Boxing: Oscar vs Manny, etc

[H2O Man]

FRIDAY, December 5 - at Santa Ynez, California (Showtime) - 10 rounds, welterweights: Carlos Abregu (24-0, 21 KOs) vs. David Estrada (22-5, 13 KOs); 8 rounds, heavyweights: Travis Kauffman (13-0, 10 KOs) vs. Malachy Farrell (16-1, 12 KOs).

SATURDAY, December 6 - at London - 12 rounds, cruiserweights: Enzo Maccarinelli (28-2, 21 KOs) vs. Johnathon Banks (20-0, 14 KOs); 10 rounds, lightweights: Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KOs) vs. Oisin Fagan (22-5, 13 KOs); 10 rounds, heavyweights: Audley Harrison (23-3, 17 KOs) vs. Martin Rogan (10-0, 5 KOs).

SATURDAY, December 6 - at Las Vegas (HBO PPV) - lightweights: Manny Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) vs. Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs); 12 rounds, light welterweights: Victor Ortiz (22-1-1, 17 KOs) vs. Jeffrey Resto (22-2, 13 KOs); 12 rounds, super bantamweights: Juan Manuel Lopez (23-0, 21 KOs) vs. Sergio Manuel Medina (33-1, 18 KOs).


The media will be focused on what promoters are attempting to sell as a "Super Fight" on Saturday, but I am far more interested in other scheduled bouts. On Friday, Showtime features a good card, with a competitive main event in the welterweight division. Carlos Abregu has an impressive record, and is fighting against journeyman David Estrada; should Abregu win, he will be moving up in one of the toughest weight classes in the sport.

The co-feature pits two young heavyweights, in what could be an interesting fight. Undefeated Travis Kauffman had been a top amateur heavyweight, but has been fed a steady diet of non-competitive opposition. Malachy Farrell has faced tougher competition, although he was defeated in his attempt to move up in the heavyweight ranks. Kauffman may be distracted by legal problems outside of the ring – he recently was charged with selling pot to an undercover police officer. This event took place shortly after he was found "not guilty" in an assault case.

On Saturday, there is a good card in England. The main event features two top cruiserweights; I think this is the most unappreciated weight classes in the sport. Also, Amir Khan begins his comeback, after suffering a vicious knock-out loss that exposed his lack of defensive skills. He has been sparring Manny Pacquiao, which is a good thing. The card also includes Audley Harrison, who has failed to make the transition from the amateurs into the professional ranks.

Saturday’s HBO PPV "super fight" costs $55. Oscar de la Hoya, who has never won a real "Super Fight," and who has not won an important bout since knocking out Fernando Vargas in September of 2002, is matched against a much smaller Manny Pacquiao. Although Pacquiao is generally recognized as the sport’s "pound-for-pound" best fighter since the retirement of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., I do not believe this match qualifies as a "super fight." Oscar should win, simply because of his size. While I hope that Manny pulls off an upset victory, I expect Oscar to win. He should be able to end the fight with his left hook.

One of my friends offered to pay for the fight, but I told him "thanks, but no thanks." I prefer to not buy many PPV fights these days. Also, should Manny win, it will be in large part because Oscar is too old to be a part-time boxer. And if Oscar wins, it will be because he selected a much smaller opponent, rather than fight any of the quality guys who are his size.

[a kennedy]

1. I kinda like the idea of Manny winning, he's done some great things

for his neighborhood and with his winnings......could definitely do a ton more. I thought it was considered a welterweight fight???

[H2O Man]

2. It is.

I get the schedule from Yahoo's boxing site, and had not even noticed the error. Thanks for pointing that out.

I was talking to my brother from the west coast yesterday. He said that Manny may be too young and too fast for Oscar. Though he has always admired Oscar, he noted that in his prime, he became "tired" after 8 or 9 rounds in a fight where he felt mental stress (when he was confident, he could relax and fight 12 tough rounds).

[a kennedy]

3. Welterweight level has always been the favorite of mine.....

back in the day all the great fights, that I remember, were the welterweight fights.....Tommy, Sugar Ray, Marvin....ooooo that's when boxing was fun. I made my husband drive for two hours to get to a venue to see on a grainy black and white movie screen the fight between Sugar Ray against Roberto Durand. Sugar Ray lost.......and I was just sick. The ticket cost us 25.00 a piece and I thought wow, how lucky am I to have a husband that would drive his wife and pay 50.00 to see a boxing match.....then to feel so terrible after Sugar Ray lost. Those were some great times for me. Found this picture and article on good ol' Roberto: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2604943 ha ha, he sure looks different..... edit to clarify which fight we went to, I thought it was the 2nd but it was the first fight.

[H2O Man]

4. That was a great fight.

Duran had gotten into Leonard's mind by insulting his wife in an extremely crude manner. Ray wanted to beat Duran at his own game, and tried to slug it out with him. The two were true enemies, until years later, when Roberto came quite close when he challenged Haglar for the middleweight title. After the decision was announced, Duran walked over to Ray, and said, "Fight him. You can beat him."

