it happens all the time , fighters have to give up options to get certain fights. The promoter hedging his bets is nothing new, he would much rather his champion fight someone who he gets options on if they win than someone he doesn’t. Also makes a rematch easier to make although after last nights fight that shouldn’t come into it.
To be fair to Eddie, the writing was on the wall with Yafai ever since Hearns had to pay the judges in Monaco to gift him a win against Israel Gonzalez. There was no where for Yafai to go, he was a weak champion with no fans here.
I'm very pleased for Chocolito, the guy is aLegend who always pushed himself to the point he fought giants in comparison. One of my ATG favourites to watch.
No shame in losing to a legit great. His reign was pretty pants though and I don't think - unless his somehow dramatically improves a lot - his career will ever be spoken about at this stage. I saw a lot saying he fought the wrong type of fight by trading on the inside with Roman but I don't think that was Yafai's fault. Roman's footwork and movement around a fighter is just that damn good. Honestly, that was an absolute masterclass at the weekend. I actually picked Yafai as I figured Roman was too past his best and still at a weight he's too small for. And the crazy thing is you can see he is still plenty past his prime, just that his past prime is still world class. I don't really know where Yafai goes from here, this was a reality check in truth. Estrada wins with similar ease and SSR bodies him. I really like him and Sunny Edwards as a fight though I'd be surprised if that got made really. To his credit he did show some grit in there, wanted to go out on his shield.
It was worth a punt and made perfect sense. It's how careers have been built since time immemorial; pick off a faded great at the right time and get the rub from it. Unfortunately, sometimes the faded great hasn't faded as much as you'd like, or the difference in levels is just too much for youth, size etc to overcome. Sitting on alphabet belts for years on end doesn't do much for the bottom line when there's dozens of other fighters doing the same. I don't see Yafai making many waves after this, but it's not like losing to Roman Gonzalez is really going to derail anything else he does.
Although I do think Eddie thought Chocolate man was over the hill, give the lad in the ring credit. He was fighting a legend and came up short. No need to call the kid a paper champion. How man World titleholders have fought that level of competition?
Absolutely zero shame in losing to Choc, he’s a legit great. Yafai thought he could do it but came up short.
I thought yafai brought his form from the last few fights into the fight. He hasn't done anything different in the fight as to what he normally does. Chocolatito was just better than anyone he had been in with. The question before the fight was could he get to the next level. Unfortunately he couldn't. Yafai is a tough fight for anyone in the division. The top 3 or 4 are just a level above. I thought yafai landed some good shots in the fight but not enough of them to really make the fight close.
I'm not too sure if he is at true world class level. he's pretty average and he doesn't have the brok them up power like his fellow Yemeni Naz to get him out of jail.
Very well said sir..... However in relation to SRR, 13 of his losses came in the last 5 years of a 25 year career. However I understand your point sir.
To be fair, Yafai looked a class act on his way up. But for whatever reason, boredom, lack of a challenge or just peaked early, he has just seemed to plateau and not take it on to the next level the way that some fighters do. To the extent that he struggled with fighters he was expected to beat and got found out at very top level. Not that there is any shame in that, he's still had a damn good career.
Completely agree, he looked good when he won his world title because he boxed beautiful and used all his skills made it look easy. His last few fights he's looked levels below when compared when he was coming up. He is big for the weight, do you think it's also a case he's out grown the weight? The same happened with a number of British fighters, Groves springs to mind, think Callum Smith will be the next victim also of not going up in weight.
