the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

True, I always thought that Flash greater than Villa

 

I gotta check out a number of Frank Fletcher fights that are out there. A real nostalgia kick as I recall - I think - in 81 or 82 he was never off the TV. He had a fast burn out rate but man, was he ever in a ton of barn-burners. Anyways, here is Frank 'The Animal' Fletcher v Clint Jackson and you'll rarely see a better 12 rounder. NJ rules on a rounds basis.

Round 1: FF
Round 2: FF
Round 3: Even
Round 4: Jackson
Round 5: FF
Round 6: FF
Round 7: Jackson
Round 8: FF
Round 9: FF
Round 10: Even
Round 11: Jackson
Round 12: FF

Total: 7-3-2 Fletcher (actual scores: 8-3-1, 7-4-1 and 7-5 all for Fletcher)

Just check it out. Man, did they go at it.

 

Davey Moore vs Sugar Ramos

Man why did I do this.

Look good Moores jab is in the first rounds, so silk and smooth, great feet as well.

Ramos is content trading and jabs and trying to bet his own shots in off the back of his.

The fight kinda carries on in this pattern, Moore adapting to stay one step away, Ramos adapting to close that distance.

It's tactical throughout and the fight is quite even.

The 10th round comes from nowhere.

And that interview afterwards, sat there telling the world he's going to knock him out in a rematch. Man.

Chilling stuff.

 

Watched some more Sugar Ramos today.

He's a bit like a Mike Tyson, Dwight Qawi type fighter. Works his way in with the jab, bobbing and weaving to slip what comes his way, powerful hooks and uppercuts once in place.

He really was on top of the world when Saldivar beat him, but then it all went a bit Pete Tong for him

 

Sugar Ramos vs Vicente Saldivar

This is surely one of the best filmed performances between two ATG featherweight fighters.

Sugar tries to get inside but Saldivar is far too quick on the outside, bouncing from foot to foot, double jab straight left, bounce back out again. Basically Saldivar looks like a peak Pacquiao in there, but only this is his very first title fight and its against a prime bona-fide great champion in Sugar Ramos.

Saldivar dances around softens him up with those Filipino style attacks and then when he sees Sugar is hurt, he plants his feet, defends with his head movement and throws a blistering attack of powerful shots up close. I was surprised it didn't get called off after the first knockdown, but then again fights didn't do back then did they. Brutal ending.

But what an amazing performance.

Man these modernists (those who dismiss any past champions as being too outdated) need to watch this fight, and then they need to watch some Sugar Ramos fights so they can see just how great a fighter Saldivar dismantled.

 

Watched Bob Foster - Mike Quarry today. I feel I largely know Bob Foster as the guy who tried to fight at heavyweight a few times and it never really worked. He's obviously a lot more than that, and I'll try to watch some of his fights to figure that out.

Quarry was just a baby, 21 years old. The confidence of both fighters is super interesting to me as we hit the bell to start the first round. Quarry is openly cocky, while Foster's quiet determination shows his own kind of confidence. By the end of the 2nd round that confidence of Quarry is gone, but Foster still looks the same.

Anyways, Foster knocked the kid out in 4. I'm not sure how much better Quarry's career would have been if he waited to he was a little older and had his "man bones" so to speak, but Foster was not to be messed with this day.

Didn't really score it as I knew the result, but 1st was close, but gave it all to Foster.

 

Salvador Sanchez vs Wilfredo Gomez

I love Sanchez in this destruction of a victory against a P4P god in Bazooka.

Sanchez, for my money is a superior version of Sugar Ramos, the way he jabs his way inside and hooks up close.

A very classic, boxer/puncher but he just does it all so well imo.

He was multi dimensional enough to succeed against a variety of opponents, even those who clearly gave him issues such as Nelson and Ford.

Plus he had epic hair.

 

Greg Page W KO 8 Gerrie Coetzee, WBA Heavyweight title, 1984

For whatever reason, Page has always been a bit of a blind spot for me among those wasted Heavyweight talents of the eighties and the one I've watched the least of. This was actually my first time watching this fight, so let's get the ill-tempered and controversial points out of the way.

* Coetzee was slow getting off his stool when the bell rang to start round two, and his team equally slow in getting his gumshield in. Page, well within his rights, tried to take advantage and bolted across the ring to start unloading on Coetzee before he'd even got into a fighting stance. Coetzee didn't like it. After plenty of talking and taunting between them, a couple of rounds later Page knocked Coetzee's gumshield out his mouth and kicked it out of the ring before the referee had a chance to pick it up.

* Having hurt Coetzee towards the end of round six, Page kept punching (knowing full well what he was doing, in my opinion) for a clear couple of seconds after the bell, and Coetzee actually went down in a delayed reaction from these late punches. Page got a warning from the ref, but no deductions. Neither Coetzee nor his team tried to milk this, to their credit.

