JoJo stops GRJ in a 15 round championship bout

I agree. Diaz gave away the 1st minute of every round, came on late, and would’ve stopped Russell in 14. Either way, I doubt GRJ will ever grant him a rematch. Makes me miss the old days.

I will gain more respect for Adonis Stevenson if he gives Bad-draw Jack a rematch.

 

I get what your saying but its a 12 round fight not 15.

 

I missed the fight. anyone can give me a quick rundown on the fight? who won?

 

Remember when Mike Tyson said blocking too many punches looks bad? The judges dont like it? A clean punch is better of course, but if somebody is punching your shoulders, forearms, glancing blows, blows through the guard it can add up in judges mind.

I agree with you that technically a blocked shot or a punch on the shoulder or forearm is not a landed punch.

But being that this is pro boxing and not amateur boxing we dont score fights based on a punches landed tally.

 

I feel like if Diaz really went for it he could have won, he was too tentative considering that every time he pushed the action he had great success, so he had no reason to be cage-y.

Someone said the corner was misleading him into thinking that he was winning, I think maybe that's what happened.

 

Well I agree that cleaner shots are better. They hurt more and it looks better when you hit the torso or the face.

But as for me of I see a guy just drilling somebody in the shoulder and hes grimacing in pain or showing discomfort then that matters to me. I mean **** it, it's a fight. You're supposed to hurt the guy. As long as you dont use illegal tactics like grabbing, rabbit punching, low blows, headdbutts, ear bites, etc. Giving pain is good in pro boxing. That's what your supposed to do. And you let a guy hit you hundreds of times on the shoulder it will ****ing hurt. The next morning your arm will want to fall off.

 

In this particular fight I agree that GRJ hit the gloves more than anything.

That said pro boxing is a 10 point must system. Clean punching is, but 1 of the scoring categories supposedly used. They dont count punches in pro boxing. What they do is utilize a 10 point must system. And many judges will prioritize pain and aggression or at least that's what they're supposed to do.

 

I actually scored it a draw. 117-111 had me scratching my head. I like workrate too, but Jo Jo was doing the hurting.

 

It was a good fight and Russel won on everybody's card except for one person in this thread. JoJo looked like he was gonna break Russel down early, then backed off.

 

It was a good fight, but it hard to watch because you knew JoJo was gonna get hosed on the scorecards with the hometown and pro-Showtime fighter biased commentary.

This is what happens when an HBO fighter decides to fight on Showtime on a Showtime Champion's home turf.

That said, GRJ fought a very smart fight and let his hands go, Diaz did give away too many rounds for my liking, but man he brutalized GRJ to the body, it was impressive. GRJ has to be sore in the body today, but I mean during the fight GRJ didn't seem to be too slowed down by the body attack. However in the last few rounds Diaz was really getting to him.

The commentary (with the exception of Bernstein) was awful. I mean having to listen to Paulie and Ranallo over the course of 12 rounds is a real punishment. I had to mute the sound at several points of the bout. Ranallo has got to the most annoying commentator I've ever heard in any sport and it's not even close. Ranallo made several mistakes throughout the telecast (like introducing the color of the trunks to the wrong guy at the beginning, and describing a left hand from Russell as a Right hand, then saying "Or a left hand") but that's not even what makes him so annoying, he talks about the most random stuff during the telecast like he's trying to be funny but it just sounded stupid. He went through this whole schpiel in the middle of the fight trying to apply a catchphrase about how both fighters were "furious" and he just kept using different approaches to using the term furious and it was painful to listen to.

I mean I really don't know what I'm going to do about having to listen to this guy call fights. Like I really have a difficult time watching fights on Showtime because this guy is just incredibly annoying that like I need to get 5.1 surround sound and turn off the commentaty feed and just hear the crowd noise with this guy.

I mean, it was so obvious during the fight that due to GRJ's activity he was going to win the decision. Dancing man Pailie insultingly said that this was gonna be a learning experience for Diaz during the 12th round as if he knew GRJ was winning the decision before the fight was even over. (way to keep the suspense building Dancing Man before the fight was even over) It was also a learning experience for GRJ with the way he was brutalized to the body.

