There are some awesome fights this week. We've got Lacy-Mendoza, Joval-McGirt, Soto-Karass-Estrada, Flores-Diaz, and Cotto-Margarito all within a four day span. Obviously 7/26 is the big day, but bear in mind there are some very solid, interesting and evenly matched fights leading up to it. Don't be afraid to steal some time away from the big fight chatter to discuss these! These are all up for betting in vbookie, by the way. op
:conf Dude's got a hyphenated surname; I'm not going to change my listing format just because his folks couldn't make up their minds.
:rofl Hey, do you think you'll have the Friday vbookie threads settled before the Cotto fight betting ends?
Like I said, guys, don't be shy about discussing the other intriguing matchups occuring throughout the week. You can do it here, for instance. Seeing as nobody's interested in starting topics that don't focus on either Cotto-Margarito or fights that are more than a month away or not even official yet! :think
As well as AJ Banal-Rafael Concepcion .. Chris John is also fighting Jackson Asiku which I don't really give a damn about..
Nice, I'm planning on putting everything on the Cotto fight. I'll try to get this discussion thread rolling now.. Soto-Karass vs Estrada is the definition of what will be a classic Telefetura war. I don't think it'll go 12 rounds, because these guys are going to be exchanging punches nonstop like madmen from the opening bell. It's pretty much a pick'em fight.. Soto-Karass' workrate against Estrada's faster speed/quickness and much more experience. From what I can remember, Soto-Karass is a better fighter from the outside with the superior jab, but this won't matter because over 90% of the fight will probably be fought on the inside. I'll go with Estrada because I think he will be landing the more effective, flush shots and he reacts to getting hit slightly better than Soto-Karass.. basically, that means he makes more of an attempt to get out of the way of follow-up combination punches after getting hit than Soto-Karass does. He's also the much more consistent fighter. For the sake of these fighters' health, hopefully it doesn't last until the championship rounds. I think it'll be smart for them to concentrate on attacking the body more than the head, because they both have solid chins and constant shots to the body will affect them more in a long fight than constant shots to the head will. Why couldn't they put this on the undercard of Cotto-Margarito instead? Mendoza is basically made for Lacy to look good. He's a chinny brawler who's out of shape and comes into fights without a gameplan, only hoping to land something huge and knock his opponent out. He has power like many Columbian sluggers, so maybe if lands flush on today's version of Lacy something interesting can happen. But even the Lacy of the Manfredo fight should be able to destroy Mendoza before the 6th. Joval-McGirt is an interesting, evenly matched FNF main event. Joval hasn't fought in almost a year, so it's hard to say how well prepared he is to give a very high output, pressure fighting performance.. but I favor him to win. McGirt is a tall, southpaw boxer (stylistically, someone who should give Joval problems), but he doesn't respond well to pressure and his defense is leaky. He also doesn't have enough punching power to get Joval's respect. I think Joval will break McGirt down by forcing him to fight at an uncomfortable pace and stop him late, when McGirt starts panicking and exchanging with him too much. It's 60/40 Joval IMO.
Who the hell knows anything about those guys fighting this week? What do you think about David Haye's chances at heavyweight?
It's actually "STOPPED Virgil Hill with a body shot"!! :tong How sad is it that I know all of the lyrics to this song and "And Still..." :-(