Boxing at the Summer Games of the XXXII Olympiad, Tokyo

This would've been a fun slugfest if you sped it up to like 2.5x

They'd both make Joyce seem like Haye.

 

Teixeira caught fire, apparently, during the results announcement. STOP DROP AND ROLL

 

Blue corner (Teixeira) won, btw.

 

Julio César La Cruz (CUB) vs. Enmanuel Reyes Pla (ESP), 91kg

 

Wtf kinda name is that on this heavyweight Spaniard?

Enmanuel...two n's instead of two m's? And the second half of his last name is just "Pla", that's it, one syllable? I thought maybe they hit their character limit and couldn't fit the rest of it.

 

Cuban looks uncannily identical to his light heavy teammate. Same haircut, same build, same complexion. I thought I had accidentally rewound the stream for a second!

Wait did Castro have some kind of athlete cloning program?

 

A slip?!?! Horrible call. Reyes chopped him down with several hard shots, for a moment I was sure La Cruz had been KTFO. He wasn't badly hurt it turns out, but definitely a knockdown.

 

Why does JCLC do that when he's under attack? Drop his arms to his sides and bend straight back at his waist until he's wobbling off balance and risking hitting the back of his head on the canvas/ropes? It seems to be his go-to response but I can't imagine any coach on the Cuban amateur team ever instructed him to use such a dumb strategy.

 

3rd will decide it, judges pretty much deadlocked.

 

Rooting for Reyes to get the big upset just because Cruz is annoying me with these ridiculous defensive antics.

One judge is clearly in Cuba's pocket though. Round 2 was very clear for the Spanish fighter, but one dissented from the four that gave it to Reyes.

 

Goofy ***** took a SD.

And that concludes today's session.

 

Long wait ahead of you. The lightweight round of 16 kicks off at 11pm EST, that's over 15 hours from now.