Haglar soon fought jr. middleweight John "The Beast" Mugabi. My brother was in John's training camp, and told me that he had never seen anyone who punched that hard. (I have a lot of great photos of the training camp.) John lost, but took a lot out of Haglar with his body attack. Haglar decided to retire after that, but then Ray challenged him. Funny how that worked out.

[H2O Man]

5. My son and our friend

have ordered the fight. I will watch it, because my one addiction is the sport of boxing.

[H2O Man]

6. Prediction:

Manny comes in with his head too high. He often rushes in at a speed that results in his left foot lifting off the canvas; being a south-paw, that is his "hind" foot. Oscar is left-handed, though he learned to box orthodox. One of the advantages is that he can throw the hook without it coming off the jab, or following a right-cross.

Freddie Roach has trained Manny to always time coming in with Oscar's jab: parry it, or come under it with his own jab to Oscar's chest. But this can allow Oscar the option of feignting, and just bringing that hook straight from the shoulder. Watch for that.

[ohiosmith]

7. Anyone getting the fight that can post the round by round results?

[Wetzelbill]

9. Damn you could have watched it online in a few places.

You might be able to catch reruns, try www.channelsurfing.net or www.mmaload.com. If not then www.boxlinker.com should have the whole fight on video later on.

Basically it was a Manny shut out, stopped after the 8th round. He moved in and out and hit him with combos all night. Waayyy too fast, he made Oscar look like he was moving in mud. He hit Oscar with over 50 power shots in the 7th, it was a beating.

[Wetzelbill]

8. Manny Pacquiao thinks lightning is slow

Short of bringing a gun into the ring, Oscar had no chance at all. I felt Manny would win, but I always go for small guys I'm biased, I didn't think he would do it so easily. Manny is a warrior, he was born to fight, it's his whole being, I think that was the difference.

The irony of seeing Oscar eat so many left hands, good lord.

I have heard people called "scary good" but Manny is scary great.

[H2O Man]

10. That was pitiful.

I've never liked Oscar, but I felt bad for him.

[Wetzelbill]

12. I felt bad for him too

How do you account for him not putting back on any weight? Did you think he overtrained? I honestly thought he might be up around 160 by the time the fight started, he was lighter than Pacquaio only hours before the fight. I know a day after I weighed in I was always up about 8-10 pounds, that's just to get back to being naturally hydrated too.

I'm blown away at how easy it was. Like I could see how Manny banged out Morales the way he did in their third fight, Erik was older, been through some serious wars and they matched up size wise, but he walked through Oscar just as easily probably more so because Morales put up more of a fight. The difference there probably was Oscar size, he wasn't put down the way Morales was, but his beating was at least as bad. Waaaay outclassed. Makes me wish Floyd would come back and fight Manny.

[H2O Man]

13. When I saw him in

his dressing room and heard about the weight, I thought he had over-trained. He had reportedly been training for over two months. That's way too much for a guy his age.

Manny would be interesting against Hatton -- or even Floyd Mayweather, Jr., if he decided to fight again.

[Wetzelbill]

14. that makes sense

He fought like somebody who overtrained. I think Oscar has a little more left in the tank than what he showed tonight, overtraining will hurt a guy though. I think maybe a little overtraining is fine, maybe even good, but he looked like it was way too much. If what you heard is accurate and he'd been in camp that long, well overtraining had to be a factor. If a person cuts a lot of weight, they can gain plenty of strength and recover overnight. I've done it, seen lots of others do it in a few different types of combative sports. But Oscar looked sapped in a way that told me it wasn't from cutting weight. Cutting weight you can recover from, overtraining you can't.

Hatton would be a natural fit for Manny. Entertaining and marketable.

I heard the broadcast team briefly mention Margarito. I'd say that is out of the question. My personal opinion anyway. Margarito is a big big guy for that weight. Manny at 140 is about right.

[Wetzelbill]

11. De La Hoya-Pacquiao round-by-round

USA TODAY's J. Michael Falgoust is ringside for Saturday night's long-awaited showdown between Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) and Manny Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It's the sport's pound-for-pound No. 1 fighter (Pacquiao) vs. the No. 1 box office draw (De La Hoya). After both fighters weighed in under the 147-pound limit on Friday (Pacquiao was 142; De La Hoya 145), HBO's unofficial weight numbers tonight show Pacquiao at 148 1/2 pounds with De La Hoya at 147.

Ring walk-ins are underway now that the national anthems of the Philippines, Mexico and the United States are complete. Pacquiao has begun his entrance to Queen's "We Will Rock You" into an arena that appears to not have an empty seat. De La Hoya enters the ring at 11:08 p.m. ET. Both fighters are at ring center receiving instructions from referee Tony Weeks. It's 11:13, and the fight is underway.

