the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

I broke my own rule about that too, and continued watching because I'm an Arroyo fan and wanted to see this early-career effort, plus I knew about the controversial scoring. Lots of tight rounds.

 

There were some collectors back in the day who would deliberately leave out a round so they had the only ‘pure’ copy of the fight — they might even dub the 13th round a second time if they left out the 14th, so if you were watching you’d see 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 15, lol.

Frustrating practice, especially if they were selling tapes and not giving you your money’s worth. But the seller would always claim it was the guy they got it from, not them, haha.

 

An abysmal practice. They treat it like it's the Holy Grail or something. They need to get a life.

 

Bobby Czyz v Andrew Maynard

D, just watched this. Penciled it in when you posted this. It was indeed a good fight. The styles just gelled so well. I had it 57-57 at the end of 6, but with Maynard fraying at both ends during the 6th. Only a matter of time and Czyz took care of matters in the 7th. One could see the heart had come out of Maynard between the 6th and 7th when he made a real fuss about his right eye, so staying down seemed like the only way out for him. But until then, I totally enjoyed the scrap.

 

Firstly, wrong Gamboa I was referring to earlier. There was also a Julio Gamboa who beat Robert Quiroga for the junior-bantam title in the 90's. Different guy entirely.

Great fight, as you mention. Here's how I had it.

1. Gamboa
2. Gamboa
3. Gamboa
4. Julio
5. Julio
6. Julio
7. Even
8. Gamboa
9. Julio
10. Julio
11. Gamboa
12. Gamboa

115-114 Gamboa. Tough one to score. I'd be interested in some input from the other fellas here too. Great recommendation.

 

After checking out Czyz v Maynard yesterday I wanted to chase down a couple of more Czyz fights because he was rarely in a stinker. The first was...

Bobby Czyz v Bash Ali (cruiserweight title)

Trust me to find a stinker on his ledger. I watched the entire 12 rounds and believe me, if you saw one round you saw them all. Same pattern through 12. Ali simply lacked the kind of punch that could do any damage whatsoever. Now if you look at his record you might say, "Hey, Scartissue is smoking skunk-weed! This guy has 46 KOs to his credit." But I would say, look closer. 30 of them were scored in Lagos where even nominally rated light heavies or Cruisers would be hard to find. Give this one a wide berth unless you want to see someone hitting a heavy bag with ears for 12.

Prince Charles Williams v Bobby Czyz II (light heavyweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Czyz
Round 2: 10-9 Williams
Round 3: 10-9 Czyz
Round 4: 10-10 Even
Round 5: 10-9 Williams
Round 6: 10-10 Even
Round 7: 10-9 Williams
Round 8: 10-7 Williams (scores 2 knockdowns)
Round 9: 10-9 Williams
Round 10: 10-9 Williams
Corner retires Czyz between 10 and 11.

Total through 10 completed rounds: 98-92 Williams (actual scores: 97-91, 98-91 and 99-90 all for Williams)

Now this was more like it. These two went at it like they did in their first fight. Czyz threw the bombs and Williams went with the jab and short punches and it made for a good fight. There was some consternation on the part of the announcers due to all three officials hailing from New Jersey - hometown of Czyz. But I feel those were all very honest scores with no one trying to give Bobby the benefit of the doubt. Glad I landed on this. Had to get the Bash Ali fight out of the old noggin'.

 

Carmen Basilio W10 Pierre Langlois (2)

I did a writeup on their first fight recently, in which I extolled the virtues of Langlois playing the bully against his smaller opponent. Basilio was quite lucky to have received a draw in that first encounter. He was clearly outbrawled and outfought.

This time would be different; Basilio would never be known as an elegent boxer, but he applied lessons learned very well. He stayed off the ropes here, not allowing the naturally bigger frenchman to maul him on the inside. He utilized good head and upper body movement, and he got off first, throwing Langlois off balance and not allowing him an opportunity to hone in on a target for more than a moment or two.

Basilio was an ugly version of Frankenstein's monster imitating Willie Pep, but his ploy (along with a referee far less tolerant of Langlois' rough house tactics) paid off in the first half of the bout, and it made the difference. Well-deserved but hard-fought decision for Basilio. His lack of size and comapartive strength would have cost him in a langer fight I think, as the second half shifted in momentum to the larger man, but Basilio fought well and within the confines of the ten rounds he knew he had to fight.

1. Basilio
2. Basilio
3. Basilio
4. Basilio
5. Basilio
6. Langlois
7. Langlois
8. Basilio (the round was taken from Langlois for hitting on the break, and I had scored it even at 10-10, so deducted a point from Langlois as per the ten-round must which I always employ).
9. Langlois
10. Langlois

96-94 Basilio.

 

Renaldo Snipes W10 Gerrie Coetzee

This fight shows beyond the shadow of a doubt the folly that is the New York scoring system. It might as well be judging amateur boxing, as it puts zero value on knockdowns. You merely award a round to a fighter and that's that, ignoring the deep, rich subtext of what is actually happening in a round, which is decidedly important. As such, I will ignore that idiotic way of doing things and do it using the 10-point must. Even as a stand-alone round by round method, Coetzee was robbed here. Don't know if it was just local judges giving the nod to their guy or if Coetzee was being taken to task for being from a coutry that observed apartheid, who can tell, but the whole thing stank.

