame]

Rounds 8-10
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x_dVx5nmJ4[/ame]

As I say, not the complete fight.

 

I can't bring myself to watch the 3rd Marquez vs Pacquiao fight again.

It was just..... scandalous.

You could argue almost every round for Marquez, there was hardly a single round that Pacquiao won clearly. The first and last were probably his best rounds. In nearly all the others he was badly shut down (for the 3rd time) and hit with hard shots all night.

The only problem Marquez has in a fight between the two is that it's clear who hurts the other more if they both land cleanly.

 

I work with two guys who keep persisting with their notion that Pac could've conceivably edged the fight, and try to explain to me how this was the case.

Ring generalship is what stumps them. It shouldn't have been a problem for 3 judges, especially considering who was scoring all the clean punches.

I think Manny deffo' got the 1st and 12th. Probably because Marquez was warming up and winding down in those rounds!

 

None of my mates have watched it to my knowledge.

One of them was going to but asked me what I reckoned first (before he'd seen the result) - so I told him it was a one-sided fight and wasn't worth watching again.

He said ''I thought Pacquiao would stop him to be honest''

I said ''Erm...... Marquez won easily but didn't get it''

There wasn't any answer..... the phone went dead.

 

I'm not complaining, work with sound guys who are really into combat sports so we get some good debates going. But they sometimes rile me into the hysterics you sometimes see in my posts

 

That Antonio Gomez beat that Shajo guy, and then Marcel schooled Gomez.

How good do you think Gomez and Shajo was?

 

Ayud Kalulu vs Masisha Kudo

What a weird fight, its just pretty boring and non-descript really.

Kudo is pretty much a todays amatuer boxer: tall, rangy, fights on the backfoot almost exclusivly, pawing jab and a respectable and accurate back hand. He starts off so negativly, just pawing with that jab and looking to slip in a straight right on the advancing Kalule and it did work, but man how boring it was.

As the fight progressed Kudo had to be more aggressive and he rose to that couragously but he took a bit of a beating when he did go forward and let the hands go.

I think he fought a stupid-ish fight though, as in the middle rounds he did a pretty good job of jabbing and moving, getting off first then moving away and as soon as Kalule started landing again he seemed to revert back to exclusivly moving.

Kalule for what its worth, fought pretty well. He stalked his man, and it was pretty poor pressure in all honesty as he just followed Kudo around, and literally let him run away at times, but what I loved was the way Kalule would step forward and as soon as Kudo threw, he would slide back half a step then fire his own shots, that was lovely.

Kalule did a great job of countering to head and body throughout the fight, loved his right uppercut counter and that straight left. He also countered superbly coming in under Kudos straight shots, and then whacking th ebody with hard hooks, abit like Napoles.

He also landed the best punch I have ever seen thrown in the 14th, he hit Kudo with an uppercut to the body as Kudo stepped back, and then Ayub followed through with the uppercut and landed to his chin.

Kalule: 2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 (10-,14,15
Kudo : 1,6
Total: 148-136 Kalule (13-2)

Scored the 13th 10-8 as it was real one sided

 

I think they were both very good, Gomez moreso.

Saijo could be hurt and usually came back, Gomez's counter right was superb, finishing the Jap was very impressive, Gomez was a real good smooth counter-boxer.

Marcel's domination of him is one of the most intimidating performances I've ever seen at 126lbs.

As for the Kudo-Kalule fight, Kudo was an ex-wrestler, I think he took up boxing late and that might explain his extremely basic straight-punching style.

 

Hes horrible to watch is Kudo, wouldnt do too bad in the Olympics today though IMO.

Yeh Marcels domination of Gomez is amazing, youd think Gomez was some tough journyman on the back of it. Thing s though, Marcel basically treated all his opponents like that, even Shibata to an extent

 

Agee 100%, Arguello took it to him in the middle rounds but even then it was Marcel demonstrating one of the most diverse list of attributes throughout the 15. Shibata did a bit better than Gomez, but I also agree that Marcel completely shut Gomez down.

If they'd never fought but I'd seen footage of both, I'd have predicted a close, tactical bout. Marcel was incredible, it's his performances and ability plus his win list, which including just 126lbs isn't humongous, which still see him rank very highly amongst the best Featherweights of all time IMO, especially considering his win over Arguello, who went on to pick up the reigns and regularly makes the top end of all time Featherweight lists.

Marcel was absurdly skilled.

 

The Shibata fight is superb as Shibata actually forces him to change his tactics afew times in the bout, was great stuff to see. You think Shibata is one of the best pure boxers around at Featherweight IMO, OK maybe not one of the best but hes quality.

And Marcel dominates him. I love Marcel, the Arguello fight is amazing and pretty close IMO

 

Marcel clearly got the better of the Arguello fight though.

As for Shibata, fast, had accuracy and pop, lovely counter puncher (especially with his varied and quick left hook) and although he didn't like getting up more often than not he fought his ass off before he went down.

Shibata was a quality 126lber, and whilst he was inconsistent and had some weird fights, I would say Marcel's performance over him was highly impressive, I think it was the 4th or 5th where Shibata lands some really nice shots and starts to get the better of it, then Marcel takes over again and completely bosses the fight.

A robbery. I would say that is where Marcel became the main man at Feather, obviously it came full circle in the end with Marcel beating Gomez and essentially 'unifying' the division.

Would've been nice if he stuck around and fought Jofre though.

 

Yeh every wee bit of sucess Shibata has, Marcel just changes his tactics and ba
m back to a Marcel domination.

 

Would love to see Marcels bout with Spider Nemoto. Only man to stop the Jap', whose title bout with Pedroza is available.