Does this belong in the most cringeworthy HBO commentating moments for propping a guy up this year? They said it more than once. WTF? Abregu is a solid guy, don't get me wrong. But he's had literally one fight in his entire career against a highly regarded fighter coming in (Bradley) and was completely dominated. The only thing on his record that he's known for doing was derailing a decent prospect, right? Why on earth would anyone think for real that you had to be "special" to beat him? Then repeating it? Embarrassing stuff from HBO. Really embarrassing. Totally disingenuous selling of some new prospect that will probably backfire in their face. I thought it was completely shameful. Was it just me?
I think the stress here is how big of a step up Abregu was for Sadam Ali. Ali hadn't fought anyone close to Abregu's stature and while Abregu clearly was no top 10 WW, he was probably equally clearly a top 15 guy at the weight. And Ali looked damn good, spare for the round or two before he closed the show. On the surface, I do agree with your point. However, while you don't have to be special to beat Abregu, it was pretty special that Ali did and how he beat Abregu. I also have to disagree with your assessment that Bradley "completely dominated" Abregu. I remember scoring the fight 118-110 or 117-111, but also remember most every single round being competitive. Abregu did better against Bradley (albeit, his first real fight at WW) than many who have faced him.
To be honest I don't remember thinking Bradley/Abregu was at all competitive. But I've only seen it once and I'm not going to argue, as it wasn't that memorable for me that I'm 100% confident about it. To your point about it being special for Ali to beat Abregu as a step up though, taking nothing away from that but if you look at the upload on daily motion, Kellerman had already said it and Lampley was commenting on Kellerman saying it in the opening seconds of THE FIRST ROUND. Nobody was beating anybody when Kellerman started in on it. It was amazeballs. Like the memo was "We want Ali to be the next HBO star, so really make this sound great to the casuals for when he wins. They won't know any better."
I predicted Ali to give Abregu more trouble than expected (it's posted here for all to see), but he went a step further, having said that, Abregu looked like **** and nothing Ali did was "special"
