the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

My sister-in-law is Korean and her surname is Yuh.

Quite common though as Mastrangelo correctly pointed out Kim is the most common.

 

Catching up on a few young contenders and champions.

Zayas vs Valunzuela

This was a clinical performance from Zayas, enjoyed this watch, surgical with the lead hand, extremely accurate in cutting Valunzuela’s face up with Jabs and counter left hooks. Hurt him several times and made him a visible mess, correct stoppage ultimately, this would have got very ugly. On a comparison note I had heard on comms that Valunzuela had fought Bahkram so would like to see that.

Prior to this had seen the following short fights:

Carrington vs Chambers
Schofield vs Rosas & Lopez

Noticed the muscular development in Schofield and wonder how this will work for him in longer fights, particularly at lighter weights. Aware of the Farmer stoppage which I have yet to see, but on the whole intrigued how he progresses in such a talented division.

 

Larry Holmes vs Roy “Tiger” Williams, heavyweights, scheduled for 10 rounds on April 30, 1976, at Capital Center in Landover, Maryland.

This fight is on the undercards of Muhammad Ali’s defense vs Jimmy Young. Holmes is 20-0 (15) while Williams is 23-4 (17). Both have spent a fair amount of time sparring with Ali over the years and had sparred each other at least a few times. Holmes took the fight on eight days notice after fighting 25 days earlier.

Larry is 6-foot-3 and weighs 205. Roy is 6-5 and 238 1/2.

Maryland uses the 5-point must system, so that’s what I used:

1. Holmes 5-4: Larry establishes his jab, working it up and down, body and head, lands a few rights and hooks, especially a couple of nice hooks to the body. Roy starts slowly. Larry is mostly on the front foot and initiating everything — he steps laterally to not stay right in front of Williams but is flat-footed and Roy lands only a few jabs.

2. Holmes 5-4: Roy has a good stretch in the middle of the round where he finds the double-jab to be a useful weapon, but Larry is better early and late, closing strong with his jab and body shots (both lefts and rights).

3. Williams 5-4: Williams out-jabs Holmes in a surprising development, slipping most of Larry’s jabs and leaving him a bit puzzled.

4. Holmes 5-4: Larry uses more combinations to get the upper hand again, landing some clean rights and doing more good body work.

5. Even 5-5: Roy wins the battle of the jabs but Larry offsets it with body work.

6. Williams 5-4: Larry starts well, getting on his toes to get his jab working again, but Roy bears down later in the round with his own jab and lands a big right and hook to edge it. This is his best round and it looks like he’s on he verge of taking over.

7. Holmes 5-4: Larry goes toe to toe with Williams, standing his ground and backing Roy up. His jab and body work continue to be his best weapons but he adds a nice uppercut.

8. Holmes 5-4: Larry wins. This one big, landing almost at will. It looks like the deposits he made to the body-work bank are paying dividends. Holmes pretty much jabs his face off.

9. Holmes 5-4: This is a glimpse at future heavyweight champion Holmes. He backs Williams up and beats him up, ripping combinations and clearly dominating.

10. Holmes 5-4: Roy realizes the score, so to speak, and goes for it in the final minute or so. He loads up but mostly misses the mark, landing one big left hook, but Larry does more effective work over three minutes to close it out.

My score: 48-43. Official scores: Unknown, but it was unanimous.

This is the most important win for Holmes in his developmental stage, showing he was ready to step up. Williams was a boogeyman who most heavyweights wanted no part of and Larry proved to be more than his equal. Williams will get KO’d by Shavers in his next fight, win like six in a row and then retire. Holmes will soon after dominate Shavers to win a decision and earn a title shot.

That shot will come against Ken Norton, who beats Ron Stander by KO5 on this card.

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Manny Pacquiao v Oscar Larios (jr. lightweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Pac
Round 2: 10-9 Pac
Round 3: 10-9 Larios
Round 4: 10-9 Pac
Round 5: 10-9 Pac
Round 6: 10-9 Pac
Round 7: 10-8 Pac (scores a knockdown)
Round 8: 10-9 Pac
Round 9: 10-9 Pac
Round 10: 10-9 Pac
Round 11: 10-10 Even
Round 12: 10-8 Pac (scores a knockdown)

Total: 119-108 Pacquiao (actual scores: 120-106, 118-108 and 117-110 all for Pacquiao)

A decent fight with a sometimes-disinterested Pac against the dogged Larios who was a clubbing-type of a puncher who clearly jumped too far in weight. But despite being banged around and cut, Larios never gave up and never stopped trying.