Round 1: Both are reluctant to open up, with De La Hoya walking him down and trying to avoid Pacquiao's left. Lots of feinting, but Pacquiao lands a series of hard left hands that appear to catch De La Hoya's attention. Pacquaio stays off the ropes and avoids getting trapped. Pacquaio finishes strong. 10-9, Pacquiao.

Round 2: Pacquiao isn’t rushing in as he's accustomed to fighting. He’s touching De La Hoya with lead lefts. De La Hoya tries to go hard to the body with little success. Pacquiao is landing his left at will. Good body shot by Pacquiao. A clean left to De La Hoya’s head. A lead right uppercut, left hand for Pacquiao lands flush and is the best combination of the figh. Another lead left hand by Pacquiao. Oscar’s face is beet red. 10-9, Pacquiao.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2008/12/oscar-de-la-hoy.html

[H2O Man]

19. Oscar

looked a lot like Chris Byrd when he tried the lightheavyweight division: before the fight, he looked strong at the lower weight. In the ring, he had no strength, no speed, no reflexes, and was unable to defend himself.

[iamincali83]

15. Ive never seen De La Hoya take a pounding like that....

he really shouldve retired a few years ago. He is way past his prime.

[H2O Man]

17. Right.

"Old" fighters have two common experiences: (1) they can see openings, but lack the reflexes to get their shots off; and (2) they can see punches coming, but not get out of the way. The first one causes frustration; the second has far worse consequences.

[MessiahRp]

16. Just an amazing performance from Pac Man

I sort of thought he was going to do what he did as far as getting in and out and turning Oscar but my concern was the the size differential and possibly power differential would kick in at some point. Maybe I was thinking too much of what Hopkins did to Oscar when he moved up. The two things that stood out to me was that Oscar stayed completely flat footed and never moved his head. After the first round I remarked to my friend that if that was his plan for the whole night it didn't matter what he threw because he would be eating Manny's best stuff the whole fight.

I remarked also in the 7th that if it wasn't Oscar De La Hoya, the fight would have been stopped because he didn't throw almost any punches in that round. Also when Manny got him in the corner he used perfect footwork to keep Oscar stuck there in front of him. It was completely brutal.

I think the problem with the PPV was that I just paid $54.95 for a fight that people feared would end early (albeit pundits thought it might go the other way) with a ridiculously mismatched undercard on paper. Yes it was good to see Ortiz, Jacobs and the amazing Juan Manuel Lopez but where Boxing constantly gets it wrong is that they put them in with cans of corn basically.

The reason UFC and MMA is so much bigger right now is that UFC will have two main event caliber matches headline their cards, a third fight with a fairly known name in it and a bunch of undercard fights with up and coming stars. Should there be fast stoppages in any of those fights, even the main event, they'll air the best preliminary fights that didn't make the actual PPV card.

What Boxing should do is stick to a format where there are two matches with main event caliber fighters, one with a known guy and have two undercard fights with up and coming stars. Now if any fights end early, you have those other two fights you can replay instead of having 40 minutes of Jim Lampley and the incredibly boring Larry Merchant to listen to and if the fights all go the distance, you can spend 10 minutes or so recapping the undercard fights that did not get shown as to expose those guys to the audience even if their fights did not make air.

Boxing promoters will never do this though because for some reason they feel they need to milk every dollar out of every name in the sport and by having different broadcasts revolve around one fight with a bunch of undercard fights nobody cares about you're creating the situation where people do not want to spend that much one one of these PPVs and worse the undercard fighters who need the exposure are never built up in a way where the American public accept them as anything more than a puppet who just fought some chump off the street. It hurts a guy like Juan Manuel Lopez's credibility to blow out a guy like Medina whom the American public knew nothing about and appeared to quit at the first instance of taking a punch.

Also by keeping shows to one major fight promoters are pushing networks that do not have enough calendar slots for all of these shows to pass on a lot of great fights and thus once again keep these guys out of the public's eye.

If Boxing stuck to a once a month PPV megacard with the format I mentioned above, I have a feeling that it would do more money long term. Sure the chances of 1-2 million buys when a PPV is available once a month is slimmer but that would be the case anyway when the De La Hoya cash cow is put to bed (and I think it was tonight). But with megacards once a month that give Boxing fans a reason to buy for the full three hours, you could conceivably do 700,000-850,000 PPV buys a month and make substantially more money per year than waiting for one DLH fight or one blockbuster Cotto-Margarito fight to occur.

Rp

[H2O Man]

18. Promoters may find

that they have to have "co-features" to sell their fight cards. It is actually good for everyone, and the sport would definitely benefit from that approach.

I think HBO is planning to have more good, non-PPV fights in 2009. ESPN is also looking to have higher level main events on FNFs, starting in January's new season. Versus is going to have more boxing -- two cards this week -- and they will have "The Contender" this season. Also, Showtime's "ShoBox" provides high quality fights, often in the lower weight classes, and they will continue their "first Saturday of the month" championship fights.

Next Saturday, there are three fight cards on: HBO, Showtime, and Versus. Can't beat that.