Sunday Morning Notes: Dawson-Tarver Hangover Edition

by SC on May 10, 2009 7:00 AM EDT in News Analysis Comment 6 comments

Is Manny Pacquiao an all-time great? Author Mike Silver says no, because Pacquiao isn't really old and all boxers today are bad.

George Kimball has a piece up that features Freddie Roach. It also contains a great Joe Calzaghe quote regarding Carl Froch: "To be honest, it would be frightening what I would do to him if we fought. He doesn’t seem to realize that holding your hands up and defending yourself is a pretty vital part of boxing."

Steve Carp has a short bit about Andre Ward training in Las Vegas, and also notes the Hatton-Pacquiao gate numbers: 15,368 tickets sold for $8,832,950. The closed circuit in Vegas did an additional $575,750.

The rematch between Cristian Mijares and Nehomar Cermeno has been pushed back to late July or August. Cermeno upset Mijares in March, though many dispute the scoring.

The bill to establish a boxing commission in Alabama has passed, which is great news. Alabama's Deontay Wilder was instrumental in pushing it forward, and also give a lot of credit to Roy Jones Jr., who put his name in there and was in attendance with Wilder on Thursday.

Wanna know what Buster Douglas is up to? Follow his Twitter. He also has a book that helps with diets for diabetics.

Virgil Hill is keeping busy in retirement by going into the training game. He's training people who are serious about boxing, plus just folks that want to get into shape, and it all started in his garage. Pretty great story, and here's a great quote: "I love it. I love training people. I would do it for free, but my wife won’t let me." His wife is his business partner, too.

Matchmaker Bill Benton, who has been in boxing for 35 years, is horribly distraught over the death of Benjamin Flores. It was Benton who matched Flores for what turned out to be the young man's final fight. He says he'll likely never do anything in boxing again. It's just such an awful, awful tragedy. I truly hope Mr. Benton finds some peace about the situation. Best wishes to him, again to Mr. Flores' family, and also to Al Seeger.

Final note: For anyone who cares, that disgraceful eight-round mess held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Orlando between Yori Boy Campas and 46-year old Hector Camacho went to a draw. I am mildly curious as to what kind of crowd they fought in front of.

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i have to say that for the most part i agree with Mike Silver. a win over Hatton, no matter how impressive, does little to elevate Mannys’ ATG status.

"King of NBA Live '09"

by #5mmafan on May 10, 2009 9:39 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

He seems out of line to me

Calling Hatton “an ordinary club fighter” and comparing him to Davey Boy Green shows me where his biases lie. Ordinary club fighters don’t go 9-2 against titleholders and clean out their weight classes. Comparing him to someone who never in his career beat a top 10 welterweight is completely out of line. Also, he’s completely ignored the fact that Pacquiao was moving UP to fight these guys, while Leonard had always been a welterweight when he fought Green.

There are some arguments I can understand that lessen the impact of the win, but I don’t think you can discount it completely. This isn’t like Floyd’s win over Baldomir.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on May 10, 2009 12:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Then again

The answers almost seem expected when you see who the three ‘experts’ are – one Philippino (who presumably has a pro-Pacquiao bias), one Brit (who presumably has a pro-Hatton bias) and one historian (who makes his living selling books about how boxing now just isn’t as good as boxing in the good old days). All three of them try to make an argument to bolster their own biases the best. Silver’s argument just seems to have the least credibility to me. The words he picked were just far too harsh to describe someone who was universally a top 20 P4P fighter and who just got done spanking the consensus #2 in the weight class. Davey Boy Green never beat anyone in his career as good asPaul Malignaggi, much less Tszyu.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on May 10, 2009 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh but surely he did. Malignaggi and Tszyu aren’t good, as they are boxers from recent years! Silver is a bum.

Bad Left Hook
Camden Chat

by SC on May 10, 2009 4:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

For some inexplicable reason I watched Campas-Camacho

Small ballroom, looked like maybe around 1000 max seating capacity. Place was reasonably crowded by main event time, though empty seats were obvious. Very pro-Camacho crowd, surprisingly vocal. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, somehow.

Camacho looked awful, repeatedly diving in to clinch whenever he needed a rest (which was probably once every 20-30 seconds). He should have been penalized for it at lesat once, but never was. Campas looked completely shot, sluggish with virtually no snap on his punches. Both guys had zero legs or punch resistance. Heads were snapping back on visibly powerless jabs.

Camacho probably landed the best shot of the night in the 7th, taking Yory Boy a few steps down queer street, but no knockdown— other than that he was largely inactive and Campas was hurting him. A draw was probably the best result he could hope for.

by Nick_ on May 10, 2009 2:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Mike Silver paraphrased: “Pacquiao isn’t great because I’m too old … hey you kids! Get out of my yard!”

Ask a guy who has made a reputation dismissing contemporary boxers a question, get a guy dismissing a contemporary boxer.

But the thing is … we have film footage of the guys Silver mentions, and many of them ain’t all that. Trust your eyes, not some close-minded ideologue.

Boxing writer: "Iran, what are you going to do when you retire?"
Iran Barkley: "Rob your house"

by Matt Miller on May 10, 2009 9:43 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs