Boxing Thread

[David]

Just contacted Virgin Media. The channel is

[Fox Piss]

Oh right must be different for Virgin costumers then.

[nfc90210]

For all Tyson Fury's talk of the Klits I think he would get stopped by the Cedric Boswell who fought Alexander Povetkin tonight.

[Gooner]

What a win for Cotto. He boxed superbly, one of the best displays he has put on in his career. Doctor stops it due to Margo's right eye being firmly shut at the end of the ninth round. You can see the sustain in Cotto's eyes, he dispises Margo, no celebration, just staring at Margo as he stood in the corner. He got his redemption, finally. So happy for him. Worth staying up the whole night.

[twelve_grand]

I remember watching this fight at the time, and McClellan was on his way to becoming the king of the mountain in world boxing at the time (WBO and WBC Middleweight champion with a 31(29 KO)-2 record heading into the fight, After the fight concluded, the horrific scenes of him laying down in the corner with an oxygen mask played out. If I remember correctly he had surgery to remove a blood-clot after the fight, and the tabloids in the aftermatch called for boxing to banned, despite pulling a TV crowd of 17 million and a 10,000 plus live audience.

Should be an interesting watch

 

Have set the Sky+.

 

If you're interested in that fight and the aftermath this book is a really good if depressing read if you haven't already.

 

And Dark Trade also has a bit of foreshadowing. I'd also argue it is the greatest boxing book of all time?

[wandshogun09]

Chuffed with Cotto's win, revenge is sweet. Loved Cotto's reaction to the stoppage, just glaring a hole through Margarito.

 

 

Ouch!

 

Great performance from Cotto. I think a lot of people thought he was past his best, I know Margarito has been through some beatings the last couple of years from Pacman and Mosley but that was still a very impressive showing from Cotto.

 

Cotto vs Saul Alvarez would be good.

[Sergio Bellend]

ITV1 has the documentry 'The Fight of Their Lives' showing this coming Monday (December 5th) at 10:35pm.

 

"Documentry about the 1995 world title fight between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan, which ended in such tragic circumstances that it has never been broadcast since."

 

I remember watching this fight at the time, and McClellan was on his way to becoming the king of the mountain in world boxing at the time (WBO and WBC Middleweight champion with a 31(29 KO)-2 record heading into the fight, After the fight concluded, the horrific scenes of him laying down in the corner with an oxygen mask played out. If I remember correctly he had surgery to remove a blood-clot after the fight, and the tabloids in the aftermatch called for boxing to banned, despite pulling a TV crowd of 17 million and a 10,000 plus live audience.

Should be an interesting watch

 

There's an extended version of it on Tuesday 13th December at 9pm on ITV4. I think I'll wait for that version.

[wandshogun09]

There's an extended version of it on Tuesday 13th December at 9pm on ITV4. I think I'll wait for that version.

 

I never knew about this, cheers.

[wandshogun09]

Just read that Bob Arum is claiming the cut Manny Pacquiao suffered against Marquez means the Manny/Floyd fight can't happen on May 5th. What a surprise. Sick of this shit.

 

The cut didn't look good but does he really expect us to believe it won't heal in all that time? People have had serious operations and been up and about in that time but a cut won't heal quick enough? Surely there would be enough time between now and May to fix up the cut and for Pacman to still get his training camp in.

 

There's no-one for Manny to fight but Floyd now for me. I didn't agree with the Marquez decision but the fact is Manny's gone 2-0-1 against him, it's hard to make an immediate rematch even if the decisions were debated. Seems like they could fight 20 times and the result would always be a debated decision where people see it differently.

 

I'm really starting to think people are right about Arum being the reason this fight hasn't happened.

 

He can say what he wants but it's not in his interest for this fight to happen. Sure it will make him a bunch of money but in the longterm he likely loses his cash cow whatever the result. If Manny wins he'll probably retire, Freddie Roach has mentioned a few times the possibility of that. If Floyd wins then Manny loses his #1 pound for pound position and he might still retire anyway.

