the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Did the Marquez-Pacquiao fights as part of FOTW #8.

 

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This was the absolute peak of both men imo, Márquez was a bit of a late-bloomer, Nacho's guys normally had some freakish longevity. Obviously this is a bit controversial (everyone of these are lol) but iirc I had Pac winning by a point last time, although I can't find a card to back that up. Pacquiao rehydrated 16lbs overnight for this one, the guy was a welterweight. I maintain that Pacquiao was best suited for 140. I actually don't know which of these I like more, both are awesome! I might lean slightly towards Pacquiao, but I like Márquez loads too.

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10 : 9*
9 : 10*
10 : 8
10 : 9 (39/36)
9 : 10*
9 : 10
10 : 9*
9 : 10 (76/75)
10 : 9*
10 : 9
9 : 10*
9 : 10 (

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All of the starred are swing rounds.... can see why it was debated over.
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God damn, what a fight, eh? I preferred this one over the first and third, it was a high-class technical fight at times and a vicious war at others.

Pac's new-found skills gave Márquez a new challenge as he had to decode and unravel the conundrum of athleticsm and angles, which he often did with counters, timing and lateral movement. The pattern of this one was often that Pacquiao threw more with a lot of power, but didn't land as clean as Márquez.

The punch in the third was wicked, so short and accurate. Made the difference on my card.

Now I have a full set of scores for these fights:

#1: Pac 115-112
#2: Pac 114-113
#3: JMM 116-112
#4: Pac 47-46 TOS

 

I agree with McGrain - tough fight to score and we all seem to come up with differing scores on this one. I scored this a month or so back. Here is what I wrote:

Chris Eubank v Michael Watson I

Round 1: 10-10 Even
Round 2: 10-9 Eubank
Round 3: 10-10 Even
Round 4: 10-9 Eubank
Round 5: 10-9 Eubank
Round 6: 10-9 Watson
Round 7: 10-9 Eubank
Round 8: 10-10 Even
Round 9: 10-9 Eubank
Round 10: 10-9 Watson
Round 11: 10-10 Even
Round 12: 10-9 Eubank

Total: 118-114 Eubank

Actual scores: 116-113, 115-113 both for Eubank and a 114-114 Even card for a majority win for Eubank.

To begin, I did a little check of the history on this thread and found our posters at 3-2-1 for Eubank (excluding my card), so it is a controversial fight, as one can see by my 4 even rounds. But let me start with Watson. I've seen him fight twice against Benn and McCallum, but I was unimpressed here. Eubank fought in bursts and Watson stuck with fundamentals, but he fought with no fire and his jab appeared to me like it was always coming up a bit short. It was touching Eubank, but just. And those last four rounds where Eubank was clearly fatigued, it was Eubank flailing like a desperate man trying to hold onto his bauble rather than Watson trying to take it. Watson caught a lot of Eubank's blows on his arms but he needed to fight with a bit more fire, which made the difference on my card.

 

I had them as follows:
#1: Pac 114-113
#2: JMM 115-113
#3: JMM 117-113
#4 I didn't score.

1 and 2 could have gone either way in my view; number 3 was a clear win for Marquez and number 4 - well, no debate on the winner there!

 

I've been on a Juan Manuel Marquez kick lately and today I checked out his fight with Joel Casamayor. It wasn't the slam-bang affair usually associated with JMM fights as their orthodox/southpaw styles caused a bit of clunking of heads and Casamayor liked to counter. His left ws very adept. You'd rarely see an exchange that didn't end with a Casamayor left hook ending the exchange. Eventually JMM was finding the lead right getting home. But outside of the 11th round there wasn't a lot to write home about if you like pure action. But I did appreciate the skill-level of both fighters.

Round 1: 10-10 Even
Round 2: 10-9 Casamayor
Round 3: 10-9 JMM
Round 4: 10-9 JMM
Round 5: 10-10 Even
Round 6: 10-9 JMM
Round 7: 10-9 JMM
Round 8: 10-9 Casamayor
Round 9: 10-9 JMM
Round 10: 10-9 JMM
Round 11: JMM drops Casamayor twice and the ref stops the bout

Total (through 10 completed rounds): 98-94 JMM (actual scores 95-95, 95-95 and a 97-93 for JMM)

Before looking at the final scores I thought there was going to be some wildly differing scores here as most of these rounds were extremely tight and could have reasonably gone either way. Again, lacking in thrills and chills through 10 rounds but very good tactically.

 

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If McGrain's word hold even a single iota of truth (and I fail to see why they wouldn't), then it looks like I'm gonna be vigilant scoring this one. Alas, I love Watson and I quite like Chris too.

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9 : 10*
10 : 9
9 : 10
10 : 9 (38/38)
9 : 10*
9 : 10
10 : 9*
10 : 9 (76/76)
9 : 10
9 : 10
9 : 10
10 : 9* (

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Same again, astrix marks a swing round.
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Tough fight to score, and not particularly interesting either. Despite being much harder to watch, the 2nd was a much better fight imo.

Watson did have much more success as Eubank's patience grew thin, as when Mike didn't need to lead he was in his comfort zone and could parry Eubank's sloppier offence and pick his shots with counters. Whereas early on both were boxing within themselves and it was pretty even, since Eubank was more comfortable in his position, but didn't throw as much.