 

For some reason I went down a Bruce Seldon rabbit hole. I watched the Tyson fight, the Bowe Fight, bits of the Ribalta fight, highlights of his McCall and Tucker fights with bits and pieces of the Hipp fight.

What an enigma of a fighter. He had a lot of physical talent but had a lot of strange knockdowns. What is strange is that he took a lot of punishment vs McCall and went deep into the fight before succumbing and being stopped. Would he go down from a good punch to recover and then come back stronger? Did he decide that after the tough McCall fight that he would come out fighting and then give up if he felt it was not worth walking through the fire to win?

Tyson: the right hand did not land. Bobby Czyz tried to say it glanced but I don't see the right land nor do I see the elbow or forearm come in either. Seldon did eat a few left hooks and a stiff jab early but kept moving and jabbing. Seldon did eat a left hook and fell. He beat the count and seemed steady before backing into the ropes and getting waved off. He appeared okay but then wobbled after standing in place. Looked bizarre.

Bowe: I saw many claims in the comment section that this was a dive/rigged but Bowe connected with real punches for both knockdowns. Seldon did seem to break his fall and it looked like he added some drama to his fall. He did come out smoking and throwing punches. I am less inclined to call this a dive. Maybe he took the power and packed it in

Ribalta, he went down from the first right hand immediately and did a strange spring up to his feet act similar to the Bowe fight only this time he never went down again and won the fight. Why would he lay down dramatically if he wound up winning. Playing possum? I doubt it. Good punch and he wanted a second to clear up, maybe.

Hipp: comments on other fights said Hipp hurt him but I found nothing time stamped and looked for it but saw nothing. Good jabbing performance

Tucker: Seldon ate some good shots from Tucker, the type of flush shots that normally had him flop to the canvas, but he didn't.

Not sure what to make of any of this, not trying to waste anymore time on this

 

Am I wrong but did Larios rock Pacquiao briefly

 

You are correct. He momentarily rattled Manny while he had him on the ropes in the 3rd round. However, Manny fired back and was back on the attack by the end of the round. This was the only round I awarded to Larios.

 

I watched his fight with Nobles in the last couple of years. It was on HBO or a PPV undercard but the HBO team were working commentary. This was near the beginning of his comeback after taking a Loooong break after the Tyson fight. It's a seldon performance in a way.

 

Let me try to offer some insight. I’ve been there dealing with this before and while many will blow it off, believe me it’s real.

Some fighters get a form of stage fright. They battle internally — sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.

A fighter showed up on our doorstep, so to speak, many years ago. He had just moved to our town as we were starting our pro program up and claimed to have, I think, five or six fights, winning all but one iirc. We couldn’t find a record of any fights. I kept asking questions and he told me he was now using a different name … OK, he gave us his ‘previous’ name (i.e. real name, not sure if he legally changed it or not) and he was like 1-5 with four KO losses (and not being thrown in with killers). Seeing him in the gym and sparring, this was difficult to believe — he had hand speed, proper technique, not a big puncher but a splendid boxer. In sparring, he was tough.

I asked him who he fought for in his previous place and got a name, tracked down his trainer by phone. Asked about him and he spoke highly of his dedication and confirmed what I was seeing in the gym — this was a gifted guy. So I said, ‘what’s the deal?’ And he said, ‘you’ll see.’

Well, we did see. This fighter carried himself with a ton of confidence. But inside he was very insecure and filled with fear. On fight day, he was a total wreck. One time we almost had to drag him to the ring — he refused to leave his hotel room. His first fight with us he was fighting a guy who was tough but limited, the kind of guy he should have chewed up and spit out — but going into the fourth and final round he was even or behind … I could barely get him to throw a punch. I lit a fire under him before the fourth and he let his hands go and battered that guy, got an 8-count or a knockdown and pulled it out.

If he felt sure he could beat someone, he looked great. If he had a degree of fear, he was reluctant. And, yes, he did sometimes go down (and at least once or twice was KO’d) by punches that shouldn’t have done anything. It was like he short-circuited. We worked with him mentally and he became a good main event fighter, traveled the world even a bit … once in a while the problem would creep up but it became more of a ‘please throw some punches and engage’ than a complete blackout KD or KO.

