A pretty controversial fight in which I think more people scored it for Quartey than for De La Hoya. Anyways, it's going to be on HBO2 in 20 minutes so if you've never seen it and want to know how you would've scored it, tune in.
the one thing i remember about this fight is the trouble quartey had oscar in late in the fight - clearly - and he never capitalised on it. i know that's not always easy to do in a fight if you're hurt too but part of the conditioning and mental game of fighting instills in you to push when you need to push. oscar's never had a great defence and has never been a great tactician, but quartey had a change to be somebody that night and (for my mind) he didn't 'bite down hard' at the chance for glory when it came to him. i don't care about the scorecards to be honest - this is what i remember about this fight.
It "felt" like Quartey won the fight. Oddly enough this fight seemed pretty easy to score. The only round that was questionable to me was round 2. If you give the 2nd round to Oscar, its 114-113 Oscar, if you give it to Quartey, it 114-113 Quartey. I scored the second round for Oscar but I don't feel like he won the fight. Neither man won by the margins that the Judges had.
I just remember that during the first five rounds, there wasn't a lot of action and the little action there was Quartey was initiating it. I believe I had DLH winning maybe one round in rounds 1-5. Quartey won the sixth and pretty much won the rest of the rounds by the slimmest of margns. The only round DLH won clearly was the 12th.
A case could be made that Quartey won every round from round 5 through 11, plus he probably won at least one of the first 4 rounds. Round 6 with the double knockdown probably could've been scored even, but I thought Quartey deserved it because he dominated the final minute of the round. Round 10 was close, but I thought every other round from 5 through 11 was a clear Quartey round. It was a bit tactical fight with neither fighter landing a lot of clean punches, but Quartey was more aggressive and appeared to control most of what action there was. DeLaHoya spent a lot of time just watching Quartey and letting him outwork him. It was a close fight no matter what, but every time I've watched the fight I've always scored it either a draw or a 1 or 2 point win for Quartey. I don't think I've ever scored it for DeLaHoya. Because it was close, I probably wouldn't call it a flagrant robbery, but it was questionable IMO. The margins of scoring the two judges had for Hoya were definitely bullsh*t IMO.
I thought Ike dominated the fight. Oscar finished strong but I still think it was no where near enough to pull off the victory. Oscar had his moment in the beginning of round 6 but Ike came right back, knocked him down, and then dominated the rest of the round. Through out the fight, whenever not much was happining, Ike would be jabbing while Oscar would do nothing. I thought it was a clear victory for Quartay.
It's on "HBO on Demand" and I watched it last night. My card matched Lederman's except that I gave the first round to Ike and the second to Oscar. Ike wins by a point in a great fight. He was almost out in the 12th against the ropes with Oscar attacking, but he survived and wins on my card.
Weird. I have almost the opposite view. I had Ike winning the first, but DLH winning rounds 2, 3, and 4 - all close rounds with Ike throwing lots of jabs, but most hitting Oscar's gloves. Oscar had a couple flurries and good connects, but as you said, not much action either way. On the other hand I thought Ike CLEARLY won rounds 5 and most later rounds with a better jab and more ring generalship. This is why people say it was a "robbery" - because though the fight was close, Ike owned the best moments of the fight save for the 12th round.
