Whitaker vs Ramirez I

Yeah I agreed with most of the replies that were made to his post, just wanted to elaborate on it a bit :good

 

Actually I think Mosely would be a VERY tough fight for Whitaker. A virtual pick-em...and Im as big a Sweet Pea fan as you will find on here.

Mayweather tho, doesnt match up with Sweet Pea well at all...but that post is already up right now, so I dont want to get too into it.

 

He would have beat rosario and mancini with ease, but it would have helped his legacy. IMO, camacho would have given him a tough ass fight at 135, meldrick taylor would have given him hell at 140, quartey would have given him a dangerous fight at 147 and terry norris would have most likely outboxed him at 154. We never saw these fights happen due to politics but the fact of the matter, is that all 4 of these slick boxers would have given pernell a rough fight for sure.

 

My compliments Pugalist....
.....Just beautiful!
One of the best posts I've ever read on a boxing site!:good

 

You must have not paid enough attention to Pugalist masterful post.

I know you dont believe this yourself, but you're insinuating through your post that Chavez was a plum steamroller without much other skill.

Duran, Chavez, Holyfield......
As Pugalist so eloquently stated, these fighters were not straight on brawlers who came to steamroll.
They were complete fighters in that they understood the nuances of the fight game.
Chavez for exammple was a notoriously slow starter. He boxed for the better part of the first several rounds.
Studied and found out through some form of cautiousness what he could and could'nt get away with, along the way tasting what his opponent had to offer.
Imo, truly complete great fighters study, find their niche, and then go on an actual attack mode once they sense the time is right and ripe.

To be overly defensive is to give up alot offensively, something that imo Whitaker did when faced with his best opposition.


Again gentleman, except for about 3 rounds in Whitakers fight with Chavez, there was very little of any leverage on his shots.

Some of you Whitaker supporters point out that Whitaker ouboxed Chavez from the outside and outfought him on the inside, never pointing out that it was in two rounds of the fight that Pernell actually had the audacity to fight Chavez up close.

For the most part, Whitaker ran throughout the fight, and mostly never had his feet planted when he punched.
How much leverage and power can be in a punch when you dont have your feet planted?

Having said that, Whitaker nullified Chavez' offense enough in a fair share of these rounds that his boxing was enough to win him the round.

The way I scored it, if Whitaker offered enough hard jabs and counter shots in a round, I scored the round for him.

When Whitaker ran, did'nt offer to plant his feet to counter with punches of significance, then from my point of view, Chavez was outgeneraling him and forcing him to run.
In essence, in these rounds, Chavez was taking Whitaker's ability to apply significant offense away from him.

What Pugalist wrote about Chavez being the more complete fighter imo is absolutely true.
Boxing to me is not about finding a way to stall a boxing match.
.....and when you're ultra defensive as Pernell Whitaker was, thats exactly what happens in a boxing match, the match comes to a stall with very little meaningful boxing related exchanges in them.


Somebody mentioned Ali in a previous post......
......Ali is a perfect example of a fighter who knew what the people came there to see......
Did he not knockout Sonny Liston and George Foreman???:deal

Ali could be just as defensive as Pernell Whitaker, but unlike Whitaker, knew, that he had to apply real punching (not just pitter patter, and punching with your feet not planted)
Ali, knew all about the art of closing a show!!!!:bbb

 

Yes it's the wrong insinuation, I merely meant to short hand "fighters who break their opponents down physically and mentally so as to stop them or make them quit". These fighters usually start off slow and them come on to overwhelm their opponents, as you state below. That's what I meant by steamroll. And also, I didn't mean to imply that Chavez had no skill. He was very skilfull. (And I don't believe Whitaker didn't break down opponents physically and mentally, of course he did, though not to the degree that Chavez did.) I just think he wasn't as skilfull as Whitaker and that's what got exposed in their fight.

You see, this is where Chavez failed in the Whitaker fight. He actually started off well, got the better of the early going (who would've thought?) but then got completely owned down the stretch. It's arguable he didn't win a round after the 2nd round. At most I think an argument can be made that he won the 5th, 9th and 12th. And its only an argument, because Whitaker arguably won all those rounds as well.

