the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Had some dental surgery today, right side of my mouth is swollen up … and maybe that’s subliminally why I chose this one, haha — had forgotten about that part. But on with it:

Lloyd Honeyghan (c) vs. Marlon Starling, scheduled for 12 rounds for the WBC welterweight championship on Feb. 4, 1989, at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.

Lloyd is 33-1 (22) and weighs 146 1/2 for the second defense of his second reign, having recaptured the WBC belt from Jorge Vaca after losing a technical split decision when their first fight was stopped on a cut from an accidental butt.

Marlon is 23-4-1 (25) and weighs 146 for this chance to become a two-time champ at welter, having lost the WBA belt in controversial fashion when he was KO’d by Tomas Molinares with a punch clearly after the bell (the WBA announced it was going with Molinares as champ despite that fight being ruled a no decision.

Lloyd is most probably the best offensive 147-pound fighter in the world at this time (Simon Brown being the only other one for whom a case could be made, I think) and Starling is without a doubt the best defensive fighter in the division, which makes this an interesting contrast.

1 — Starling 10-9: And we see whether defense trumps offense in this case right off the bat. Honeyghan comes out like a house ablaze, rushing out of his corner and unloading … only to find Starling’s gloves with his high, tight guard. Marlon counters with a right hand/left hook combo and rocks him. Floyd keeps punching at a high pace but cannot penetrate Marlon’s guard. Moochie lands right hands and left hooks to take the opening round easily.

2 — Starling 10-9: Ragamuffin Man sees he can’t get through to Marlon’s head so he concentrates on the body … and hits arms and elbows. Moochie lands right leads and counters cleanly and effectively.

3 — Starling 10-9: Honeyghan loads up with big shots and maybe rocks Starling a little bit with a right high on the head, but mostly he just keeps hitting Marlon’s guard. Starling lands right leads repeatedly — many don’t have a lot of power but he potshots effectively.

4 — Starling 10-9: Lloyd punches non-stop but just cannot breach Marlon’s defensive mastery. Starling finds home with uppercuts from both hands. Ragamuffin is starting to look a bit ragged and tired.

5 — Starling 10-9: Honeyghan switches tactics, electing to stick and move, and Moochie jumps on him with a series of big shots and knocks out Lloyd’s mouthpiece. Lloyd is trying everything — even spends about a minute southpaw — and has a bit of a rally in the middle of the round, doing no damage but getting through a bit. Starling closes strong. This is the closest round of the fight and I still can’t see a way to give it to Lloyd, whose right eye is starting to close.

6 — Starling 10-9: Lloyd sticks and moves again but his jab has nothing on it. Starling walks him down and continues to find a home for his right. Once more, he separates Honeyghan from his mouthpiece.

7 — Starling 10-9: Marlon is in total command. Lloyd stays on his bicycle but doesn’t throw many punches. Each loses his mouthpiece, but I don’t think Starling was actually hit when his came out. Honeyghan’s right eye is almost completely shut.

8 — Starling 10-9: This was close to a 10-8 but Marlon coasted for the middle third or so of the round. He ragdolls the Ragamuffin man along the ropes. Now the entire right side of Lloyd’s face is swollen. Doctor checks for broken jaw (I suspect it was broken, especially given his problems keeping his mouthpiece in, and decides to let it continue … give credit to Honeyghan for toughness as he makes it clear he wants to continue.

9 — Despite being game to continue, Lloyd offers little resistance as he’s beaten up and has nothing left. Marlon clubs him around and finally puts him down, not from anything really clean or hard but just from a one-sided battering. It continues after the count as Moochie really turns it up. Referee Mills Lane stops it at the 1:19 mark, TKO win for Starling.

My card: Starling by shutout, 80-72. Official cards favor Marlon 79-72 and 78-73 x2. I have no idea how anyone would be able to give Honeyghan two rounds even if you give him the fifth.

Undercard sees Mark Breland win the vacant WBA welterweight title via KO 1 over Seung-Soon Lee and Rafael Pineda and John Mugabi in separate bouts.

Lloyd tested positive after the fight for the painkiller lidocaine, which makes me wonder if he didn’t have a broken jaw if he might have had his own dental adventure (hope his was less painful than mine if so, lol) or some sort of injury coming into the fight. If so, I don’t remember hearing anything about it at the time or since.

I hesitate to say this isn’t the same Honeyghan we had been seeing because I’m not sure if his early-round assault might have gotten him over against most fighters, but Starling just wasn’t giving him any openings to the head or even to the body.