* Most infamously, the eighth round went on way longer than it should (God knows what the timekeeper was doing) and the knockout came around four minutes into it.

As for the fight itself. Coetzee hadn't fought in fifteen months (we all know about his persistent hand injuries), and it showed. He was never the most graceful at the best of times, but his timing was off here. He could never establish the jab, usually falling short with it and looking like he wasn't really committing when letting it go. Loaded up with big single shots and was made to look foolish a few times.

Page didn't throw that much, but was purposeful with the shots he did let go, and pretty accurate. The speed advantage he had was very appreciable, and he was able to stand at mid-range and counter Coetzee's crude, slow swings with neat counters. Generally anticipated and avoided Coetzee's shots nicely - his skills were clear to see - but not quite as cat-like as he'd like to think, and took a few clean shots he shouldn't really have taken. The fight, like a lot of Heavyweight ones, was generally fought at a steady pace, but on the occasions when Page stepped it up Coetzee usually didn't have the answers, albeit he rallied well after being dropped in round 7, which was a superb three minutes of action.

I gave Coetzee rounds 2 and 5, all the rest to Page with a 10-8 for the seventh. 68-64 to Page before the knockout, which was very well executed.

 

Pedroza vs Ford

What a great performance. Pedroza has such good footwork and long arms, he could box the socks off almost anyone. But he also has a mean steak and likes to use the jab to back up his opponent so he can walk them down with huge hooks to the body. His style is one a few tall fighters have tried to emulate over the years, none as good as he imo.

Ford had recently pushed Sanchez all the way but he was no match whatsoever here. Domination.

 

Page - Tillis is an underrated little stoush too.

 

Eusebio Pedroza vs Juan Laporte

1:9-10
2:9-10
3:8-10
4:10-9
5:10-9
6:9-10
7:10-9
8:9-9
9:10-9
10:10-9
11:10-9
12:10-9
13:10-9
14:9-9
15:10-9

143-139

I think this is a very under rated performance of Pedrozas.

The early rounds start with Laporte being very aggressive, finding a home for that right hand, and getting beyond the wider shots of Pedroza.

Pedroza is such a multidimensional fighter though, he can out slick from range, ambush from mid and duke it out in the trenches, to beat him at his best you need to have the fight of your life.

Round 3 goes the same way and Pedroza has a point deducted for hitting after the bell. At this point he's 4 points down, but he's a champion and he knows there's plenty of time.

Round 4 sees the 3 main adjustments and pretty much sets the pattern down the stretch, Pedroza firms up his jab, meaning Laporte has to pay a bigger price to get inside. He also works Laporte to the body a lot more to slow down his offence. He ups his workrate, letting Laporte know he isn't going to win a round easily from this point on.

Plus he fights dirty, real dirty.

Round 6 is the only round from. Then on Laporte took on my card, he landed a huge right hand and was able to get some big big shots in, but Pedroza has grown into his style now, he isn't some skinny twig who gets blown over by any world class fighter.

Down the stretch it gets nasty and Pedroza hits Laporte with everything but the kitchen sink. The deductions aren't enough to win his the fight on my card.

In fact I don't think Laporte wins on any fair card.

The only argument is that he should have been disqualified, but technically his infringements were all separate, hit after the bell, low blows, elbows. So I don't buy that either.

Great performance imo.

 

Pedroza vs Lockridge

1:9-10
2:9-10
3:9-10
4:9-10
5:9-10
6:9-10
7:10-9
8:10-9
9:10-9
10:10-9
11:10-9
12:10-9
13:10-9
14:10-9
15:10-9

144-141

This is such a tactical fight and very difficult to score.

Lockridge starts off really in control, he has a an active jab, excellent head movement and times right hands over the top, plus he seems to either smother or outland Pedroza up close. In fact Pedroza looks completely neutralised.

It seems to take Eusebio until round 7 to figure out what to do, which is incredible patience, but a bit perplexing.

I'm round 7 it's hard to explain, but it seems to me that Pedroza just copies Lockridge game plan, but does a better job at it. He jabs more regularly, tightens up his own defence and out lands his every time they're in the pocket. Lockridge still lands some clean blows but the work rate of Pedroza takes it for me.

My card seems a bit wide, but imo when Pedroza switched it up, he edged every round pretty much.

As an aside I started watching the Pedroza Taylor fight, but after the first round I decided life was too short. Overly negatives performances like that are never going to win rounds on my scorecard.

 

Which was this, the first or second fight?

Also, yes; the draw in the taylor fight was an absurd call. Taylor didn't box, he ran.

 

The first fight. It was really close with Lockridge winning handily the first few rounds, but one Pedroza adjusted his jab, upped his workrate and to tightened his defence, I thought he edged every round from 7 on wards.

Lockridge landed some nice right hands, but Pedroza lands so many shots in the pocket its hard giving the round to Rocky.