the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Anthony Joshua v Wladimir Klitschko

Top notch heavyweight title fight in which both fighters come out with credit after giving it their all.

Joshua showed some championship level heart, coming back from a KD in the 6th to stop Klitschko eventually while ahead on two of the cards.

Round 5 was one of the best heavyweight rounds of recent years (on a par with round 12 of Fury-Wilder 1) in which Joshua drops Wlad and then gasses a bit while the ex-champ comes back to given Joshua a pounding, arguably making it only a single point difference in the round.

Most of the bout was fought at range and while the action there wasn’t always scintillating, it was never less than absorbing.

Can we have a few more heavyweight title fights like this, please?

 

Paul Hodkinson v Ricardo Cepeda (featherweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Hoko
Round 2: 10-8 Hoko (scores a knockdown)
Round 3: 10-9 Hoko
Round 4: Hoko stops Cepeda

2 judges had it 30-26 and the 3rd judge had it 30-25 all for Hoko. I too had it 30-26 for Paul. Let's not kid ourselves here. Yes, I enjoyed the fight, but that's because Hoko is very enjoyable to watch. He has such an assortment of punches at his disposal and he slathered Cepeda in them. This is more of a highlight reel for Hoko than anything competitive. I watched Cepeda try to fend off Hoko and wondered, talent-wise, how he got a shot at the title or who he beat. Then I checked out his record after the fight and saw who he beat. No one of note. Moreover, he lost 2 out of his last 3. So again, how did he get a title shot? This should have been a non-title 10-rounder and nothing more, but they like to sell title fights to the public. Again, I enjoyed it because of Hoko, but this should have been a non-title.

 

You kidding me?

This guy beat Duran, Nelson and Floyd (twice).

Granted, it was Tony Duran instead of Roberto, Nelson Rodriguez instead of Azumah and Floyd Simmons rather than Mayweather, but those are just details.

 

Lol

 

Alexis Arguello v Cornelius Boza Edwards (non-title and scored on NJ's rounds basis)

Round 1: Even
Round 2: Boza
Round 3: Boza
Round 4: Arguello
Round 5: Boza
Round 6: Even
Round 7: Arguello
Round 8: Arguello
Boza's corner retires him between rounds 8 & 9

Total through 8 completed rounds: 3-3-2 Even (actual scores not known)

This was just a beautiful fight to watch. For Edwards, it was his first shot at the big time. For Arguello, a day at the office. AA was so composed and unflustered by the tough opponent in front of him and casually felt everything out before kicking in the next gear. I saw him measuring Boza with a few lead rights in the second and I think he was satisfied to know he could nail him with that shot everytime and eased off a bit for a few rounds. He did wobble Boza in the 4th and again, no urgency. One could see the next gear when Arguello introduced his bodywork in the 7th and 8th. Man, it was just a matter of time after that. Boza, to his credit, really gave it a go, but was outgunned. BTW, I cannot find the actual scores anywhere. I know there was a writeup in the November 1980 issue of Ring, but I don't have that issue. If anyone does I would love to know what the actual scores were. Me and my statistics, what can you do?

 

Azumah Nelson W12 Mario "Azabache" Martinez (1)

I'd seen this fight on youtube before, but was put off by the fact it was missing a round, so forgot about it and never bothered to score it.

Honestly, it was pretty tepid. Neither man wanted to lead, knowing the counterpunching skill and power of the other. As a result, not a lot happened except for the tenth round. It was one of those fights where there might have been some tension around the fact that something might happen, but ultimately nothing really did.

Not to overreact, but I'm going to. It's hard to say Neson didn't benefit in his dealings with Don King. Close decisions against Martinez, Gabe Ruelas the first time, the first Leija fight, the obvious robbery against Fenech, Calvin Grove.........what can you do, he was connected. If it was reasonably close or even NOT so reasonably close and Nelson was actually standing at the end, he was going to get the decision. Love Azumah and he was a great fighter, but he was truly a favorite son of the light socket-haired Beast.

I don't agree with Ruben Castillo's score because he's awful and can't score a fight to save his life but do agree that Martinez was the unfortunate bit player in Don King's larger play. Love to see some other scores if you have them.

1. Nelson
2. Nelson
3. Even
4. Nelson
5. Martinez
6. Martinez
7. Martinez
8. Nelson
9. Martinez
10. Martinez (10-8), sweet left hook puts Nelson down
11. Martinez
12. Nelson

115-113 Martinez

Official scores: 114-113 for Martinez, and 115-113 (x2) for Nelson.

 

I watched this one last year i found this to be a very hard fight to score in the 1st half, believe it or not i had 4 even rounds and i never normally score even rounds.

