Over the years I have been mildly interested to fanatical about boxing, and never ever have I seen the like of the past 6 months or so, I have never seen so many promising? boxers quit on the stool basically not hurt, boxers trying to bend the rules to win. A couple in particular, one where the boxer got hit was going down, got tapped on the back of the head, immediately raise his arms to the ref, as if asking the lord for assistance, ref says nothing, he flops on the ground like hes out could, after the count reaches 10 he leaps to his feet and starts complaining, I mean WTF. I'm not mentioning names on purpose....the second guy gets cut over the eye, ya can hear him in the corner after the round , saying, tell em I cant see, said in such a way that ya knew he could , just trying to get outta the fight. Peters V Klit , Jesus, Klit would have been in more danger hitting a heavy bag, and had more trouble hitting it, seriously I would withhold Sam's purse, I saw him make zero attempt to fight. And mismatches, I mean not the slight mismatch where the guys outclassed and gets beat, but for instance up and coming heavyweight, Bronze in Olympics had a few fights, knocked em out, 6' 6'' ish 250 great shape, obviously a rough diamond but a few skills , opponent probably a foot shorter 50lb lighter, in worse shape than me , and I'm getting towards 50yoa and in terrible shape, fight starts , and I swear every time the big guy swings at him the little guy jumps like a really slow billy goat and closes his eyes, I mean hell, I think he lasted 2 mins....I know padding a record and all has been going on forever, just don't remember it this bad. Now is it just me getting jaded and warped in my old age, or have there been a crap load of terrible fights recently.
I hear you. I do. But: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Di2j1z9xw This is the last part of the best filmed trilogy in boxing history and it happened last year. The game can still delilver. And let's not forget guys like Sharkey, trying to claim the title on a foul a hudnred years ago. Boxing has always had it's questionable fighters.
Welcome, by the way, we'd be up for hearing some of your memories in Classic, which you need to check out.
In evrey year of boxing you have dissapointments. Think of the legendary Roberto Duran saying no mas in a fight he was hardly getting battered inHe showed heart plenty of other times (as had Nate Campbell) but this time he coulden't take the mental pressure. Or Mike Tyson quitting and retiring against a club fighter. But yeah I agree with you on the heavyweights, the big guys only have themself to blame for it. I can understand some cases like Solis moving from Cuba to the US, but these are supposed to be athletes.
It's been rough. But 2008 was so ridiculously good, this was bound to happen. As for the quitting, I'd love to hear your thoughts, because a whole bunch of us have been wondering whether quitting is becoming more common, and both sides have their points.
As I think back over the years I really don't think more boxer's are quitting on the stool, just more that have everything to gain, and nothing to lose are doing so. Peters V Klit , Peters had everything to gain, huge acclaim, big money, everything, he put forth almost zero effort and quit. Ortiz V Maidana , now don't get me wrong Ortiz at least tried, but he quit when I did not see much either way in the scoring on that fight, Ortiz had everything to gain by fighting on, a hell of a lot to lose and he quit. I could list a dozen or more others over this past 12 months or so. As I sat down to Friday night fights and watched a list of hopeless cases get knocked out in quick order by the prospects, I was surprised to see Teddy Atlas (who I have respect for in the fight game) gave his pre-fight analysis, For the prospect, hit the opponent, for the other guy, run quickly its your only chance to last till the end or words to the effect, and the fight really was that bad. In maybe 10 years have not seen him say anything like that before.
Teddy knew that card would be awful and was pulling no punches. I was surprised a little to see him being that completely negative, but it turned out he was right to be.