I think you are overemphasising the planting of feet to get leverage on shots. Remember the Lomeli fight? Whitaker all but ko'ed him whilst literally jumping backwards. What is of ultimate importance is landing the cleaner, more effective shots. This is ususally, but NOT ALWAYS determined by the planting of feet to get leverage. For instance, in their fight, Chavez was constantly planting his feet to get leverage, but how many clean effective shots did he land? The answer, of course, overall, is less than Whitaker, and not only that, but in less rounds than Whitaker as well.

Chavez was arguably more well rounded than Whitaker in that he could punch, impose his will and break fighters down more, but he was not a greater fighter. Whitaker had skill Chavez knew nothing about and it told the tale in their fight.

Vlade, tell me, do you think Chavez and Holyfield are better fighters than Willie Pep? As you no doubt know, pretty much every pundit would scoff at this, but your position seems to lead you to thinking that they are. That it does, it seems to me that you are missing something vital about the sport in your theories.

 

In all honesty Scientist, I know very little of Willie Pep, and so I could'nt tell you!:?

......and to tell you the truth, I dont think Chavez could punch any harder than Pernell Whitaker could. Chavez was just willing to put more leverage on his punches that resulted in accumalitive damage, thus the reason why he had alot of late knockouts and fighters surrendering on their stools.

I think you're honest enough to agree with me that Chavez was in all actuality exellent in his defensive manuevers, but he was willing to sacrifice part of his defense for an entertainment value to the fans.

.....you know I'm not lying Scientist, the fans come to see a beatdown and not a jabfest and posedown.

The thing that made Chavez special is that he knew how to walk that line and not to overly expose himself when he opened up his offensive game.
Rarely did you see a prime Chavez open up and just throw caution to the wind.
His offensive aggression was very calculating. Part of being great is knowing how to walk that fine line that crosses from defense to offense.
Chavez walked that line as good as I've ever seen a fighter walk it!



You stated Scientist about Chavez starting off well vs Whitaker. He did'nt start slow at all.
Is'nt that a fighter that did his homework?????
Chavez knew the hard task that lied in front of him.

He knew that the faster quicker fighter was Whitaker and so he knew that he had to crowd him and not afford him any punching room.

Had Chavez not started as aggressive as he did, Whitaker clearly would have taken the early rounds if he would have gave him room to punch.

I dont actually think that Whitaker is actually a better boxer than Chavez.
I'm not saying that he is or is'nt.....but for the sake of argument, if we were to say that they were equals in boxing ability, it's safe to assume that in a case of two fighters having equal boxing ability, the faster quicker fighter is going to do better at center ring given room to box.

The point I'm getting to is that Chavez was'nt about to give Pernell being the faster quicker fighter the room he needed to get his punches off with ease.
Chavez forced Whitaker to have to run.....
It was a cat and mouse game....in order for Pernell to establish that he was beyond a doubt the better fighter, he had to at certain instances in each round stop on a dime and at the very least temporarily for at least instances plant his feet as he punched.
It called establishing punching superiority.
Whitaker did it sucessfully in some rounds and in others he did'nt.

At the end of the day, the judges were not brainwashed by a pair of big rounds by Pernell Whitaker and by God decided to judge it round by round.....finding Pernell only had won half of the battle.

Quite honestly, I think Whitaker picked and chosed in which rounds to exhert real effort in, and hoped that what he may have done in a previous round would be remembered by those scoring.

Thankfully the judges judged as I did....on a round by round basis!:deal :yep


In hindsight, it was probably a great game plan by Pernell Whitaker, had he fought any other way, he would have had to have gone less defensive and been vulnerable to some of the punishment that Meldrick Taylor did.

It was probably the only thing that he could have done to compete and still at the end survive Chavez with a chance of winning.

I'll say this with all sincerity.....Whitaker fought well in quite a few of those rounds, but I'll say this with a passion.....He was far from dominating JC Chavez as alot of you would like to believe!

 

Bravo.

