the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Ali UD Norton (III)

Strange fight with nobody really taking a fim box seat for me and no one punch dominating the action, few key moments, no key punch. It's probably fair to say that Norton won this on conditioning (on my card) for two reasons, one, he closes the show very impressively and doesn't look that tired - the 34 year old Ali looked knackered. Secondly, when Ali went on his bike and jabbed he did very well, I have him taking 9,10 and 11, but he's obviously not going to be able to keep that up all night, especially not with the steady pressure Norton brought all night.

He just creeps in, a little unorthodoxed with the jab and hitting well to the body. Foreman must have cringed watching this, Norton shows how you do it. I wish he had gone to the body more, he might have closed the show.

Lots of ink has been wasted on why Norton gave Ali so much trouble. Here's my own 2 cents. When I was watching the fight I was kind of reminded of this picture:

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I know that seems weird, but it seems to me that Ali's output can very much be measured in two dimensions because he just doesn't alter the height of his blows. He uses angles well, but less and less well as he got older and less elastic. Anyway, Kenny used a shell-like defence and a tucked in chin combinted with a little head movement. But he only ever had to worry about punches coming across a narrow window, represented by the waves approaching the "double slit" in the above picture. Behind it, represented by the light spilling through the slit in waves, we see Kenny's defence in hand movment. He makes a lot of noise with those gloves covering a great deal of Ali's offensive window at any one time with something, so he's at least taking the motor of Ali's punches, and quite often blocking them all together. He doesn't have to worry about picking off individual punches, he just has to use a dynamic defence to create as much noise for Ali's punches as possible. Behind that is the "screen", his last line of defence, his less dynamic head movement. It just made Norton very hard to hit for Ali.

It exposes his limitations as a technician more than any other fight. Norton's boyd is literally screaming to be hit at times, but Ali can't do it because he has a style he is marreid to.

Anyway, enough voodoo. The fight was an absorbing one and round 11 was the best of it, with Norton yelling at Ali whilst doing his own version of the rope-a-dope. I wish I could have scored the round for him. History overlooks Norton a bit, perhaps unfairly. This was a good and interesting performance.

ALI: 1,3,7,9,10,11
NORTON,2,4,5,6,8,13,14,15
EVEN: 12

8-6-1 Norton.

Incidently, the broadcast teams panel of experts who scored the fight - if you score EVERY round at least one of these guys gave to Ali you can make it 8-7 for him. That is, they all scored for Norton individually, but if you give every round any one of them deemed possibly Ali's, you come up with the same scorecard as the referee and judges.

 

Oscar De La Hoya UD12 Pernell Whitaker

OSCAR 2,3,4,7,8,10,12
PEA: 1,5,6,9,11

7-5 Oscar De La Hoya

For the first time ever one of my cards matches Lederman's exactly, I gave exactly the same rounds to each man. It is quite a difficult fight to score and that's reflected in the scorers ringside. Lederman gave it to Oscar, Merchant gave it to Whitaker or saw it a draw depending on what he did with the last round, 3 judges gave it to Oscar, 11 writers gave it to Oscar and 14 writers gave it Whitaker. I make that a dead heat if Merchant found a way to give the twelfth to Whitaker, the slimmest of edges to De La Hoya if he scored the 12th otherwise.

Pea looked like he was going to take it based upon round one, Oscar just looked legitimately befuddled in mp opinion but Oscar was able to up his workrate and just take some chances. His original plan to walk through a fighter who wouldn't even be there if you got there was obviously ludicrous, but the boiled down version worked well for him in about the 17th fight where the HBO crew tells us that Oscar's best punch is his left hook but he can't throw it tonight.

The ludicrous WBC rule regarding accidental headbutts set Pernell a real stall and after he lost the third and fourth on my card I had my doubts, but he put together his only two rounds in a row in the fight in 5 and 6 to make it competitive again and combined with the messy knock down (which evened things up nicely on the cards Karma-wise) he was right back in the fight. Unfortunately for him, Oscar just knows judges and he upeed his game after the 9th and again in the 12th. As we now know, he needn't have bothered his arse, but it was a good determined play.

A real what-you-prefer type of fight, and personally I like to score for the guy that learned the more hurtful punches. I thought it was interesting the way Oscar abandoned his own jab, just like he would against Mayweather years later...I think he thinks he can't throw it when he's being out-boxed, he just needs the statement punches. It worked for him here, but with diminishing returns on his speed, he would get caught out next time.

