Now if this was the year 2006 and it was.. Arthur Abraham vs Demetrius Andrade. No way in hell does Andrade leave Germany with the Win.
Really good post. You already touched upon the psychological pressure of fighter of fighting in an opponent's backyard...Now, combine that with the pressure of facing an opponent that you handily defeated several years earlier and realizing that he's improved quite a bit since that time. Sometimes, a boxer doesn't have to be better than his opponent to get an edge...He just has to be better than the opponent thinks he is, and that was the case tonight. There's a certain peskiness and trickiness to Culcay that impressed me this evening. As you said, he picks off and avoids a lot of shots on the way in, and his flurries have a way of catching the eyes of judges-especially at home. He might not ever blow away anyone else in the Top 10 at 154lbs, but I can see him hanging with just about anyone else in the division and finding a way to have his moments against them.
Thanks. Yes in addition to the additional obstacles and pressures you encounter fighting on the road in your opponent's backyard/country, I do think Andrade was a bit surprised and indeed frustrated by Culcay's trickiness, tenacity and toughness. Culcay is pretty slick defensively and he was able to make Andrade miss a lot. A lot of Andrade's shots that did actually connect with something other than thin air were taken on the arms and gloves and those that did get through cleanly couldn't really put a dent in Culcay or extinguish his fire. Andrade was in charge for the majority of the rounds and the rightful winner on the scorecards, but I got the impression that if one of them was going to fold mentally or run out of gas it was going to be him. But he managed to keep it all together. Be interesting to see how Andrade vs Lara would play out now given how they also met in the amateurs too.
Regardless of where they themselves are from, they're local judges when they're paid by a local promoter.
All those guys who were screaming how GGG was ducking Andrade needs to stand in the shame corner for 5 minutes.
A lot of you guys are underrating Culcay, he may not be a top 10 light middleweight, but he is still a good fighter
So Andrade will now face Erislandy Lara sometime later in the year, maybe they could fight in the new tournament created by Richard Schaefer and Sauerland promotions?
I'm looking at Andrade's amatuer record and he has some good wins over Keith Thurman, Diego Chaves, John Jackson, Jack Culcay, Charles Hatley
It's you who has a lot to learn about boxing if you believe that. The commissions or title sanctioning bodies assign the judges, but the promoters pay them. That's how boxing works. That's why judges and refs are never truly neutral. Promoters at worst engage in shady deals behind the scenes with officials, at best judges know they'll get more work if they favour what promoters want. (Or I think they sometimes go against what they think they expect promoters want, in a deliberate attempt to try to be impartial.)
Whatever repercussions there may or may not be: the fact is promoters pay judges. Any process they go through with commissions and title sanctioning bodies doesn't mean much because they are employed in the end by promoters.