The ESPN Friday Night Fights Thread.

I like Holt, always have done. The Torres fights were great.

You're right Flea, he's not a thinking fighter. Also he gets quite lazy in the ring. He'd make a decent pressure fighter IMO, imagine him pumping a fighter to the body and head with those hooks over 12? A fair few decent fighters would wilt. He doesn't seem game to fight in that way though, just waits for opportunites. Against the Coleman's it will work, but he needs to be more active in the ring to best the top figthers, which is what has let Kenny Holt down thus far in his career. Outworked by Bradley, outworked by Garcia, outworked by Mabuza. It's the same old story. He should look for a rematch with the Kaizer IMO, he could stop him this time.

 

Holt was good last night but once you nullify his left, it's easy going from there. I'm not so convinced his power is all that. The way Danny Garcia handled him was shocking. His left hook body and head combo was taken by Garcia with no effect, yet he has finished many of his lower opposition with that, and also, floored Bradley heavily with it, but he got up immediately from it, which all came as a shock to us. I think the Kaizer fight just shows more evidence of it. Mabuza is a step up from the journeyman and for as fundamentally flawed as he is, he still got the W.

Against top opposition, he's just an easy picking, in my op. Against these types of opponents, he'll beat 'em.

 

@SportsLeader; Agreed, but he's just not consistently durable enough to maintain that kinda' style, and as you say, he can be lazy and switch off.

His ditching of the jab against Bradley (although it can be argued that Timmy took it from him) was a big mistake. He totally fell out of the fight as soon as he did, after the best start possible. Problem against Garcia was that he wasn't getting off enough throughout and was totally perplexed by basic tactics and a bit of youth.

As I say, he lacks the full set of tools to be consistent.

Holt Vs Bailey has 'why the **** hasn't this been made for like, TODAY (?)' written all over it ;-)

 

ESPN UK are ****ing me off with this delayed showing.

 

When Holt was banging away at Coleman I suddenly though of Holt/Bailey. What a shootout that would be! Bailey's a bit long in the tooth now, for me and even his devastating power is dwindling ever so slightly. I think Holt would grind him down in about 4 or 5.

 

Don't complain achilles, without it we'd not be getting TUF :yep

 

With two vulnerable mid-tier bangers like this all form goes out the window :yep

Bailey gets up more when he's hurt. Holt finds it harder to pull himself together (without a clash of heads anyway :hey) so I'll go with the veteran, Bailey in 2 in an edge-of-the seat punch fest. Holt probably hurts Bailey early with a counter left, then Bailey weathers the storm and pastes him with a right hand.

 

Yeah, Holt gets disheartened pretty easily. You can literally see his facial expression changing when things don't go his way in a fight. His mentality might just gift it to Bailey.

Bailey was poor last time out, but before that he looked like was about to take Said Ouali's head off, and that guy generally knows how to survive (lying on the ropes for twelve rounds of Aydin's bombs). I'd still go for Holt to clock Bailey myself, think he's the more measured puncher at the mo with his hooks and he went looking for openings against Coleman as opposed to swinging so I think he'd go it against Bailey. Still, it is one of them that is about 50/50 either way and no outcome would really surprise you.

 

Judt realised I haven't watched any of Bailey's fights since he wasted Bonsu in a round.

Fill me in on the details please :good

 

He looked his dangerous old self against Ouali, had him down twice in the first 2 and it looked like an early bath for the Belgian before he decided to lean back under some minimal force and fall out of the ring. I reckon he did it because he was on the verge of getting knocked the absolute **** out by Bailey, which is why there wasn't a rematch. Bailey looked sharp and powerful. As I said before, Aydin put on a good survival show against the hopelessly bad but neverthless thudding Selcuk Aydin, so for an old Bailey to **** him so badly commends his power.

The Estrella fight I only read an rbr on, but apparently Randall was rusty and couldn't find the shot he was looking for. Clipping and catching glove throughout whilst outworking an opponent who was only really looking to survive. I think you can excuse Bailey for being a bit ring rusty and taking his opponent lightly.

I think, yeah you can probably read into the Ouali fight more than the Estrella one, I don't think Bailey really gave his best effort.

 

Ah, timing clash but at least put it on straight after or in the morning. Some sort of decent time where I won't find out the results. Holt vs Coleman is the sort of fight I'd want to watch not knowing what happens.

 

He was beating the crap out of Said Ouali before Ouali fell out of the ring and couldn't continue, so a NC. Then he fought a journeyman which I haven't seen but went the distance.

 

You don't really believe that he intentionally dived out of the ring, do you?

 

Nah, but I don't believe he was injured. I reckon he feigned serious injury because he was getting a hiding.