I might be bias to Waston here but he clearly won his rounds easier than Eubank did imo, you'd have to have given a lot of even rounds or a lot of the benefit of the doubt to Chris for him to have got this one imo.

 

Placating my JMM fixation, I scored the Marquez - Pacquiao I fight today. This is the first time I've seen it since I saw it live back in '04 I believe. Back then I believe I had it a draw or maybe JMM by a point. Anyways, here we go.

Round 1: 10-6 Pac (scores 3 knockdowns)
Round 2: 10-9 Pac
Round 3: 10-9 JMM
Round 4: 10-9 Pac
Round 5: 10-9 JMM
Round 6: 10-9 JMM
Round 7: 10-10 Even
Round 8: 10-10 Even
Round 9: 10-9 JMM
Round 10: 10-9 Pac
Round 11: 10-9 JMM
Round 12: 10-9 JMM

Total: 114-113 Pac (actual scores: 115-110 Pac, 115-110 JMM and 113-113 Draw for a draw decision)

That was a mountain for JMM to climb after that first round and, although I had it for Pac by a point, I'm good with the Draw.

 

I had the same score, Scar.

 

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Good little fight, this one. Glad @roughdiamond brought it to my attention. Cañizales looked a little fleshy as an older fighter at 122lbs. Like Rough said, not hard to score.

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9 : 10
10 : 9
10 : 9
10 : 9 (39/37)
9 : 10
9 : 10
10 : 9
10 : 9 (77-75)
10 : 9
10 : 9
10 : 9
10 : 9 (

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There's a couple rounds which were close (6&11) but other than that I had no issues with scoring.

Whilst I love Orlando's style (and also his defence on offense), I agreed with Rough saying that this shows Cañizales's ineffectiveness at ring-cutting. Orlando meandered after Jones at points, and relied on Junior squaring up or slowing down to land much.

 

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For Mr. @The Morlocks.

Lopez down in the first! Great action, Malvarez coming in with his lead right and often following up with a left hook. Lopez battles back (as per) and in the second.... KABOOM!!!!! Malvarez tries the same thing again and then Lopez times him with the very same combination. Malvarez wasn't getting up, and was still down a good 15 seconds after the count was over.

I've seen cleaner KOs, I won't lie; but rarely do you find a bigger heart than Little Red's.

 

Been watching a bit of Greg 'Mutt' Haugen recently. Nothing special but may as well share a few opinions on a couple of his fights here.

Haugen W PTS 15 Jimmy Paul, IBF Lightweight title, 1986

Haugen's first world title, which he won as a 4-1 underdog. In fact, years later Haugen commented in an interview that Emmanuel Steward subsequently told him that he had never heard of Haugen before the fight, and picked his name out of the ratings at random for Paul, thinking he'd be a safe defence before a possible unification against Camacho or Rosario.

Big mistake, as it turns out.

Not the most exciting fight, but a very solid and pretty impressive performance from Haugen. Commentating for ABC, during the fight Gil Clancy noted, "He (Paul) just can't reach this kid", and that was pretty much the story for the most part: Paul really struggling with the range, falling shot repeatedly with his jab as Haugen was timing, countering and navigating it very well. Paul looked flat-footed in comparison to Haugen and made the mistake of waiting on him too much. Haugen slipped the jab, got in and out with quick raids before Paul could respond, and banked seven of the first eight rounds on my card. Although his power never bothered Paul, he was countering the jab and throwing, as well as landing, a much greater variety of shots. It wasn't until the very end of the eighth round, when he landed a good right hand which just stiffened Haugen at the knees slightly, that Paul had any real signs of encouragement.

Paul waited way too long to switch it up. His tactics of keeping it long and trying to accumulate points behind his jab just wasn't effective at all, but by the time he started stepping it up and becoming more aggressive in rounds 11-15 he'd just left himself too much to do. The fight became scrappier during these rounds and Paul looked marginally fresher in them (this was afterall the fifth time he'd gone past 12 rounds, whereas it was a first for Haugen), but nevertheless Haugen was never in any trouble despite the fact he forgot the jab and countering which had seen him dominate the early part of the fight a little here.

Rounds 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 14 to Haugen, the rest to Paul. A solid 144-141 win for Haugen with the added cushion of him winning his rounds a bit clearer than Paul won his, particularly in the first half of the fight where his accuracy and defence were both very good.

Haugen W TKO 10 Gert Bo Jacobsen, IBF Lightweight title, 1988

Haugen's last successful title defence at 135 and it was a pretty easy one.

Jacobsen's style still looked very amateurish here. He fought extremely rigidly and upright, pawing and flicking with the jab and not fully committing to his shots. Didn't throw body shots and barely fought on the inside at all, although there were some perfunctory efforts at this in the latter rounds.

As he did for long spells against Paul, Haugen dictated the fight at mid-range with very controlled aggression. Jarred Jacobsen all over the place with his jab, especially later on, and countered effectively even when edging forward on the front foot. Although his opponent's style played into his hands, Haugen looked very well conditioned here and kept stepping it up as the fight progressed - by the second half he was doubling and tripling up on the jab, and also hooking off it. Effective body work, too.

Very nice one-two counter to deck Jacobsen in the tenth - though he beat the count, he was very groggy and the fight was more or less over at that moment. No surprise that after being waved back into action, Jacobsen was stopped just a few seconds later.

I gave Jacobsen the 4th round, but aside from that it was all Haugen, 89-82 before the stoppage. Very dominant win.