Kalule-Kalambay is on YouTube in one piece for anyone that cares :good My account is FLEAboxing :good
No probs, McGrainBoxing, BaltazarBrothers, TheGreatA, Mantemostevai (that's Speke wrong, lora, help!) and many other channels with some seriously quality uploads.
Nice upload!:good Good technical fight. Damn, Kalambay got robbed in his own backyard!:admin How did that happen?! Pretty even start, Kalambay was better in the second half. Knockdowns in rounds 5 and 12 looked kinda dubious to me. Anyway they canceled each other out. Knockdown in the 11-th round looked pretty legit. I'd say about 8-4 in favour of Kalambay. Not the easiest fight for Sumbu. Not the easiest fight to score either - Kalule had the volume and constantly pressed forward, Kalambay scored harder counters. It's understandable why someone could have scored this fight much closer. By the way, what a small rings they have in Italy! I guess, that's why Hagler loves Italy so much.
There's been much worse as Lester said, but it's a genuinely debatable fight.It's not Everett vs Escalera blatant corruption or a Whitaker vs Chavez or Lewis vs Holyfield 1 etc where only a very small minority (usually biased lunatics or trolls) are likely to ever have it very close or even.But debatable enough to potentially have a fairly strong opinion on. More like the Griff vs Rodriguez fights, Pintor vs Zarate, Morales vs Barrera 1 and 2, Pac vs Marquez 2 and 3, Leonard vs Hagler\Hearns 2 etc. among many more in that sense. No doubt if it had happened the other night with both as high profile active fighters there would be debates about it on the general for a good while.
Does anyone think Kalambay had stylistical trouble with southpaws or did he just run into some very good ones? Kalambay's jab was his best punch (and truly great), but fighting a southpaw automatically neutralises the jab to a degree. I think the times where Graham was on top against him was when he hardly used his jab, and Nunn caught him after a slipping a jab (with which Kalambay misjudged the distance).
He fought some damn talented (and awkward ones) Apart from Nunn, he at least acquitted himself well in all the fights I've seen of him with southpaws. Enough that he'd take a few rounds to figure out Sergio Martinez, but by Sergio's mid-rounds lull he'd have him figured out.
I think it was more to do with the talent of the fighters and styles they were using than the stance itself. It was mostly no-nonsense fast-paced straight punching without opening up too much or giving much countering opportunities away, which is the right way to fight a cute stylist that wants to outbox and counter..and who will often let you take the initiative to an extent. Kalule is excellent at that sort of thing and would be competitive with most any boxing purist that isn't just looking(or able to) to walk through or punch holes in you.There's things to criticise about the performance, but i'd say more to do with ring-generalship and not having his style honed yet than southpaw problems per se.He might have been about 29 already and at his physical best, but most of his fights had been pointless LaRocca'esque padding. Graham fought much the same and also had an excellent straight lead.He was fighting more textbook at that time, rather than the hands down risk-taking stuff that gave McCallum more openings for counters.Still slop but more reigned in.In fact him fighting in a more traditional and aggressive way was seriously questioned after the loss, rightly or wrongly i'm not sure. Same with Simms, fought much the same fight as those two only with less talent and was thus beaten more widely. Nunn just had the great hand and foot speed to capitalise on a mistake.If he'd been orthodox he could still have delivered a fight ending right from the same situation.**** happens. In other words i'd say he fought numerous fighters who took the kind of approach that can work very well as a strategy against backfoot cuties, jabbers and counterpunchers and who had the talent to make a go of it to varying extents.There just happened to be fair few southpaws doing it, but i wouldn't expect those fights to play out much differently had they been orthodox. Incidentally, Barkley fought a smart fight too against him.Same as against Duran he tried to use his significant range advantages and set punches up with the jab etc But was beat more widely because he lacked the precision or speed to pull it off.It's amazing how much Barkley had deteriorated by the time he fought Toney.
Really? Who exactly did Eubank or Watson beat that was on the same level as McCallum or even close for that matter. The best win for both of these men was Benn himself who was a one trick pony when they beat him. On topic McCallum late stopage or clear ud.