Spada fought well against Rubio

sergio is a ridiculously low -200 against cotto but you cant bet on a 39-year-old guy who tore ligaments in the same knee in back-to-back fights

 

He most certainly did not.

 

If I'm not mistaken, holding is a foul. Rubio held, then Spada hit behind the head out of frustration. Why no warnings for holding?

This is one of the problems with boxing nowadays. It wasn't anywhere near Klitschko-Povetkin, but it wasn't good to see the bigger Rubio constantly holding the smaller Spada.

 

Huh? Spada looked terrible! What exactly is it that you think he did well? You don't win rounds by rushing forward and getting caught up in a clinch with your only solution to hit the back of the head. Rubio did a good job of preventing Spada from fighting his fight by working on the outside and clinching on the inside to keep Spada from executing anything legal. That may not be pretty, but it worked. The only meaningful punches landed in the fight were by Rubio. It was sloppy. Spada didn't have a plan B. This fight wasn't even close.

 

A couple of other things worth noting here. It's hard to say who was initiating the clinches in the first place. Spada frequently rushed forward like a bull bringing his frame into contact with Rubio's. Now if I'm in that same position against a short and strong fighter, I'm doing the same thing and that's avoiding a potentially dirty exchange (which is all it ever turned into anyways.) If that's Spada's gameplan, a smart fighter does what he has to to prevent it from being successful and that in turn can win you rounds. Who is fighting their fight and preventing the opponent from fighting his? And clinching is not necessarily illegal until the referee deems it so. Rabbit punching is blatantly illegal. Clinching is a strategy and doesn't directly win you rounds, but it can certainly increase your ring general value if done right. But again, it may only be a matter of opinion as to who was initiating these clinches. Doesn't really matter though unless the referee says so and you could probably blame both guys hence the reason it wasn't an issue.

Second, you say you're giving rounds to Spada on aggression but you need to tone that definition up. Yes, Spada pressed forward often, but so what? He wasn't effective and as the rounds went on, it became more and more evident who had the brains here. A linebacker can get into a boxing ring and push his opponent from one side to the other, but it doesn't mean squat if he can't mount an offensive on top of it. Aggression don't mean dick if it's not effective.

Lastly... Jesus... I can count on one hand the number of clean punches Spada landed. A lot of those body punches landed on the elbows.

 

I completely disagree. Rubio frustrated Spada and Spada had no recourse other than to rush inside, make it a dirty fight and try to get Rubio to do something stupid, which he did not. All this occurred before the 8th round open scoring as well when Spada may have found out he was putting himself further out of the fight. Rubio still landed by far the cleaner, more effective punches. Yes, even on the backfoot.

Aggression without effectiveness is not a scoring criteria. It's only one of many trivial reasons to find a winner when you can't bring yourself to find something of value. If that's your reason for thinking Spada was getting an unfair shake, I don't know what to say. But by no means is "aggression" part of scoring criteria. In fact I would go one further and say "ineffective" aggression, as you know very well that is exactly what you are claiming happened, can work against said fighter because it then bodes the question of whose defense and ring generalship (both scoring factors) were causing this aggressive fighter to be so ineffective.

I will admit Rubio is not pretty to watch, but he bangs like a mother and quite clearly gives these B and C level fighters fits.

 

Geez. Ok. So if few punches landed, by either man according to you, but I will play this game a little longer, and you are admitting specifically that Spada didn't land much and according to you was winning by essentially being stronger (thought it was Spada who was laid out in the end) and moving forward... and just busier (I guess?) why then are you saying "Spada fought well against Rubio"? Why not just say both guys looked like ****?

Are you Italian?

 

I am? What fight might that be? Because I have no idea what you're on about.

Are you Italian? Just a yes or no.

I'm just not sure why you're insistent that Spada looked good unless you're Italian. He didn't look good. Neither did Rubio really but to be honest I've never been overly impressed with him either. He was however winning this fight rather handily and handled himself well under rough tactics. You might, and I stress might, have been able to give Spada the 4th and the 7th, but if so only by the thinnest margin.

 

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

As for the scorecards being the reason he got caught, I don't see it. At no point in the fight did Spada ever change his gameplan other than to avoid getting disqualified for the hundred rabbit punches he threw. And if he was more aggressive after the 8th, it wasn't drastic. He got caught by a hard puncher. That's it. Happens to the best of them.