Shrinking ring in Shakur vs Zepeda fight... WTF?

How is that even implemented? Dudes run in between rounds and move the corners?

This is hilarious, but for a title fight? Yikes. Doesn’t seem like the place to try an experiment.

I do get the point — how do you make a Shakur fight exciting? Dude is immensely talented, but can be boring (credit where due, the fight with Padley was great).

 

when he made the post about no more running, I figured he would handle that through matchmaking. Real easy to accomplish by only featuring / promoting fighters who generate exciting fights. In fairness, he did set up a further unification fight for Bam in November, and if you want an exciting little guy who needs no gimmicks, he’s your man.

but still.

 

Revolting to see. When have you ever seen a promoter show such blatant bias toward a fighter prior to a match when they are promoting both fighters? Reeks of unprofessionalism. I have never heard of something like this, can't believe Turki is trying to change the rules of boxing just to benefit a fighter he wants to see win. I hope this is some kind of joke because if this is true then it would be corrupt and equivalent to match-fixing imo. Promoters shouldn't be directly changing how fighters ply their trade in the ring. That is how they fight, that is how they earn their wage, and that is how they win fights and if Turki starts messing with ring sizes, glove sizes, and other aspects of a fight purely to disadvantage one of the fighters then that is frankly disgusting.

 

Zepeda worth a punt at 5/1

 

Al Turkey gonna make them fight all covered up like Saudi Muslim women.

 

Zepeda almost lost to farmer if Shakur can't dominate him he deserves to lose. Always stinking up the joint. Andy Cruz would school the **** out of Zepeda.

 

I can't tell if he is joking or not, which is scary.

 

Putting distasteful jokes aside in the chopping off realm, should the ring posts have 12 inches of pro-center movement on tiny rails running under the canvas with no affect on the canvas and simple rope tightening mechanisms to make sure ropes remain tight, it's easily achievable.

Rings posts could move as little as an inch inwards between rounds which would be so tiny that sitting in the corner you still wouldn't notice, neither 2-3 inches. Over 11 breaks each side tightening 11-33 inches would make the ring noticeably smaller by the end.

But kinda unnecessarily complicated. Just make rings small and uniform, problem solved.

 

No, some of the greatest matches throughout history occurred in bigger or normal sized rings. Smaller rings lower important aspects of boxing technique like footwork and the ability to use the ring effectively and set traps for your opponent.

Matches in smaller rings, while it forces more action and more punching, also reduces the strategy involved and turns it into something that more closely resembles rock em sock em robots than the sweet science.

Now, to be fair, I understand the desire to have a smaller ring, as a response to "Tom and Jerry" fights like Canelo Scull. But the trouble with this is that every fight is different. For Canelo Crawford for example, I do not want to see a smaller ring. Just because Scull fought in a negative way, doesn't mean Bud will.

Bud should have the opportunity to use the full breadth of the ring to create stylistic challenges for Canelo. Even if that means lower output, even if that means less action, that doesn't mean it will be boring. We shouldn't use Canelo Scull as the excuse to impose smaller rings.

While it is fair for Turki to be critical of how Scull fought, he should understand that this was an extreme example of stalling from Scull and far from the norm. And even as low output as Canelo Scull was, for me at least, it was still somewhat entertaining. To see Scull use such evasion techniques and to see Canelo struggle to land. While I would certainly criticize Scull for doing too much "running" and "stalling", he could have turned that negative style into a winning strategy had he just done a tad more in several rounds. So there's a very fine line here between running, stalling and fighting smart that Turki may be glossing over.

So I don't know where Turki is going with this, and I definitely would not want to see smaller rings become the norm. But Turki is the boss and he's gonna do what he's gonna do. But what I would say is if his allegiance is to Crawford, then he would be making his task much more difficult by imposing a smaller ring on him. A small ring would definitely benefit Canelo and I don't want to see that because I want to see the fairest fight possible. Even if that means low output, I want to see the fighters themselves show that they can deliver a great fight in a normal sized ring. Otherwise boxing is doomed to become rock em sock em robots in my view.

 

Fair enough: just make mid-size rings standard rather than home fighter getting a size to their advantage. Or small-to-midsize. Plenty of footwork necessary even up close and mid range.

 

He going to loose the lions' leashes each round so the fighters can't move back. Bread and circus.

 

He's probably joking and teasing Stevenson.

 

How big were the rings in the fights that have caused Turki to become dissatisfied with there not being enough action? His latest criticism is of Catterall and Eubank which he has taken a step further, to describe it not as a Tom and Jerry fight but of a Jerry and Jerry fight.

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I can't help but find this humorous in The Saudi man using a classic American cartoon reference to describe modern day boxing matches that don't have enough action.

The idea of a Jerry and Jerry fight now and being even worse than a Tom and Jerry fight is rather amusing, but wouldn't these rings qualify as mid range, certianly not exceeedingly large. Was Canelo Scull any bigger than some of his other fights?

And lets not forget, Billy Joe Saunders demanded a 22 foot ring, a bigger than standard size and that produced one of the most brutal KOs in recent memory. So the idea that a small ring is some kind of cure all for boxing is incredibly ignorant and short sighted.

Now the idea of a "shrinking" ring is a wild concept in practice and this would create all kinds of practical and ethical problems to it. This would give a promoter the ability to "Play God" so to speak, of being able to move the walls in on fighters that are not performing in a way that pleases him, that whole idea is deeply troubling.

And I also find there to be a great deal of hypocrisy in Turki pushing these concepts, in that Turki has said countless times that he's in it for the fighters, that he cares about the fighters health and well being. And lets not forget that when 15 rounds were rumored to return a few months back, Turki took a very principled stance against 15 rounders returning citing that the health of the fighters is important and the sense he described is that 15 rounds are barbaric and should never return.

To go from being strongly opposed to 15 rounds returning to calling for smaller rings or even shrinking rings as a means to force action and more punch taking, these divergent views are opposed to one another. If you're against 15 rounds, because that's too barbaric, then how can you want to impose smaller or shrinking rings to force more action and punishment?

If you care about the fighters as he said he did, then the last thing you'd be doing is threatening movers and sweet scientists with a small ring. On the other hand, I do get that the Saudis are putting up tons of money in putting on boxing events and would have a problem with fights not having enough action. I understand the desire of the warrior spirit but this is a delicate matter and this motivation really needs to come from the fighters themself.

What I would ask Turki is why he would be opposed to 15 round fights returning as opposed to normal sized or bigger rings? What is better for the athlete and more crowd pleasing, a 15 round fight in a normal sized ring or a 12 round fight in a smaller ring?

And the other problem with this logic is that, in a so-called Jerry and Jerry fight, would the ring size even matter? Anotherwords if BOTH fighters refuse to engage or fight, then the ring size might not matter. Now in a Tom and Jerry fight, the ring size can definitely matter. But not in a Jerry and Jerry fight as much. So I can understand Turki's frustration that certain fights haven't delivered, Canelo vs Scull in particular. And I take more of a nuanced position on that fight, and I may do a topic about that to get further into what happened there, because in light of all this smaller ring talk, I think we need to really take a deep dive into this.