1 Even
2 Even
3 Even
4 Mitchell
5 Even
6 Mitchell
7 Mitchell
8 Mitchell
9 Mitchell
10 Mitchell
11 McDonnell
12 Mitchell

119-113 Mitchell

This fight was a nightmare to score, especially the first 6 rounds. I can't believe i actually had 4 even rounds as i barely ever score even rounds. But i couldn't separate them in the early rounds, there was alot of good technical boxing and defense. Mitchell was always the aggressor and McDonnell was boxing well on the backfoot.

The issue i had is that there was barely any notable punches to swing the rounds, alot of the rounds there was nothing in them. Thankfully Mitchell started to get to McDonnell's body after the 5th round, and was just about doing enough based on his workrate to edge these rounds. Which thankfully made it a bit easier for me as i was having nightmare trying to split them.

I gave McDonnell the 11th round just based on his effort, he abandoned boxing on the backfoot. And decided to just go for broke and come forward and wing punches. But other than that i couldn't really find a decisive round that McDonnell won, although he was very competitive in a majority of the rounds.

Overall a decent technical fight with alot of good skills on display from both men, Mitchell deserved to win based on his workrate and body punching, McDonnell didn't do enough to win the rounds although he was competitive in most of them.

 

Good example of how a fight can be close and extremely competitive but still have a wide margin on the scorecards. One guy would edge all 12 rounds and win 120-108 and it still be a very competitive and close fight, where a few solid punches a round could have swung it the other way.

 

Sal, we had a couple of rounds different, but we came to the same conclusion that Martinez deserved the verdict.

Azumah Nelson v Mario Martinez I

Round 1: 10-10 Even
Round 2: 10-9 Nelson
Round 3: 10-9 Martinez
Round 4: 10-9 Nelson
Round 5: 10-9 Martinez
Round 6: 10-9 Nelson
Round 7: 10-9 Martinez
Round 8: 10-9 Martinez
Round 9: 10-9 Martinez
Round 10: 10-8 Martinez (scored a knockdown)
Round 11: 10-9 Nelson
Round 12: 10-9 Martinez

116-112 Martinez

 

Found another good fight out of MSG from the early '60s. Here we go with.....

Dick Tiger v William Pickett (NY rounds scoring)

Round 1: Pickett
Round 2: Tiger
Round 3: Even
Round 4: Tiger (scores a knockdown)
Round 5: Tiger
Round 6: Tiger
Round 7: Tiger (leap of faith)*
Round 8: Tiger
Round 9: Tiger
Round 10: Tiger

Total: 8-1-1 Tiger (actual scores: 8-2, 8-2 and 7-3 all for Tiger)

*My leap of faith round. There was no 7th round. The vid had this one omitted. However, at the start of the 8th, Don Dunphy states, "Rough going for Pickett in the 7th round". I also read that referee Mark Conn scored the last 7 rounds for Tiger. Don't like doing it this way, but it was a leap of faith.

As for the fight, Pickett, known as Billy here, wasn't a bad fighter at all. A nice boxer who didn't mind mixing it with Tiger at all. Such was the style taught at the time and expected of one. To entertain the audience. And he did. This was 1961 and he even had a bit of a pre-Ali shuffle, which the audience liked. But even though he made a fight of it - and right to the 10th round where he was fighting back with everything he had - he was outgunned by Tiger who was just grinding him on the inside and outside. But an enjoyable encounter.

 

Matthew Saad Muhammad - Yaqui Lopez 2
WBC Light Heavyweight Championship - July 13, 1980

Round 1 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad
Round 2 - 10-9 Lopez
Round 3 - 10-9 Lopez
Round 4 - 10-9 Lopez - Close
Round 5 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad
Round 6 - 10-9 Lopez
Round 7 - 10-9 Lopez
Round 8 - 10-9 Lopez - What an amazing round Not so much back and froth action as taking turns action. In today's world I believe the fight would have been stopped with Lopez declared the winner. Saad Muhammad's head was bouncing around after too many punches.
Round 9 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad
Round 10 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad - Close
Round 11 - 10-9 Lopez
Round 12 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad
Round 13 - 10-9 Saad Muhammad
Round 14 - Saad Muhammad wins by TKO as ref stops the fight after Lopez goes down for the 4th time in the round.

My score at the time of the stoppage - 124-123 Lopez, Actual scores 124-123, 125-122 and 125-123 all for Saad Muhammad.

This was a great representation of all of the great light heavyweight matchups in the late 1970s and early 1980s. No one backed down, they were punching with the goal of doing damage and there were very few lulls in the action.

 

Yaqui’s one of the best fighters to never win a world title. Always brought it and I thought he always handled himself with class.

This is a classic. I need to rewatch sometimes soon.

 

Beautiful fight, a real treasure. Round eight was poetic in its violence.

This is actually their second fight though. Seen their first? Some like it even better!

 

Yes, I have seen their first and I did mean to note it as their second fight. It too, was a very enjoyable fight.

 

If somebody said that there is no better fight than this one in boxing’s history, I wouldn’t argue much.

Round 8 is still the best complete round I’ve ever seen.