Coetzee did a much better job of trying to adhere to boxing basics, but Snipes made a career of thwarting convention. His defense, such as it was, consisted of turning his back and ducking, moving to the side, throwing his arms in the air and ducking, rolling and ducking, holding and ducking, and then lashing out with a right hand a few times a round. You don;t teach what he did, but he made things confusing enough to possibly make a judge doubt what he was watching. Where there is doubt, there is a chance.

Coetzee tired in the later rounds, as was his M.O., but he still did enough and controlled the ring enough to warrant the nod.

1. Coetzee, 10-8 (knockdown)
2. Coetzee
3. Coetzee
4. Coetzee 10-8 (knockdown)
5. Snipes
6. Coetzee
7. Snipes
8. Snipes
9. Even
10. Snipes

96-93 Coetzee

 

Definitely a flawed system.

Been years since I’ve watched it, but I remember thinking you could almost make a case for James Scott over Jerry Martin (who knocked him down IIRC two times and maybe rattled him another) going by the rounds system in New Jersey. And if it had been scheduled for 12, I think Scott may have nipped it.

 

Two more fights that this could apply to was the Howard Davis v Tony Baltazar fight and the first Wilfred Benitez v Bruce Curry fight. In both instances I would have had the loser the victor.

 

Pernell Whitaker W12 Freddie Pendleton

Another Pendleton fight, whom I now feel pretty well schooled on; he's an interesting fighter, this guy.

Against Whitaker, he's being asked to climb the lightweight Everest. I'm still not real sure I like Duran to beat Whitaker at 135. Pea has a lot of everything except crushing power, but he's not a slouch in that area either.

The greatness of Whitaker lies mostly I think in is ability to adjust and find the one or two things that might be working for an opponent and neutralizing them very quickly. Here, Pendleton found success early in finding Whitaker with jabs and right hands from a distance. He's the taller, rangier guy and has greater power. While never trailing in the fight, Whitaker had Freddie pretty close in the rear-view mirror.

Whitaker did what great fighters do, he adjusted. Besides just flitting side to side and trying to outmaneuver the challenger, Pea went inside and smothered the long punches and raked Pendleton with flurries with both hands, outworking him at an incrasing rate as the fight progressed.

Pendleton tried to bully Whitaker but fought mainly one-handed, and simply couldn't match the champion's output late in the fight once he found his rhythm. This was a period that saw the lightweight Whitaker rarely lose a round, so the fact I had this very close after eight shows what a comparatively good effort Pendleton gave it. He did better than just about any of Pea's lightweight challengers, but Whitaker is an ATG, there's just no getting around that. A true artist.

1. Whitaker
2. Even
3. Whitaker
4. Pendelton
5. Whitaker
6. Whitaker
7. Pendleton
8. Pendleton
9. Whitaker
10. Whitaker
11. Whitaker
12. Whitaker

117-112 Whitaker. Pretty much the same as the official judges, give or take a round.

 

Benny (Kid) Paret v Federico Thompson II (welterweight title) NY rounds scoring

Round 1: Paret
Round 2: Thompson (incredible round)
Round 3: Paret
Round 4: Even
Round 5: Paret
Round 6: Thompson
Round 7: Even
Round 8: Even
Round 9: Paret
Round 10: Paret
Round 11: Paret
Round 12: Paret
Round 13: Paret
Round 14: Thompson
Round 15: Thompson

Total: 8-4-3 Paret (actual scores: 9-6, 9-6 and 7-6-2 all for Paret)

Guys, you need to check this out just to see what title fights used to be. Thompson was a solid contender with a straight-up style, who would whip his shots in from the waist. However, that straight-up style only seemed to enhance everything that Benny landed with Thompson's chin in the air. Their styles complimented one anothers enough that it gave us a damn good fight. One other thing I should mention. Back when @Saintpat was conducting his outstanding 'greatest rounds' survey thread, we missed out on the 2nd round of this bout. 'It coulda been a contenduh!' I watched this round twice and could only say, "Wow!"

 

Terry Norris-Troy Waters took the Round 2 vote narrowly over Naseem Hamed-Kevin Kelley but I wish this had been in the mix after watching it on your recommendation here. Quite a corker. Love how they never forgot to go to the body.

 

For anyone else who would like to take a gander, round 2 begins at 4:55 below. Not saying it would have bested the 2 fights @Saintpat mentioned, but I think it would have been right up there.

This content is protected

 

Ray Mancini v Livingstone Bramble I (lightweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Mancini
Round 2: 10-10 Even
Round 3: 10-9 Mancini
Round 4: 10-9 Mancini
Round 5: 10-10 Even
Round 6: 10-9 Mancini
Round 7: 10-9 Bramble
Round 8: 10-9 Bramble
Round 9: 10-9 Bramble
Round 10: 10-9 Bramble
Round 11: 10-10 Even
Round 12: 10-9 Bramble
Round 13: 10-9 Bramble
Round 14: Bramble stops Mancini

Total through 13 completed rounds: 126-124 Bramble (actual scores: 126-121 Bramble, 125-122 and 124-123 both for Mancini)

This could be a bit of a toughie due to Mancini throwing a lot of leather but Bramble picking his shots accurately. It's what impresses you, the judge. Either way one sees it, one undeniable fact is that it was an outstanding fight.