I couldn't have put it better myself. :good

 

Fair enough. Let's just say he lived and died by the hit and not be hit motto. He had a high workrate, like Whitaker, wasn't a big puncher, like Whitaker, and would rifle off combos whilst twisting, turning and spinning his opponents around and jumping in, out and side to side. Kind of like a fly that never sits still which is impossible to swat. Of his 230 odd fights he only scored 65 ko's. Anyway, I'm sure you know that he is a fixture for top ten all time lists, and some even regard him the greatest of all time. He didn't fight to knock the other guy out but oupoint him, and he was better at that than anyone in the history of the sport.

Not sure I agree that Chavez didn't punch harder than Whitaker, but he certaintly wasn't a one shot ko artist. He usually grinded guys down. Personally, I think Chavez had a better chin than Whitaker, which gave him the ability to stand and trade comfortably. He was confident that he could withstand anything the other man threw, even if it meant taking three punches to land one. A great advantage, and a big part of what made him so great. Of course, he had good defensive skills too. Not many offensive minded fighters do, but he like Duran, Armstrong and a few select others could both attack and defend equally well.

I've never argued that Whitaker was more fan friendly than Chavez and I agree with you fans come to see a beatdown rather than a showcase of jabs and posing (Not that that was all that Whitaker was, but he didn't lay beatdowns like Chavez did, obviously).

He definitely learnt his lesson from the Taylor fight (where he started terribly slow), no doubt he purposefully came out looking for the early rounds. Credit to him for that, a very smart ploy. Problem was, he couldn't dominate the later rounds like he usually did, and its fair to say Whitaker was pretty dominant down the stretch.

Well here's the thing. How much time did Whitaker spend up against the ropes or even close to them? Chavez actually got pushed to the ropes more than Whitaker did. Whitaker was moving, but he was smart not to let CHavez trap him and let him go to work. The fight was unquestionably fought at the distance Whitaker wanted.

I think he needed to land the cleaner more effective punches. In most rounds I felt he did, whether his feet were planted or not. You obviously feel different and always will. We'll just agree to disagree on that.

The judges made the call they made, and I do believe they did it with a good conscience, but really, who knows? With Don King and the influence he has with Jose Suliaman, I would not entirely rule out a fix. Sooo, sooo many bad calls have happened with the WBC over the years. Need I remind you of Fenech-Nelson I and Whitaker-Ramirez I, just to bring up two of the more unconsciounable. Jose Suliaman is as crooked as a dog's hind leg and I would not have put it past him to have been responsible for this. He has for instance on occasions been overheard instructing the judges in dressing rooms to reward aggressiveness rather than movement, as he did before the first Leonard-Duran fight. Aggressiveness is not part of the scoring criteria. It has to be effective aggression. Sometimes, I wonder if judges remember that.

In any case, I like many, many others, felt the judges made the wrong call. There's nothing we can do about it now though other than give our opinions on it. What's done is done.

 

Wow Scientist is all into it, keep going !

 

Vlade and me are always good for a yarn.

 

:yep

You are winning in my scorecard, a shut out so far !

 

Hahaha, yeah but I'm not breaking him down physically or mentally so as to stop him or make him quit.

 

I expect a TKO at the end of the 11th. Keep working on the body, he is slowing down.

 

Thats what I'm afraid of.....Scientist and I have gotten into debates on Chavez-Whitaker that have lasted for days. At the end of our run, we'd be right back in full circle where we started, not one or the other willing to budge on more than a few points.

The problem with me is that I usually decide to go into this site and post for a few minutes.....but with a good solid poster like Scientist and a few others.....these minutes sometimes turn into hours, taking up precious time that sometimes I cant afford.

I usually post late at night, and it runs up cutting up on my sleep time that I feel when I wake up in the morning to get my work day started.

......but I love debating and discussing these types of topics.
.....cant really do it in the real world with a live person, as their are very few that even know a little bit about the nuances of the sport!


I'm writing this during a break from my workday.
I'll be back later tonight, to see if I'm moved to respond further to the topic.


One of these days some of you guys are going to see it my way, Scientist included.......I'm sensing he's wilting a bit on a few points!



:hi: