the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Alexis Arguello v Bobby Chacon

Some decent moments but not a great fight considering the fighters.

Arguello started slow and Chacon built up a bit of a lead before he was pegged back and then Chacon got cut at the end of the 6th. Bobby surprising in the way he went down in the 7th. He got back up of course but the cut put paid to any contest.

1 9-10 (close)
2 10-9 (some good exchanges)
3 9-10
4 9-10
5 9-10
6 10-9
7 10-8
(66-66)

 

Alexis Arguello v Royal Kobayashi

A fine performance from Arguello, who looked like he was enjoying being a world champion and brought an air of confidence to everything he did.

Kobayashi looked overmatched from the start. The worse thing you can do against Arguello is be out and out aggressive without much movement or defense and Alexis was precision personified, picking his spots and targeting Kobayashi's weak points. The second KD that finished the fight was a beauty, a vicious left hook to the body that practically cut the challenger in half. Awesome stuff.

1 10-9 (aggressive start by Kobayashi but Arguello got the better of it)
2 10-9 (clinical boxing skills on display from Arguello)
3 10-9
4 10-9 (closer)
(40-36)
5 Arguello KO Kobayashi

 

Jel, here is my scorecard from a year or so ago and what I wrote. We saw it exactly the same:

Round 1: 10-9 Chacon
Round 2: 10-9 Arguello
Round 3: 10-9 Chacon
Round 4: 10-9 Chacon
Round 5: 10-9 Chacon
Round 6: 10-9 Arguello
Round 7: 10-8 Arguello (scores a knockdown)
TKO - fight stopped between rounds due to a badly cut eye sustained by Chacon

Total through 7 completed rounds: 66-66 Even

Although Chacon was never the force he was as a featherweight, he really gave it an admirable go of it here. Fighting an in and out type of fight he was really catching Arguello with those looping shots. Don't know how long he could have continued that way - that maneuver really tends to gas a fighter, but he gave it a good go anyway.

 

I looked at the history on this thread and I may have missed it, but there doesn't look like there is a breakdown on this fight other than a few scores thrown out there. For whatever reason, here is Hasim Rahman v David Tua II

Round 1: 10-9 Rahman
Round 2: 10-9 Rahman
Round 3: 10-9 Rahman
Round 4: 10-9 Rahman
Round 5: 10-10 Even
Round 6: 10-9 Tua
Round 7: 10-9 Tua
Round 8: 10-9 Tua
Round 9: 10-9 Rahman
Round 10: 10-9 Rahman
Round 11: 10-9 Tua
Round 12: 10-9 Tua (KD scored by Rahman was after the bell and not counted)

Total: 115-114 Rahman (actual scores: 116-112 Tua, 116-112 Rahman and 114-114 Draw for a Draw decision)

I had Rahman barely scraping home. Tua simply didn't do enough to stem the tide of Rahman's jab, and while he was sleeping, Rahman took off with the first 4 rounds. The utmost drama was the waning seconds of the 12th when the bell rang ending the 12th and they continued on resulting in Rahman dropping Tua, which was not counted since it was after the bell. Very close fight.

 

FOTY 1949

Sandy Saddler vs Willie Pep

It's actually mental how many of the FOTY fights no longer exist.

• Saddler was a 7-5 betting favorite.
• A crowd of 19,097 paid $87,563 for the first Madison Square Garden sellout since 1946.
• There were no knockdowns.
• The Associated Press, which scored the fight 9-6 for Pep, reported: "Pep boxed brilliantly all the way against his heavier punching opponent, bouncing in and out with his dazzling array of jabs, hooks and right crosses."
• The United Press reported: "The sell-out crowd that jammed the Garden witnessed one of the finest and bloodiest featherweight battles on record. Both men were smeared with blood and bleeding from face and eye cuts at the final bell."
• The fight was named Fight of the Year by The Ring.

• "Pep Outpoints Sandy Saddler" Associated Press, February 12, 1949
• "Willie Pep Regains Title From Saddler" United Press, February 12, 1949

 

FOTY 1950

Jake LaMotta vs Laurent Dauthuille

Only the last round, but the first 14 are apparently Laurent just boxing the socks off LaMotta.

This round is crazy, LaMotta sags, looks weak at the knees, is panting, resting on the ropes and screaming out to be finished.

He deserves an Oscar because as Laurent goes in for the kill Jake springs into action, finally catches his man and never let's him off the hook with a picture perfect finish.

Crazy stuff. Just crazy.

 

Due to an ongoing thread on the Ernie Terrell v George Chuvalo fight I thought I would check it out. Here we go on Canada's 5 point must system.

Round 1: 5-4 Chuvalo
Round 2: 5-4 Terrell
Round 3: 5-4 Terrell
Round 4: 5-4 Terrell
Round 5: 5-4 Terrell
Round 6: 5-4 Chuvalo
Round 7: 5-4 Terrell
Round 8: 5-5 Even
Round 9: 5-4 Terrell
Round 10: 5-4 Terrell
Round 11: 5-4 Terrell
Round 12: 5-4 Terrell
Round 13: 5-4 Chuvalo
Round 14: 5-4 Chuvalo
Round 15: 5-4 Chuvalo

Total: 70-66 Terrell (actual scores: 69-64, 73-65 and 72-65 all for Terrell)

Terrell's repeater jabs looked good on the grainy film until you look closer and see that many of them are coming up short or just touching Chuvalo's nose. I also noticed this in the first Chris Eubank v Michael Watson fight. People were raving about the Watson jab but like Terrell, that failure to get in there and commit to it was noticeable. I also thought if Ernie would have thrown combos, which he did only sparingly over 15 rounds, there would have been no doubt on the decision. On my card there wasn't anyway, but he could have gone a long way in making his style a bit more palatable. As for George, unfortunately he doesn't throw punches in combos, he throws them in one's. He only did well when he was able to rough up Ernie. Would have loved to seen this bout in hi-def, but it is what it is.

