Holmes vs Cobb was a worse beating than i remember

Today it would have been stopped

 

I'm about to tell you something that just might change your life. It was actually quite a bit better than you remember. And you will watch it again, 7 years, three months from now. And you will then realize it.

 

Nah, Holmes only won the first 15 rounds. If the fight was 48 rounds, Cobb would have won.

 

I’m of the opinion that while it was completely one-sided, there’s not a legit reason to stop it. Tex was not, at least as I recall it, ever hurt — took a lot of leather, way outclassed, but never defenseless or in danger of being stopped.

I disagree that it would be stopped today — it would have been 12 rounds, and I’ve seen plenty of guys take enormous damage in 12-round fights that went the distance.

(It’s odd to me that people argue this should have been stopped and Chavez-Taylor I should not have been — Meldrick was in WAY worse shape than Tex and unresponsive to a guy counting and then right in front of his face asking if he wants to continue … and he doesn’t even register that Steele is there.)

 

It retired that POS Cosell so it wasn't all bad.

 

Cobb even volunteered to play in the NFL for a week if that would get Cosell to stop broadcasting football.

 

Yes I remember that. He took a "moral stance" and quit boxing over this fight but did he give the money back? No he didn't typical POS hypocrite, good riddance.

 

That’s kind of the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen posted on this board.

It’s fine to hate Cosell, but do not kid yourself that no boxing trainer or manager ever walked away from the sport due to the damage it inflicts on the participants. People blame Angelo Dundee for sticking with Ali to the end rather than walking away, but then your stance is Cosell cannot walk away?

But that’s not the dumb thing at all.

Give the money back? Like he should return every paycheck he ever earned (he did show up and work, and without question enhanced ABC’s ratings in the process, even when he became ‘the guy viewers love to hate’) … because he decided boxing was too savage and he didn’t want to work the sport anymore?

Should every scientist who walks away from a job because he has a moral crisis over his research being used for weapons of war also return their paychecks? Ever zoo worker who decides animals should be free? Every actor who worked in a Weinstein movie (and should they give the money back to Harvey!!!)?

How do your job and life work? I’ll tell you how mine does … I get a paycheck every two weeks, and a good amount of that goes into rent, food, entertainment and stuff. If I quit tomorrow over moral reasons, I would not be able to return all the money I earned BECAUSE I HAVE SPENT MOST OF IT ON LIVING EXPENSES. Do you have every penny you’ve ever made from a job so you could give it back if you ever made such a choice?

You’ve completely stunned me. Please articulate how you came to that conclusion and how you think Cosell would be able to pay back decades worth of earnings … and exactly why he should have done so.

I was a manager and trainer for a number of years. To my knowledge, only one of the guys I worked with have suffered from any sort of dementia or mental deterioration that I would relate to the sport. I’m back in the gym since the fall, mostly working out but also helping out some (giving tips to trainees, showing them this or that with the coach’s permission). The coach has urged me to get (or renew actually) my amateur coaching license to be able to work corners and I am contemplating it, but one thing that gives me pause is that former boxer of mine — he drops by every once in a while and while he is still functional and holds a job, it saddens me to see the toll boxing took on him. I’m not sure I want to be part of that. But give back money I earned with my own tireless hours and blood and sweat and tears? Are you nuts?

 

He didn't give the money back for that fight, period. If he had I would think more of him. I didn't say give every cent he ever made boxing back. Don't be ridiculous. He was still a hypocrite, but then again he was a former lawyer so no morals anyway.

 

So a person is a hypocrite if they decide at some point in their life they can no longer do what they once did? Cosell, who was as close to Ali as any broadcaster or journalist, could not watch Muhammad’s fate and decide to walk away?

SMFH.

 

He quit over the Cobb fight. Even Cobb was glad that idiot retired. If you're a fan of his fine, many of us are not. I'm glad he quite should have been long before the Cobb fight though. I suspect him quitting boxing gave him more time to spend with his true love of booze.

 

It has nothing to do with being a fan of his.

As I said, if you didn’t like him as a commentator, fine.

But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone walking away from boxing because they’ve seen the human toll it takes on some of its participants.

Howard Cosell, in commentary on that fight, was doing what he always claimed to do — he was telling it like it was. It was a mismatch. It was, in fact, a mismatch only made because his network wanted it for primetime during sweeps weeks (when new shows premiered and each network was aiming for the highest possible ratings — often with one-off events like a heavyweight championship fight in primetime) because those weeks set the ad rates for the three networks for the next year.

This entire thread is about what a beatdown it was. Cosell was observing the same thing every single one of us saw or has seen (if you happened to come along later and watched it since it happened in real time).

What’s wrong with that? Should he have shilled for his network and acted like Cobb was competitive or that he wasn’t taking a beating that served no purpose other than to pump up his network’s ratings (and thus its coffers)? He wasn’t calling out Tex or Larry — he was calling out ABC and boxing (i.e. the alphabet boys of the WBA and WBC) for making it possible for a mismatch to happen in a world title fight.

What bothers you about that?

 

Markus, i think you should be concerned.

 

One other fight I can think of was Ray Mercer vs Vitaly Klitschko. Totally one sided beating but Ray would not give up.

As to Cosell I never once heard someone say they liked him. Entertained at times maybe. He was a conceited arrogant opinionated know it all. Somehow the network execs loved him and would never give up on him. They praised his work ethic and ability to be thrown into anything and handle it masterfully. To be sure he was a brilliant guy just that we didn’t want his political opinions while we were watching sports thank you.

I ve rewatched a lot of sixties fights when he was still new and only covering boxing and I have to say back then he was outstanding especially compared to all the previous tv boxing announcers I d heard. Guess the role was being established and I never heard a good one till him.

He made his name on boxing and it was his entry into other sports particularly football and his ego grew and was increasingly on display.

His disgust with boxing might be excused as it was an evolution many experienced even myself to some extent. I still love to analyze fighters and matching them but I feel differently due to the brain damage it can inflict. I think that was at the root to his rejecting it more than what he stated.