I see the same things with Seldon (although tbf he was at a much higher level then the fighter I worked with). Basically, it’s stage fright. Actors of great accomplishment sometimes come down with it and suddenly get in front of an audience or a camera and cannot remember or get out their lines. It’s a mental fear trigger. Baseball players here and there get ‘the yips’ and cannot throw a strike to save their lives (Rick Ankiel) or cannot make a routine throw from second to first that they’ve made their whole lives (Steve Sax). No one can explain it and there’s no magic fix … they have to struggle with that demon and overcome it.

I feel certain that if you put Bruce Seldon on truth serum with his hand on a bible and a gun to his head, he would tell you and 100% believe that Tyson hit him a haymaker. His brain short-circuited, convinced that incoming missile was going to detonate and his brain shut down and convinced him it did.

 

Thanks for the insight and great post, much appreciated.

I think you are right because it would explain his odd behavior

I do remember watching the Tyson fight ring walks and Seldon had a good sweat going, he was smiling and dancing a little on the way to the ring. But as he got in the ring and the announcements were done, he started to look more stern and nervous. At the ref instructions he looked down as Tyson stared through him. All of that confidence or false bravado or whatever you want to call it just faded. The man that left the dressing room was not the same man that touched gloves

I like your point about Seldon believing he was hit. Off topic, I read a book about the brain and the tricks it can play and there was a story of a construction worker who had a nail go through his boot and he screamed in agony and had to go to the hospital. When the doctors cut the boot off, the nail went between his toes and he was totally unharmed. His brain activated the pain sensors and he reacted like the nail had ripped through his skin and out the other side.

The mind works in funny ways

 

If you want to see a good example of a fighter struggling and working through this, check out Malik Scott.

People say he took a dive against Deontay Wilder. I don’t think so. He took a glancing blow and his gaskets blew, but I think in his mind it was the same as Seldon vs Tyson or the example you cited of the guy with the nail through the boot — his brain shut down because it was convinced the nuclear missile had detonated on him.

Look at his fight vs Luis Ortiz. He was legit knocked down like three times. He also went down another three or four times without punches really landing and the ref waved them off. He kept getting up and trying to work through it and got to the end of the fight. I see a guy here working through that demon, literally fighting an internal battle to keep going even while his brain’s reflex is saying ‘shut down, get out of here … Danger Will Robinson!’

 

Otherwise referred to as “Tyrone Jackson Syndrome.”

 

I remember Scott. He also had a weird loss to chisora where he began to get up at 9 and got counted out

 

Not exactly related, but your post reminds me of a local referee when I first started going to pro fights named Henry Brown.

A guy looking for an easy way out — then and now — would sometimes get knocked down and get up right after the ‘10’ and then argue. So he’d get stopped, get out of there but ‘save face’ by going back and claiming he beat the count and wanted to continue.

Well, Henry was a wise ol’ bird. If he smelled a guy trying to get out easy, he’d go through the count with his hands and call out “3, 4, 5’ and so on and he’d do nine and on 10, he would make the hand motion but not say it out loud … if the guy jumped up, he’d just wipe his gloves off and resume the fight.

You could see some guys mutter an expletive, kind of shrug their shoulders and keep going. I remember a couple of them being like ‘well screw it, may as well fight now’ and go at it hard and at least go the distance, haha.

 

Gustavo Ballas v Suk Chul Bae (vacant super flyweight title)

Round 1: 10-9 Bae
Round 2: 10-10 Even
Round 3: 10-9 Ballas
Round 4: 10-9 Ballas
Round 5: 10-9 Ballas
Round 6: 10-9 Ballas
Round 7: 10-10 Even
Round 8: Doctor stops the fight Bae cut and starting to take a thumping

Total: 69-66 Ballas through 7 completed rounds

First of all, let me just say that this was a much better fight than what I was expecting. I was expecting another Korean kid rushed into a title fight that he had no business in. However, he made it competitive. Ballas, at times, just looked brilliant but had a little too much of the old Nicolino Loche in him. And by that I mean when he was firing, his combos were amazing, but then he would lay on the ropes in la-la land in his duck and weave. I wasn't as generous as the 3 South American judges to Ballas but it was a brilliant win.