McCallum Vs Watson

He was the betting underdog but that could have been the British betting money swaying the odds

 

Just rewatched this one. Extremely good performance from McCallum. Maybe his best? I thought he looked brilliant here. Although, TBF - to both Watson and McCallum - it was against an opponent who he should shine against. Watson being (supposedly) weight-drained, and McCallum having a definite style advantage on top of being the better fighter. A slightly taller man, who's a better counter-puncher (in the early rounds, at least), with what I can assume is a longer reach who could draw a lead and has a damn good jab, is awful for Watson. Combine the above with Watson's inactivity and weight issues then McCallum's body shots couldn't be doing him any good. I tend to buy those weight issues as Watson was a big middleweight, and after a long stretch off and he did not look sharp at all early on. Very lackadaisical and flat.

While it sounds like that's an excuse (and to some extent, it is), it's not to say I think McCallum would have lost if Watson wasn't drained. I don't. McCallum was brilliant, as I say. Regardless of the problems Watson may have had, he showed his damn good chin (which I'm now just absolutely convinced is complete granite), a big heart and some good skills of his own, if hampered. McCallum was just too good. It was a very relaxed and measured performance. He eased into his preferred range, threw sharply to the body in the early rounds, out-jabbed Watson and countered Watson's own jab with nasty straight rights. He targeted that body with disturbing regularity. In the late rounds he attacked Watson ferociously and got an accumulation based stoppage.

Like I said, brilliant performance. From both men, just one was better than the other.

 

A masterclass from McCallum and there's no excuses, he does the same to any version of Watson.

 

I haven't watched the fight since the day it happened. You make me want to see it again.

 

Nah, if Watson had made weight properly, then he'd have definitely gone the distance. Probably won a few more rounds too.

 

Sometimes the way people talk about Michael Watson reminds me of the post about what a legend Duran was for getting knocked out in two rounds by Hearns.

If this was a great performance by him, then how would you describe Collins' outing against McCallum? Two fights in which inexperienced fighters stepped up in class and in the middle of the fight realized they had to make some adjustments. One guy was able to turn it into a 50-50 battle over the back half. The other guy continued to lose exchanges and looked ragged at the end of each round. He even got led around the ring a bit by McCallum, whose feet often get called into question.

Maybe Watson was weight-drained and rusty, but McCallum was 33 years old and only two months off a hard fight physically (if not close on the scorecards) with Collins. No one wonders whether these things affected him because it didn't matter. If there was an extenuating circumstance for Watson's performance it was that this was his first time really fighting at world level.

 

Watson was a champion in the making and it took a great fighter to prevent him from realising that.

mike mccallum was a superb fighter. I was rooting for Watson at the time but watching that fight now, McCallum just had too much for watson yet he had to stay cool and use all of his experience to break his opponent and win that fight.

mccallum had to fight like hell without coming forward. He had to beat a good fighter here. His ability to avoid a punch and return one in the same motion played dividends. Those long arms of his allowing Mike to dig to the body at the same time he swayed away from watsons leads. Parried. Countered. Just let Watson set the pace and work off that...but it wasn’t easy. Took all his experience to do it.

Watson still tried to grind it out though...the guy just was not beat. he really went out on his shield. No quit in him. Pressing and pressing until he was too broken to keep going. Uphill all the way. Always going forward without having his man on the ropes. A good fighter himself... but up against a master.

 

I hear you, man.