Opinions on this fight? An important fight for both, Smith was getting old at this point and realized that this was his last chance to be a major player in the division again and get a rematch with Tyson. It's interesting to note that Smith believed he would beat him in a rematch, based on the 12th round in their actual fight in which he finally opened up with a cracking shot that stunned Tyson. Smith also needed to prove to himself and others that the Bonecrusher that fought Tyson isn't the real Bonecrusher. Ruddock, on the other hand was the hottest prospect in the division. His only loss was the asthma related stoppage against Jaco, and Smith was the most daunting task he had yet faced. Ruddock was in solid shape by his standards in this one. An impressive win for Ruddock would show that he was legit. This is an under rated fight imo, and Smith came close to scoring a KO early on. This content is protected [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6PTVsCo3g8&feature=related[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRWOHzXWleg&feature=related[/ame]
Also watched Ruddock-Jaco. And this was a FIGHT. I was always under the impression Ruddock was dominating and then just stopped fighting, but not really the case, it was a slugfest but most of this could probably be attributed to Ruddock's asthma during the fight as well as the fact he was still very green. In fact Razor only weighed 203 pounds against Jaco!
Smith was there for the pay day and kind of exposed Ruddock with the knockdown. But to be fair Donavon got up, and got the job done; it was presumed Smith would retire post fight and it was a bit of joke that he was still going...
Interesting point is that Smith promoted that fight, and if I'm not mistaken it was the first fight he ever promoted. He spent a lot of time doing publicity, physically selling tickets, booking the undercard, etc., which is a fairly big distraction if you've ever been close to a small-time promotion where the promoter doesn't have a staff to get things done. Probably didn't have a huge impact on the outcome, but Bonecrusher did have more than the usual distractions, FWIW.
Yeah, Bonecrusher tired pretty bad. Maybe the fact that he knew he wasn't in good shape was the reason he went so hard in the first few rounds, to try to get him out of there.
