i was watching the last round today. Have not seen the full fight. But i did notice that his corner told him that he had to take a risk or he would be robbed. How did you have the fight until the time of the stoppage?
I had Chavez winning at least 3 rounds, maybe 4. Taylor was winning, no doubt about it, and had the fight not been stopped he'd still have won by at least a point on any rational person's card. That said, some people make it out to be a shut-out or a masterclass performance from Taylor, which it wasn't to anyone outside of the biased commentators. Taylor was consistently out-landing him, but Chavez was doing the damage.
I don't get this. Chavez would land his shots occasionally but most of the time Taylor was flurrying and winning almost all the rounds aside from the 12th (obviously) and MAYBE some of the early ones. I don't think Chavez would've won a decision.
I never said he'd win a decision. Depends on what you prefer. The one who's flurrying and landing inconsequential blows (many of them glancing) or the one who's taking his time to land hard, accurate, damaging shots amidst those flurries. As I said, Taylor was winning on the cards, but it was no shut-out. Not even close.
My bad, I misunderstood you. You think that Taylor would've won by a point or two had it gone to the cards. I still didn't see Chavez landing that many consistent punches though. Taylor is landing the big flurries throughout the fight. I can't give a round to Chavez if he lands a body shot amidst Taylor's big combinations. And of course it wasn't a shut out. Chavez won the last round and may have won a round here and there in the previous rounds also.
Body shots don't swell both a fighter's eyes up to the point where they're nearly shut and he's barely able to stand on his feet in the last round.
I had Taylor up by 3 points. He was faster, and throwing lots of big flurries, but he was getting nothing done. It wasn't even that skilled a performance, just letting his hands go again and again and again. Chavez did all the damage. Beat the hell out of Mel. Had he been a smidge more active throughout the fight, he might not have even been behind. He deserved to win, he beat the tar out of the other guy. I'd have MUCH rather been Julio going into that 12th, and most people got the sense a late stoppage was possible coming into that final round. And this is from one of Mel's biggest fans. He was even a friend. Just didn't know how to completely handle a fighter like Julio. Threw too much, boxed too little.
^^^ Agreed. Taylor wasn't really outboxing Chavez with clever, educated movement and well-timed and chosen punches. Nor was he showing really good defense. He was winning because he was extremely fast and had a ridiculous workrate. He was outworking Chavez. As for my card, I had Taylor winning rounds 1, 3-8. Chavez rounds 2, 9, 11. Round 10 even. 7-3-1, or 107-103 Taylor.
that is what was amazing about that fight. The HBO guys acted like Taylor was dominating the fight, yet a guy does not have all that swelling and orbital bone fractures and swallowing big amounts of blood if he being completely dominant. I had a friend at the time who went to the fight at the MGM grand, and he said it was odd for him to watch the fight on HBO later since it was almost like watching a different fight with the commentators Lampley, Merchant and Leonard. He said Taylor took a big amount of punishment and it was much closer live.
But that does not take 1 absolutely huge factor into the equation; you still had a rival promoter having his guy go the the scorecards against a DKP house fighter. It subtracts the ability to take it easy or a round off or to coast. That's a big subtraction. It changes everything with an opponent like JCC who is going to be extremely difficult to stop. You cannot coast in the last round thinking your guy has it won. You have to continue to put your foot on the gaspedal. I'm certain if Taylor is fighting a different opponent and a different promoter, that last round is nothing more than run away for 3 minutes and coast. Duva did what he had to do under those circumstances.
That's a very fair point. History looks back on Duva badly here because only Giampa had Chavez up going into the last round, while the other judges had Taylor by 6 or 7 points. At the time though, with no way of knowing the scorecards and knowing all too well Don King's influence, (I mean, this is just a month after one judge had Tyson up going into the 10th round against Douglas and another had it a draw) Duva may well have been afraid to take any chances.