 

Arum doesn't want it. He was the one pushing for Pac/Marquez 4 after the last fight aswell. I think he knows Pacman wants to go into politics full time and would likely retire after a Mayweather fight. So this reeks of Arum delaying the Floyd fight as long as he can, trying to get in as many Pacquiao fights to make maximum coin off him before the big showdown with Floyd. I really think he's robbing us of the biggest fight in boxing just to keep his gravy train going. The old twat's already loaded, how much more money can a 80 year old man need for fuck's sake?

 

Fuck Bob Arum.

[Brock Goldberg]

Just read that Bob Arum is claiming the cut Manny Pacquiao suffered against Marquez means the Manny/Floyd fight can't happen on May 5th. What a surprise. Sick of this shit.

 

The cut didn't look good but does he really expect us to believe it won't heal in all that time? People have had serious operations and been up and about in that time but a cut won't heal quick enough? Surely there would be enough time between now and May to fix up the cut and for Pacman to still get his training camp in.

 

There's no-one for Manny to fight but Floyd now for me. I didn't agree with the Marquez decision but the fact is Manny's gone 2-0-1 against him, it's hard to make an immediate rematch even if the decisions were debated. Seems like they could fight 20 times and the result would always be a debated decision where people see it differently.

 

I'm really starting to think people are right about Arum being the reason this fight hasn't happened.

 

He can say what he wants but it's not in his interest for this fight to happen. Sure it will make him a bunch of money but in the longterm he likely loses his cash cow whatever the result. If Manny wins he'll probably retire, Freddie Roach has mentioned a few times the possibility of that. If Floyd wins then Manny loses his #1 pound for pound position and he might still retire anyway.

 

Arum doesn't want it. He was the one pushing for Pac/Marquez 4 after the last fight aswell. I think he knows Pacman wants to go into politics full time and would likely retire after a Mayweather fight. So this reeks of Arum delaying the Floyd fight as long as he can, trying to get in as many Pacquiao fights to make maximum coin off him before the big showdown with Floyd. I really think he's robbing us of the biggest fight in boxing just to keep his gravy train going. The old twat's already loaded, how much more money can a 80 year old man need for fuck's sake?

 

Fuck Bob Arum.

 

Good post and spot on mate.

 

Its the only fight the world wants to see but people are starting to get tired with all the BS. I would go a step further and say that talk of Khan facing Mayweather was more to do with delaying a potential Pac-Man fight than anything else. I know Khan's with Golden Boy so it would be easier to make but he's not ready to face the likes of Mayweather just yet.

 

I believe and always have that Pac-Man will gladly face anyone, he's not the type to duck a challenge and knows his boxing career is drawing to a close anyway. A big send off and pay day would no doubt appeal and lets be honest would a Mayweather win really dent the Pac-Man legacy ? I don't think so.

[David]

Having just watched the Cotto/Margarito fight, I couldn't be happier with the result. Glad to see Cotto get the win via stoppage. I know Margarito was denying it, but his punches have seemed less effective since his fight with Moseley. Read into that what you will.

 

I have no doubt that he'll come back, eye injury permitting, and the truth is that there is always a place in combat sports for a guy like Margarito. He still beats 6 or 7 of the top 10 in his division, and he's as tough as hell.

 

Cotto is a real sportsman. He pretty much embodies everything that's good about boxing, and again, it's great to see him get the win.

 

As for the Pacquiao vs Mayweather fight, I've simply stopped caring. I'll get excited about it on the day of the fight, once I hear both fighters are in the arena and ready to go. Until then, I'm not even giving it any thought.

[Devon Malcolm]

ITV1 has the documentry 'The Fight of Their Lives' showing this coming Monday (December 5th) at 10:35pm.

 

"Documentry about the 1995 world title fight between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan, which ended in such tragic circumstances that it has never been broadcast since."