 

FOTY 1951

Ezzard Charles vs Jersey Joe Walcott

This is the first full fight I've been able to watch in 10 years of this series.

And what a beauty it is.

I gave the first two rounds very closely to Ezzard I felt he was ever so slightly busier.

Walcott from the third onwards fought an absolute master class. He slipped, shuffled, bobbed and weaved his way out of everything Charles was throwing.

His punch out put was low but he was landing, consistently.

What this meant was Charles had to uo his aggression to stem the flow of the fight and actually by becoming more aggressive he just made Walcotts job a whole lot easier.

Walcott completely shut down and negated Charles in this fight.

I do still think this was peak Charles, his prime probably ended in the 4th fight when he didn't get the decision, that seems to be when his results begin to go a bit iffy.

But that knockout.

Charles drives Jersey into the corner, Jersey slides his way out and ducks into a lead counter left hook that detonated right on the chin of Charles.

It's beautiful.

 

Only because I had never seen it before (no loss) I really wanted to check out the Freddie Norwood v Juan Manuel Marquez 12 rounder. I checked the history on our thread on this fight and found 4 scorecards on this fight. Lufcrazy scoring it for Marquez, another for Norwood and two more posters calling it a draw. Luf, I am quoting your post from like 9 years ago because your score mostly reflects the way I saw it too. I think we had only a couple of rounds of a difference. Anyways, a dull fight to watch and a horrible fight to score, but I thought it was clear who won. Here we go.

Round 1: 10-10 Even
Round 2: 10-8 Norwood (scores a knockdown)
Round 3: 10-9 Marquez
Round 4: 10-9 Marquez
Round 5: 10-9 Norwood
Round 6: 10-9 Marquez
Round 7: 10-9 Marquez
Round 8: 10-9 Marquez (should have been 10-8 but the ref missed the knockdown)
Round 9: 10-8 Marquez (scores a knockdown)
Round 10: 10-9 Marquez
Round 11: 10-9 Norwood
Round 12: 10-9 Marquez

Total: 116-111 Marquez (actual scores were 115-111, 114-112 and 117-112 all for Norwood)

Stunned at the scores. Harold Lederman had it 115-111 for Marquez also. I felt Norwood did so little in this fight and the orthodox/southpaw styles did little to enhance any action, which was underwhelming to begin with. But Marquez was the aggressor throughout and I felt he was robbed. Amazingly, even if Cortez had scored the 8th round a knockdown for Marquez with the extra point, it still wouldn't have mattered in the eyes of those judges.

 

That's a blast from the past!

Norwood was so negative this fight, I didn't even want to give him the rounds he won, I hate that cagey style of fighting.

 

Carlos Monzon v Rodrigo Valdez 1

A fight of two halves, I had it 5-4 Monzon after 9 rounds but it could easily have been 5-4 the other way. After a confident start by Monzon, Valdez started to get through with some significant shots and seemed to land the heavier blows. Rounds 7-9 were all very close but any sense that Valdez might be taking the fight gradually dissipated from round 10 on as Monzon shut down Valdez's offensive raids with some oily defensive work.

Monzon doesn't seem to do much, but he stops his opponent from doing anything just brilliantly. His slippery work against the ropes (aided by loose ropes? They seemed particularly slack) meant any attacks Valdez tried ended up coming to nothing. The 14th round knockdown Monzon scored just punctuated his latter rounds dominance.

1 10-9
2 10-9
3 9-10
4 10-9
5 9-10
6 10-9 (close)
7 9-10 (close, tricky to score)
8 10-9 (close again)
9 9-10
10 10-9
11 10-9
12 10-9
13 10-9
14 10-8
15 10-9

Monzon 146-138 Valdez

Monzon wins 11-4 in rounds.

 

Carlos Monzon v Rodrigo Valdez 2

Tough fight to score and tough to watch at times too. The standout moments were the 2nd round knockdown for Valdez and the 10th where Monzon really worked Valdez over expertly. The three even rounds I scored tells the story of the fight - it was close.

1 10-9
2 8-10 (Flash knockdown but could conceivably be a 10-9. Valdez did well enough to take a share of the round without the KD)
3 10-9
4 9-10 (good, aggressive body work edges the round to Valdez)
5 10-10
6 10-9
7 10-9
8 9-10
9 10-10 (tricky to score)
10 10-9 (superb round from Monzon as he wrestles control from Valdez again at a key point in the fight)
11 10-9 (close)
12 9-10 (close, scrappy round that Valdez just about took)
13 9-10 (another scrappy round but Valdez landed the cleaner shots)
14 10-9 (close)
15 10-10 (very scrappy)

Monzon 144-143 Valdez

Monzon wins 7-5 in rounds with 3 even