Always enjoyed watching Moochie back in the day — I love a good defensive fighter — and this is in its own way as much of a masterclass and Lloyd’s title-winning effort over Don Curry. Lloyd landed just over 100 of nearly 700 punches thrown per punchstat or whatever it’s called.

My other observation is that until Honeyghan switched to a stick-and-move approach (as urged by cornerman Mickey Duff), this fight was fought in the pocket or in a phone booth. Marlon looked way stronger and kind of bullied Loyd a good bit. Also very few clinches.

This content is protected

 

I think this was the fight that Starling said something prefight to Honeyghan like "your going to be my friend as the fight goes on" since Honeyghan couldn't get much going on Marlon and he would go from a tiger to being friendly like "man I can't do anything against you"

Also wasn't Honeyghan feasting on smaller fighters prior to this which may have given him a little too much false confidence in his power or his ability to just steamroll everyone? Could be wrong

 

As to your first point, I don’t know exactly what kinds of things Marlon was saying in the buildup to the fight but he got under Honeyghan’s skin. It was definitely a contentious lead-in — Honeyghan was asked about it after the fight and then asked if he now respected Starling and he said something about Moochie running his mouth too much and acting like a child, conceding that he now respected him as a fighter but not as a man.

He also said he let his wish to teach Marlon a lesson make him too aggressively reckless in the bout, but Lloyd was always kind of a kamikaze fighter (at least that was my impression) so I don’t put a lot of stock into that.

As far as Raggamuffin Man feasting on lighter opposition, looking at his record pre-Starling it’s a mixed bag in that regard — I can see how that would have been the narrative, but I think it’s a bit overblown.

Yes, two of his title defenses were against Gene Hatcher and Johnny Bumphus and they were indeed smaller guys probably more comfortable at 140 than 147, or at least had made their reputation in that division. And one of his better pre-title wins was over Harold Brazier who also fits that mold.

But he had plenty of quality wins over full-blown welters. I can’t speak to his domestic opponents on his way to the title, but among his victories over name-brand opposition pre-title were Horace Shufford (definitely a welter), Roger Stafford (who was mostly weighing in the lower 150s at this point) and Gianfranco Rosi (who was a welter during this time period but on his way to being a junior middle champ).

As for some of his other title opponents, Donald Curry was certainly a full 147 and was probably weight-drained and moved up to 154 after. Jorge Vaca was a solid welter at this stage but soon moved up to junior middle to claim a world title. Maurice Blocker was also a welter for sure.

So I think that reputation was built more on a few selective samples from his career but doesn’t withstand close scrutiny.

 

I hope you are ok!

 

This content is protected

.............

 

Thank you. Even with painkillers, 4-5 hours ago I’d have considered taking a pair of pliers and yanking the bad tooth if I thought it would have relieved my agony — all I could think to do was take a nap and it has improved greatly with me just waking up.

 

This is how I had it when viewing it awhile back:

Lloyd Honeyghan v Marlon Starling (Welterweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Starling
Round 2: 10-9 Honeyghan
Round 3: 10-9 Honeyghan
Round 4: 10-9 Starling
Round 5: 10-9 Starling
Round 6: 10-9 Starling
Round 7: 10-9 Starling
Round 8: 10-9 Starling
Round 9: Starling drops and stops Honeyghan

Total through 8 completed rounds: 78-74 Starling (actual scores: 78-75, 78-73 and 79-72 all for Starling)

It's been awhile since watching this one (actually since it aired live) and I always said this was one of the best counter-punching performances I had seen. But seeing it again, Starling was also brilliant in attack as well. Mickey Duff summed it up correctly between the 4th and 5th rounds when he implored Lloyd that, "He's making you do all the work!" That was exactly correct. Starling kept that peek-a-boo guard up and let Lloyd pound away at his arms while countering until he finally went on the attack himself. I gave Lloyd rounds 2 and 3 out of work-rate and there were a couple of rounds I mulled over giving Starling the round by 2 points. However, in both cases Lloyd fought back well enough to keep it a 10-9. Perhaps a more liberal judge would see it differently, but this is my take on the fight. A fight that really demonstrates one fighter being slowly taken apart piece by piece. BTW the knockdown in the 9th was nothing special. I don't think it was a case of Lloyd going down from a particular punch as it was more like getting in out of the rain.

 

This content is protected

Slade seems to have been a good prospect. I liked that he tried for the knockout.

But Im not trying to give too much info away.

Very good fight between an all time great and a solid, good prospect.