 

I remember watching this fight at the time, and McClellan was on his way to becoming the king of the mountain in world boxing at the time (WBO and WBC Middleweight champion with a 31(29 KO)-2 record heading into the fight, After the fight concluded, the horrific scenes of him laying down in the corner with an oxygen mask played out. If I remember correctly he had surgery to remove a blood-clot after the fight, and the tabloids in the aftermatch called for boxing to banned, despite pulling a TV crowd of 17 million and a 10,000 plus live audience.

Should be an interesting watch

 

Yes, there was a great article by James Lawton about it in the Independent the other day:-

 

Boxing: Pain still fresh of night that cannot be forgotten

 

Some pain never eases, some horror doesn't relent, but there are times when you are obliged to go back, however unwillingly, to the source.

 

Not out of any dark voyeurism but the need to understand quite what happened, how it was shaped and how it just might affect something as troubling as the ambivalence, for example, of anyone who ever left the boxing ringside torn between guilt and exhilaration.

 

On Monday night this opportunity comes to anyone who attended the fight between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan at the London Arena in February, 1995, an eviscerating collision which left the latter, an American world middleweight champion of ferocious and clinical talent, consigned to a life of blindness and paralysis.

 

The ITV documentary, screened at 10.35pm, is both disturbing and brilliant. It throws you back into a lifetime of regret and once again it provokes the question that for some can never be satisfactorily resolved, the one that asks if professional fighting can, in the end, ever be truly justified.

 

Soon after the shocking scenes in the ring, when in the 10th round McClellan, feeling the first disabling effects of a blood clot, twice went down on one knee, was counted out the second time, then collapsed, a motion for the abolition of boxing was tabled in the House of Commons. It was defeated but no one in the sport had any reason to be sanguine, and least of all those in the hospital who heard the understated words of the surgeon charged with saving McClellan's life. He said: "The brain is swollen but that is what we would expect it to be after being punched for 10 rounds. There is a clot in his brain that will end his career and kill him if it isn't taken out."

 

McClellan spent 11 days in a coma after the emergency operation and eventually he was taken back to his home in Freeport, Illinois by his sister Lisa, who has cared for him with great devotion ever since. She says now that for many years she wanted Benn dead but admits to being moved by the sight of the British fighter, now a lay preacher, weeping when he embraced her brother at the fundraising event he had organised in the West End of London. "Yes, that was a kind of closure," she admits.

 

One that is maybe not guaranteed to carry her through all the long nights, but then when you think of the convulsion that came to her brother's life, his violent separation from all the certainties created by a talent that had made him in the eyes of many experts the world's best pound-for-pound, most destructive fighter, still a kind of miracle of emotional endurance.

 

McClellan was an overwhelming favourite, having successfully defended his World Boxing Council middleweight title three times, all of them inside the first round, when he came to London to challenge Benn for his WBC super-middleweight title and his status was confirmed with withering power as early as the first round. He sent Benn sprawling through the ropes and on to the apron of the ring and one of the agonies that came later, when McClellan, who also floored Benn in the eighth round, began to blink uncontrollably and give, in retrospect the first clear evidence that he was in serious trouble, was the belief of many that the French referee, Alfred Asaro had given the British fighter the benefit of a long count.

 

"The fight should have been over there and then," Stan Johnson, McClellan's trainer, still insists.

 

Johnson, though, is one of the documentary's least convincing witnesses, especially when he claims there was no evidence that his fighter had developed a serious problem in the ring and, chillingly, Emma McClellan says that she could not say he was a properly qualified coach of boxers.

 

Her point is augmented by the famous trainer Emmanuel Steward, who had developed McClellan's talent in his Kronk Gym in Detroit and would have been at ringside in London but for contractual disputes. Steward says that had he been in McClellan's corner the tragedy would not have happened

 

Johnson accuses Benn of being "juiced up on something", claiming for the first time 15 years after the event that the McClellan corner had "blood" evidence that he was using anabolic steroids. Benn denies the charge vehemently, saying that while he was addicted to "recreational" drugs throughout his career it was "not him" to use the performance enhancing variety, and that when he collapsed on the way back from the ring to his dressing room it was out of exhaustion and not any plan to avoid a post-fight drugs test.