I do think that Whitaker looked old. Whenever I watch him in his younger days he looks unnatural in the ring he is having such a good time. He always looks to me like he's playng basketball when he's boxing, but here things had a bitter twist - he wasn't quite fast enough.

A word for Oscar's corner who were pitiful. In the rounds that turned the fight around, the third and the fourth, he had great success choping Whitkaer out of clinches and giving him a push here and there. The corner shat it off the cut and read the fight all wrong when they demanded their man stay outside. I think Oscar new it too. Shame he didn't heed his own heart over the matter, he may have won this clean.

 

Probably for the reasons you state buddy. Those two hard shots. For me, that was a recurring theme in the fight. Once Whitaker went behind in a round in my mind, it was very very hard for him to come back. It's hard for me to see hard punches as being "erased" by jabs and keen generalship. Whitaker could look generally better in round - like this one- but still lose. It troubled me actually. They look, and sound harder, but Whitaker was not particularly troubled - where do we draw that line?

Anyway, I rate hurtful seeming shots the highest of all. Pro boxing. How do you score it please?


I will look at round ten in your honour, later this morning or tomorrow night.

 

Muhammad Ali UD15 Earnie Shavers.

Both of them fight stupid in their own ways. Ali lands every single uppercut he throw in the fight but he inexplicably throws only about six. Shavers declines opportunities to attack Ali in the rope-a-dope when Ali invites him in. For some reason Earnie and his people decided that whenever Shavers was waved in he would go to the opposite corner and wait for Ali to come out. Shavers missed chances to land flush budy shots (of which he, too, threw about six) and also to punch Ali in the upper arm which he did only twice and looked a great plan to me.

This was all a part of the Shavers strategy to box clever and get into the championship rounds with his limited long-fight experience. As Merchant pointed out, the point isn't to go 15 but to win. I genuinely believe that Shavers might have won here with a different fight plan, he didn't have to go crazy, in fact I love the conservative Shavers. He's more Carter than Benn here, a stalker rather than a bomber.

As was the case with Norton, Ali stammered because of his inability to dance protractidly - he won every minute for which he did so and Shavers basically couldn't touch him - and his disregard for body punches. Shavers took advantage of this with a box-swarming style, stiff punches over the top of Ali's jab any time he threw it static, and a reliance on a ponderous right hand which he alternated between timing beautifully and swinging for ther rigging - probably dependent upon what Ali was doing if i'm honest.

I thought the judges were hard on Shavers. In round seven he landed multiple hard shots and Ali flurried with punches that really didn't do much landing, but he got the nod. I laso disagreed with the judges on round 3 which they gave to Ali - in my opinion, Ali was still rattled from the bombs he swalloed in 2, which was by far the hardest he's ever been hit for me.

He may have cost himself immortality in the 13th with his determination to be conservative on the ropes. In this round, Ali looks gunshy for the first and only time in his career and I believe Shavers may have really hurt him. Two prodding body punches is no way to follow up such an advantage. Hurt again in the 14th, Ali rallied beautifully in the 15th, one of the HW divisions great rounds for me. So:

ALI: 1,5,9,10,11,12,15
SHAVERS: 2,3,4,6,7,8,12,14

..i have it 8-7 for Shavers.

But here's the rub. The official judges scorecards were being announced live on television. Supposedly Dundee had guys working for him to get the score to him after every round. This would have meant that after the 11th, Ali would have known that he only needed one more round to defend the title. The twelfth is an interesting one. I thought Shavers was winning it until the last minute, when Ali landed his hardest stuff of the fight to take the round on all cards, including mine.

His interest in the fight drops off noticably after that and to say he is coasting is under-stating it. I think the story is probably true, Ali's demenour in the corner after such a close fight speaks to it also. Shavers was furious. Not a controversiol one though, for no better reason than the scoring was transparent - otherwise you can bet people would be crying about this.

Important fight in that it proves, in Ken Norton's words, "that Ali can take a shot as well as any HW champion we've ever had." I enjoyed Norton's commentary.

 

I do think it's extremely close. Very very close. It's probably closer than I remember it watching it in isolation. I defininitely don't think it would be "wrong" to score it for Whitaker. But I do think that Oscar lands the best punch of the round, a right hand on two minutes, and I don't think Whitaker does enough to definitely offset it.

As you might remember, I don't score even rounds in a fight where the judges ringside don't score even rounds, that being the case I give it to De La Hoya.

 

I do too, but it's nice to know which judges scored which round for who as opposed to just getting the numbers. We don't get enough of that in my opinion, it tends to just creep out if there is a ludicrous round, Lewis-Holyfield round 5 for example.