Side note: Slade was one of the few people to beat up Vincent Gigante and dont get killed for it!

 

Thanks for your take. When I was watching those second and third rounds (upon which we disagreed), I thought of a sign an old football coach I knew had hanging on the wall. It said: “Don’t confuse activity with accomplishment.”

To my eye, Lloyd was throwing a lot of punches and almost never getting through — very active but not accomplishing much. But that’s not me arguing with your score, just that we saw it a bit differently. And a couple of judges gave Ragamuffin two rounds so I’m probably more the outlier here than you. (And we definitely agree that Starling was giving Lloyd a progressive pasting — even if he was winning the battle in those two rounds he was surely losing the war.)

Agree on the knockdown. Honeyghan probably felt like he was surrounded by that point, with Starling landing from various angles and Lloyd having nothing left with which to resist. I thought it was a fair stoppage … when a guy goes down like that and gets up and it’s right back to what was happening before the knockdown — plus Lloyd’s face being so badly lumped up with a closed or very nearly closed eye — then it’s time to wave it off.

I don’t think Honeyghan would have ever voluntarily quit (on his stool or in a round) but there was no point anymore.

 

Adrien Broner v Marcos Maidana (welterweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Maidana
Round 2: 10-9 Maidana (scores a knockdown)
Round 3: 10-9 Maidana
Round 4: 10-9 Maidana
Round 5: 10-10 Even
Round 6: 10-9 Broner
Round 7: 10-9 Maidana
Round 8: 9-8 Maidana (Maidana scores a knockdown and is penalized a point for an intentional head butt)
Round 9: 10-9 Maidana
Round 10: 10-9 Maidana
Round 11: 10-10 Even
Round 12: 10-10 Even

Total: 118-110 Maidana (actual scores: 117-109, 116-109 and 115-110 all for Maidana)

This fight will always go down in my personal archives as "The most satisfying fight I've ever seen". Man, when I saw this live I was leaping out of my chair. Broner has to be the smarmiest, cockiest fighter of all time and his comeuppance in this fight was sublime. Despite my dislike for him i really kept my head and scored impartially. I am a rather conservative scorer and will say a more liberal judge might have given Maidana the 1st and 9th rounds as a 10-8, but I stayed within the lines. Anyways, I haven't watched it since seeing it live and I enjoyed it all over again.

 

Broner was THAT GUY.

You sometimes hear the ‘either be the hero and have people pay to see you win or be the villain and make them pay to see someone kick your ass’ — whether consciously or not, Broner epitomized the latter approach.

I absolutely hated him. Knew a guy high up at Showtime and he conceded that they hated working with him (although he was good box office for reasons described above). NOBODY liked him … probably not even his mom, lol.

Every so often, boxing delivers a result that makes everyone happy because of seeing the loser lose badly. This was one of those times.

 

Larry Holmes (c) vs Earnie Shavers, scheduled for 15 rounds for the WBC heavyweight championship at Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas on Sept. 28, 1979.

Holmes is 31-0 and weighs 210 for the fourth defense of his title that he won off Ken Norton in June ‘78 — that’s four defenses (won first three by KO) in like15 months, which would stagger today’s top fighters. He is making $2.5M for this bout, which is televised in primetime by ABC on a Friday night.

Shavers is 59-7-1 and weighs 211. He’s won five in a row since losing to Holmes in an eliminator, all by KO, including a first-round decapitation of Ken Norton six months prior that put him in line for the rematch with Larry for the title. He’s being paid $300K.

1 — Shavers 10-9: Surprised by this as I didn’t remember it this way, but Earnie had a good first round. Larry hasn’t quite found the range for his jab yet (wait for it). Not much happening but Larry is staying right in front of the Acorn and Earnie lands a couple of straight body shots and a stiff jab that snaps Holmes’ head back to edge it for me. (Interested to see if anyone, especially @scartissue, agrees with me on this round or if I’m out of my mind — I think it comes down to whether you think Larry is landing those jabs and in this round I just don’t think he is.)

2 — Holmes 10-9: Larry wastes no time, landing six or eight stiff jabs in the first 30 seconds to get his best weapon established. He sidesteps Earnie artfully when Shavers steps in, turning him and resetting the distance. Earnie grazes him with one right and Larry counters with a nice three-punch combo.

3 — Holmes 10-9: The Easton Assassin is on his toes a bit but not on his bicycle. Works his jab with rhythm as Shavers gets friskier, launching some right-hand bombs that miss. Larry reveals a weapon that we’ll see time and again, rolling Earnie’s looping right and countering with the uppercut.