 

Later, when the plight of his opponent had become clear, he said that he was sorry but, "Better him than me".

 

It was a sentiment that might, you have to suspect, have slipped as easily from the lips of McClellan had the roles been reversed. Not the least affecting scenes from the film depict the relationship between the stricken fighter and his sister, especially in one when they discuss the roles of the carer and the dependent and she jokes that he might pay her $100. He asks, "What do you want me to do, rob a bank?" They both laugh at the impracticality of the plan.

 

However, there is no disguising the hard edge of McClellan's nature in pre-fight footage. An interviewer asks him about his status as the world's second best pound-for-pound fighter. McClellan's eyes narrow and he asks: "Who do they say is the first?" It is not so much a question as a bitter reproach.

 

McClellan trained pit bulls for fighting. He said the breed reminded him of himself. Johnson reports he once asked the fighter why he served up a labrador to his pit bull and says that McClellan responded: "A pit bull is like a fighter. Every so often it needs to taste blood."

 

The awful trajectory of the fight is perfectly recaptured and the most telling moments are when McClellan, who was comfortably ahead on every scorecard, first began to display distress and confusion, about which Johnson insists there was absolutely no evidence to justify any decision to throw in the towel.

 

The list of witnesses is long. Among the more eloquent is former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan, who does not attempt to diminish the horrific consequences of the fight but also makes the point that boxing has saved hundreds of thousands of lives by rescuing young people from the most dangerous streets. It is the classic defence but not so easy to proclaim when the questioning gets a little more specific.

 

McGuigan suggests that McClellan's corner should have identified a growing problem but then he is asked: "Should the referee have picked up on it?" McGuigan frowns and says: "It's a good question."

 

But then so many questions littered that night in London's Docklands. You had to wonder if you would ever forget, and would ever be entitled to forget, those terrible scenes in the corner of the ring where McClellan first rested against the post, then slipped down onto the canvas and, finally, was laid out flat. There was the ultimate fear that you were watching a life ebb away and if that was averted by the skill of a young surgeon we would know soon enough that some things could not be retrieved.

 

It made you think of all the great fights you had seen and how much accumulated damage had come along the way. You thought of the condition of Muhammad Ali, so exacerbated by the gratuitous punishment he took before the end, and not least on a night in Las Vegas when his former sparring partner Larry Holmes was obliged to pound on him for seven rounds before the great old cornerman Angelo Dundee called the surrender.

 

You remembered the night Sugar Ray Leonard's wife Juanita screamed, "No more baby, no more," when her husband fought Tommy "The Hitman" Hearns to a standstill in one of the greatest contests ever

[wandshogun09]

Cheers for posting that article Gladstone, great read that was.

 

Everything about that fight makes it a fascinating story. The fight itself was something special. Benn was a massive underdog, McClellan was a destroyer. Seemed like an impossible task for Benn. For him to get up off the canvas (from outside the bastard ring no less) and come back to stop McClellan was unbelievable.

 

That was the best performance of Benn's career and his greatest win. That fact often gets overlooked which is understandable given the aftermath. Who knows how great McClellan could have been. A win over Benn would probably have secured him a big fight with Roy Jones or James Toney. He was on the verge of becoming a star, he had nasty power, speed, vicious body punches and he could box. Worse than that is how he lives now.

 

From reading the excellent War, Baby book, Don King was a total cunt in the fallout of this fight. Apparently as soon as the fight ended he was backstage fucking about with McClellan's contract changing stuff in it that would mean he wouldn't have to pay certain fees. Sure I read he even paid off McClellan's cornermen so they'd fuck off back to America so he could tamper with the contract.

 

Really looking forward to watching this tonight.

[David]

Wasn't McClellan supposed to be a grade A prick?

[wandshogun09]

Wasn't McClellan supposed to be a grade A prick?

 

Yeah but there's a lot of them in the fight game and not just the fighters. The dogfighting stuff is something I always found disgusting and anyone who does that deserves a pasting. Still, wouldn't wish a near death inducing brain injury or the life he has now on anyone.