Was it a brilliant year, an over-rated year, too many disappointments, a great year for great fights..... Your thoughts?
I thought it was a really good year. We had some good matchups and unexpected results and that only looks to be continuing into 09.
Very good year, some memorable fights, for very different reasons. Cotto vs. Margo for quality, Froch vs Pacal for excitement. Hatton vs. Malignaggi for class. Pac vs. Oscar for disapointment/elation depending on how you look at it. The rise of Kessler and Abraham, the final fall of RJJ. Bernard schooling Pavlik.The return of Vitali. Haye becoming undisputed and then stepping up. '09 will be better though.
Very good. Exciting match ups. Stunning upsets. Big fights that were brawls. Froch v Pascal was not only a relevant match up. It was a brawl. And both guys came out of the fight looking better than ever. Pascal showed he had heart and Froch showed he had chin. Cunningham v Adamek - two contrasting styles which would usually play out as a boring affair actually was amazing. Both guys were doing what they had to do to win. Both guys were able to work their approach and had success with it.... one moreso than the other. Pacquiao v Oscar - very few were really confident in Pacquiao's chances to win this. Alot spoke that he would win, but they weren't entirely confident. Certainly no one expected the fight that we did get. Oscar might not have made it a very competitive fight. But I think more people were shocked with Pacquiao's performance regardless of what Oscar wasn't able to do. Hatton v Paulie M - relevant match up and exciting as well as unexpected. Hatton was back in top form putting on a display that most thought was forever locked in his past. But not only that, he showed things he had shown as well earlier in his career. He was able to outbox the better boxer. He was able to land single big shots, showing a speed and accuracy that I hadn't seen before. Vitali v Sam Peter - Interesting match up. I don't know many who thought that it would have been as one sided as it was. Say what you want to about Vitali but the guy comes off close to a four year lay off to completely work a top 10 heavyweight champ. And doing it with his left down below his waist for the majority of the fight. Vic Darchiyan v Mijares - relevant match up/interesting match up. Again, the brawler proves the press wrong. Never saw this fight happening like this.... never. The brawler was countering the boxer better. Beating him to the punch and eventually giving a great finale to the fight.
There were some very good match ups this year. The heavyweight division wasn't particularly exciting, with the exception of Klitschko vs Peter. Overall, it wasn't a bad year.
Well with fights like: Pac - Marquez II Vazquez - Marquez III Cotto - Margarito Campbell - Diaz Marquez - Casamayor Dawson - Johnson and Tarver Hopkins - Pavlik Adamek - Cunningham Pac - DLH Caballero - Molitor Froch - Pascal Darchinyan - Mijares Haye - Maccarinelli this was not a bad year at all, at least one or two big fights per month on average. 2008 was a solid year for fight fans. I'd give it an A-.
greeat year cotto marg pac DLH some good smaller matchups plus roy jones jr got his ass whipped, I been waitin a decade for that
