Heavyweight FOTW #10: Terrible Tim Trio (Snipes/Mercer/Williams)

I scored the Witherspoon - Snipes fight a DRAW, 96-96 or 4-4-2 in rounds. I gave TW 2,3,4,5, I gave RS 6,7,9,10, and scored 1,8, EVEN. TW won the first half of the fight, then he got tired and RS won the second half. Neither dominated their half. TW didn't have the conditioning to fight 10 rounds. RS didn't fight much for the first 5 rounds then he was busier then TW the rest of the way. TW seemed to have an advantage in punching skills and footwork/balance but he lost those advantages by not being in condition.

 

I scored the Tim Witherspoon - Mike Williams fight. I scored for TW 96-94 or 6-4-0 in rounds. I scored 1,2,7,8,9,10, for TW, I scored 3,4,5,6, for MW. The fight was filmed mostly from the waist up but a few times they did show the feet and MW would often move his left foot when punching while leaving his right foot behind leaving him off balance and in a "split." TW on a few occasions slipped MW's hook to the outside and came back with a nice right hand that caught MW. MW was a physically talented boxer who lacked experience and some fundamentals. TW was a more experienced fighter who had good fundamentals but lacked the speed and mobility of MW. It was a close fight, but IMO TW did enough to win. The judge that scored for MW had him winning big at 98-92, the two that scored for TW showed a closer fight at 96-94 and 97-94.

I like these 10 round fights for the HW FOTW!

 

I scored Witherspoon - Mercer for TW by 96-95 or 5-4-1 in rounds. I suspect that this fight looked different at ringside because George Foreman felt that RM won, and all of the judges had RM winning. I had TW winning 1,2,5.6,9, and RM winning 3,4,7,8, with round 10 EVEN. The judges at ringside scored 97-93, 97-93, and 97-91 for RM, that along with Foreman thinking RM won makes me think that RM's punches must have looked more effective at ringside than TW's punches. TW on video seemed to be slightly busier most of the time and seemed to be going forward more, but fights can look (and sound) different when viewed close up as opposed to on video. 97-91 does seem like a wide margin for this fight.

 

I remember the Mercer decision being too wide.

When you said Williams, I thought it would be the Carl Williams fight, which was also close.

 

Witherspoon vs Snipes
I cannot ever remember a ref telling a guy to fight...fight Renaldo come on throw some punches lol.

I also got a draw, but got there a different way, due to lack of action and an ugly mesh of styles I think each guy won 3 rounds pretty clearly, but those other 4 rounds are fairly hard to determine. I can see 6-3-1/5-3-2 for either guy or anything in between, with no argument from me.

1-4 Snipes does not want to engage and is busy dancing and circling, and even though he has a reach advantage he either does not or can not get the distance and range down...he even draws a shout from the ref in round 3 fight Renaldo. Combine this with a young methodical Witherspoon moving forward to force the fight but unable to figure out how to cut the ring off. I feel at this stage the fight was there for Spoon to take but he didn’t wouldn’t or couldn’t.

Rounds 5-8 a slight shift in the action. Spoon landing better but not active enough, noticibly slowing down both in moving forward and throwing. Snipes begins to land his jab with more regularity, but it is a light flicking jab with little on it. Snipes is landing more but still not throwing much of substance. Spoon holds his left real low opening himself up a lot more than he was earlier in the fight. Spoon lands the better bigger punches but not nearly enough of them.

9-10 spoon is clearly not conditioned for a 10 rounder which is sad at this stage of his career as both his experience and youth should be able to see him fight this distance. Snipes seems better conditioned but for a guy who just a year prior was fighting for the belt, does not seem to know what it takes to get back there.

If I did not know the background to this fight I would not believe that they were fighting for the right to challenge Holmes-Cooney after this.

RBR
1 Witherspoon (could be even)
2 Snipes (could be spoon/even)
3 Witherspoon
4 Witherspoon
5 Witherspoon (Snipes comes on in the second half and spoon fades)
6 Snipes (Spoon lands bigger but not enough-could go either way)
7 Snipes (working the jab, spoon looks tired)
8 Witherspoon (could be even, spoon landed the harder shots and nipped mine)
9 Snipes
10 Snipes
Draw 95-95

I thought Snipes won 7-9-10
And Witherspoon won 3-4-5

1-2-6-8 were tough to score
1-2 because of the lack of engagement
6-8 because spoon lands better but snipes lands more

Not a great fight and neither guy looked as hungry as you might hope between two young top 10 contenders looking for a big fight.