I mean as a fan of Jo Jo it was hard to watch, for him to lose his 0 like that was ridiculous. Now in fairness to GRJ, JoJo didn't really help himself, so I'm not going to call it a robbery. GRJ did let his hands go and did stop Diaz in his tracks occasionally, but Diaz was blocking so consistently and landing the telling blows, just a brutal body attack that Diaz really had no business losing this fight. I mean, when you watched Diaz coming up, lack of activity was his only real worry area. GRJ just took advantage of that by throwing flashy combinations some getting through but most blocked. Those Sho Stats were pretty telling. Amazing to see the punches landed be so close but the decision appearing to be a foregone conclusion. I mean Jo Jo's punch accuracy was 39% compared to 20% for GRJ ! (with nearly the same amount of landed punches, and a singificantly higher number of body punches) So at least the Sho Stat punch clickers noticed all the blocking, but still.

Then we had the referee which was all over Diaz all night, which was just completely absurd, even Bernstein said how he didn't agree with all the warnings. I don't think Diaz landed a low blow all night but he was getting warned for everything under the sun like there's no tomorrow. There was one round where Diaz was scolded by the ref for not stopping punching after the bell but yet he wasn't even punching lmao he was just dipping left and right with his gloves up. I mean the ref was just so biased against Diaz it was just unbelievable. I mean I lost count of all the time Diaz was warned. The ref was a complete joke. Then there was the 2 knockdowns in the 11th and 12th. Now, the first one in the 11th was pretty borderline. Diaz did land a nice body shot that put GRJ down, but before that (with GRJ leaning in) Diaz threw a hook that sort of looked like a rabbit punch and a push down. It was pretty borderline, and given all the warnings, to no surprise the ref ruled it a slip / push down to save GRJ. But yeah the body shot clearly put GRJ down while GRJ was off balance, and GRJ was the one who decided to lean in and he appeared to be doing the holding. So yeah, ciould have been a knockdown, but ruiled of a slip, no surprise there given how the ref was all over Diaz from the beginning.

Then you have the 12th round knockdown, to which we didn't get a single replay of, and we had an angle with GRJ's back facing us so we couldn't tell if it was truly a push down, but it didn't look like a push. It looked like a punch landed, and GRJ went down. (but in fairness we didn't get a clear angle)

Diaz was very close to having 1 or 2 knockdowns there which may have affected the cards. (but probably wouldn't have been enough anyway since Diaz seemed to clearly win the 12th even without the knockdown) I'm not gonna sit here and call it a robbery because GRJ did put forth a hell of a performance and landed some nice combinations and did catch Diaz from coming in. Diaz did give away too many rounds, especially like the first half of the first round (but that was part of his gameplan so I didn't really have much of a problem with the slow start in Round 1, because he responded well in the 2nd, but it was more of the lack of activity in spurts of rounds 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc)

I mean, the rounds that Diaz won (the clearest were 2,5,12) he won convincingly. GRJ really didn't win too many rounds that clearly, most of the other 9 were pretty close. Out of those other 9 rounds, it was a case of quantity vs quality, and in several of those rounds Diaz landed some brutal body shots that weren't enough in the judges minds to overcome GRJ's volume and combos. It's because most judges favor fighters who throw a lot of punches vs fighters who take their time and land the better harder punches.

Jo Jo put up a good fight, but GRJ turned out to be all wrong for him stylistically. I mean GRJ just gave JoJo the kind of movement he's never been in there with before. Like his corner said, GRJ just moved away, side to side and opened up with flashy combos. They were mostly blocked, but some were getting in. Then you had the ref giving Diaz all kinds of warnings, fight being on Showtime, in GRJ's backyard, JoJo 0 just had to go.

Good fight, terrible commentary, terrible referee, hard to watch, Jo Jo landed some brutal body shots. GRJ fought a hell of a fight, can't take it away from him. JoJo let him get off too often. I doubt Jo Jo would even ask for a rematch. I'd expect him to return to HBO in September and try to get back to winning ways and chase one of the other belts like IBF or WBO, but we will see.

 

I thought it was ****ing comical any time GRJ let his hands go with those combinations that did nothing except display his hand speed. I didn’t actually think they’d win him the fight lmao