4 — Holmes 10-9: Larry’s jab is picking Shavers apart, and he opens up with a few ripping rights including a couple clean uppercuts. Holmes rocks the challenger with a right late in the round and Earnie’s left eye is cut by round’s end.

5 — Holmes 10-9: Larry is pot-shotting Earnie in this round and begins to put some mustard on his punches as he looks like he wants to get the KO. Shavers whistles one right in early that doesn’t land flush, and late in the round comes off the rope in a break situation (not called by referee Davey Pearl) that catches Larry a little relaxed with a left and a right.

6 — Holmes 10-9: The champ is on his toes now and spearing Earnie with that jab and gets through with one sizzling right. Shavers lands four or five thumping rights to the body. By round’s end, Earnie right eye is cut.

7 — Shavers 10-8: Shavers is coming hard, lands some more good body shots and a couple of good winging rights. He’s closing the distance. And with 40 seconds to go he lands the big bomb and Larry goes crashing down. How he beats the count is anyone’s guess. Earnie is wild in his follow-up, swinging for the fences, but lands a couple and by round’s end Larry is engaging him.

8 — Holmes 10-9: Larry dances and taps with the jab to get his legs under him and clear his head. By the last minute he’s in complete command with some heavy rights and is going after Shavers pretty hard. Earnie looks spent.

9 — Holmes 10-8: Larry batters and pot-shots Shavers, who seems to have nothing left. He tees off but then Shavers throws an overhand right that glances off Larry’s shoulder and he goes down … but Pearl (who is frankly awful in this fight) calls it a slip. It was a balance thing, I think, but there was a punch involved. Still, have to score it as the ref calls it and Shavers does nothing. By round’s end he has cuts on the inside and outside of his left eye and over his right eye.

10 — Holmes 10-9: More battering of a helpless Shavers, but Earnie does try to rally a bit … but there’s nothing on his punches and he’s just pushing his arms out, exhausted. Larry steps in to end it and rocks Earnie with 30 seconds to go and Pearl steps in … but not to stop it. He apparently thought he heard a bell. SHFH.

11 — Holmes wins by TKO when Pearl stops it at the 2-minute mark. Larry lands two rights and Pearl steps in to ask Earnie if he’s OK (WTF?) and let’s it go, then Larry pours on an uppercut, a right and a left hook and Pearl actually stops it.

I had it 97-91 at the time of the stoppage. Official cards 98-91, 98-90 and 98-89.

The thing you don’t get watching a puncher like Shavers on tape (especially when you know the outcome) that you do get when you’re watching it in real time is the suspense of knowing he can turn it or end it with every punch. Watching live some of those big misses (and he had many as he went for broke several times) makes you go ‘whew’ and you just kind of shrug them off when rewatching.

Big picture, Muhammad Ali is still technically WBA champ at this point in time. He will retire that belt the following month, right before John Tate beats Gerrie Coetzee in South Africa to claim the vacant title.

ABC (and Don King) loaded up this card for I’m pretty sure a full 3 hours of prime time. Wilfredo Gomez stopped Carlos Mendoza in 10 rounds to retain the WBC 122-pound championship in a really good scrap (only some of which seems to exists on film — the highlights they showed on TV). Ray Leonard made a statement with a one-round KO of Andy “Hawk” Price in his final tune-up before challenging Wilfred Benitez for 147-pound WBC honors. Michael Dokes improved to 15-0 with a one-sided decision over an increasingly uninterested Jimmy Young (wow, he had the whole world in his hands after beating Foreman). And Roberto Duran looked a bit unmotivated himself in beating Zeferino Gonzalez over 10.

This content is protected

 

This content is protected

Third place for FOTY in 1985, after Hagler-Hearns and Murphy-Mutti!

 

Meldreick Taylor vs Aaron Davis

Not a great fight and Taylor seemed fairly declined from his Chavez form but still good enough to overwhelm Davis who didn't really impress me

 

Josesito Lopez v Marcos Maidana (regional welterweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Lopez
Round 2: 10-9 Maidana
Round 3: 10-10 Even
Round 4: 10-9 Lopez
Round 5: 10-9 Maidana
Round 6: Maidana drops and stops Lopez

Total through 5 completed rounds: 48-48 Even (actual scores: 48-47 Maidana and two scores of 48-47 for Lopez)

A total barn-burner here between Lopez and Maidana, who both took turns knocking each other about. I have seen no action on this contest in this thread and I would totally recommend. A fun fight while it lasted.