Neither guy deserved to win and I like our Draw better than a decision for either of them.

 

I'm glad it was for 10 rounds because I didn't want to watch more. That's how it is, sometimes we get a Weaver - Thomas fight to score, sometimes we get a Page - Tubbs...This one was close to Page - Tubbs. Agree, it is RARE to hear a ref tell one fighter to fight or throw punches. I don't know if this was a styles issue that made for such a bad fight, but it looked like TW lacked confidence in his conditioning and RS lacked the ability to exploit TW's lack of conditioning.

 

Witherspoon vs Mike Williams
Now this was a fun little fight. Not great but a cool watch nonetheless. We had the same score and only had 2 different 2 & 4 we awarded differently.

Was the commentary bad or at least the guy scoring? He had 1 & 8 as 10-8 rounds.

RBR
1 Spoon
2 Williams
3 Williams
4 Spoon
5 Williams
6 Williams
7 Spoon
8 Spoon
9 Spoon
10 Spoon
96-94 Witherspoon

I think I would pick this 24 year old 13-0-0 Williams to beat the 25 year old 14-0-0 Spoon from the Snipes fight.

 

I think the guy doing the scoring was Dave Bontempo, I don't know anything about him. Maybe he was trying to start something new in boxing by giving 2 point rounds for decisive rounds? I didn't understand his scoring either.

MW was a physically talented athlete, he just seemed to be lacking some fundamentals that would have maybe changed this fight to a win? It was hard to tell a lot about either of the fighters because they filmed from the waist up mostly, I like fights that are filmed like they did in the 60s, from one side of the ring where you can see the whole ring all the time. Then you can see if the fighters feet are pivoting/moving with his punches and if the fighter is keeping his balance.

 

I think you might be right about Bontempo. There was a guy saying that the whole ten point system should be used and he was very liberal in his use of 10-8 rounds. Very well might have been Dave Bontempo.

 

Mercer vs Witherspoon
This is a fun fight to watch! If you enjoy 2 big guys hammering away with little movement, defense etc. this fight is for you.

We had the same score but opposite winners and 5 rounds different. I think it is a tough fight to score in many rounds.

How in the world did that judge get 97/91? He had to have 2 10-8 rounds which is super nuts...nothing even close to that for me.

RBR
1 Spoon
2 Spoon
3 Spoon
4 Mercer
5 Spoon
6 Mercer
7 Mercer
8 EVEN
9 Mercer
10 Mercer
Mercer 96-95

We had 3-6-8-9-10 different
You had it 2-2-1 in those 5 rounds
I had it 3-1-1 Mercer in those

Good job bro! I enjoy scoring these fights with you weekly. I learn a lot from your takes!

 

I like scoring them too and seeing how much we are alike/different in how we score. I've learned from your scores too and it's always interesting when you total up the scores at the end and we can see the consensus on each round. I think I can score most fights better than I could before we started scoring them weekly. As I've said before, it doesn't insult me at all when somebody disagrees with how I score a particular fight. I know I have a few biases, one is for aggressive fighters, if a fighter holds, stalls, lays on the ropes, he isn't going to win on my card, the other is that I'll probably score more for a technically sound fighter than I will an arm puncher or somebody with poor footwork.

Maybe we should score one fight next week like greynotsoold mentioned that one guy was advocating, using the whole 10 points or at least more of it and see how it affects the scores. We could score on the 10 point system and also use the other system and give 2 points if someone wins a round big. Bontempo might have a good idea by scoring obvious rounds 2 points, and closer ones 1 point. I guess then we could make a judgement call on whether to give 3 points or more for a knockdown? It would be interesting to see if using that system would change the result of a fight?

 

I have no problem with a new system or fine tuning the 10 pt must system. As most if not all systems are subjective and have inherent flaws. Should a guy who wins 4 rounds widely but loses 8 narrowly win the fight? I am not sure in my own mind lol. But I am open to trying new things....worst that can happen is I won’t like it. That British system for Bugner vs Frazier was horrific 5 pts for winning a round 4 3/4 for losing, and no KD bonus. + I am a math nerd and needed paper just to figure out out scores lol.

 

Spoon - Snipes

1 Even
2 Spoon
3 Spoon
4 Spoon
5 Spoon
6 Snipes
7 Snipes
8 Spoon
9 Snipes
10 Snipes

Total: 96-95 Spoon