I consider myself a pretty big boxing fan. If there’s boxing on tv I’m gonna tune in.. Unless it’s The Contender, and that’s just because I don’t watch reality shows. So last night I sat down to watch HBO’s double header before getting into my Saturday night activities.
The first fight, featuring Kelly Pavlik and Edison Miranda, had more action in the first two rounds than De La Hoya/Mayweather had their entire night. If Oscar and Floyd had given us that kind of performance people would still be talking about the fight and
saying “boxing is back”. After the back and forth action of rounds 1 and 2, Pavlik took over the fight. He floored Miranda twice in the 6th, and picked up the victory in the 7th when referee Steve Smoger stopped the fight. Kelly Pavlik aka “The Ghost” was the superior fighter in every aspect. He landed the cleaner, more effective power punches, and he was definitely more skilled than Miranda. If/when Pavlik gets a shot at Jermain Taylor he’ll be the underdog, but trust me, he’s a live dog.
How do you know when it’s time to put a term or phrase to rest? Here’s how:
Larry Merchant: There’s a new expression in the South called “Crunk” from Southern Hip Hop music it means hot. This fighter, fight, figures to be crrruuunk.
Larry dropped that jewel on us right before the Pavlik/Miranda match. I would say that “crunk” has now jumped the proverbial shark. Go ahead and put “crunk” on the same list as “you go girl”, “fa shizzle my nizzle”, and “da bomb”…
The second fight got off on the wrong foot as Cory Spinks walked
to the ring with the rapper Jibbs performing King Kong alongside him… I should have heeded the omen and went about my business. I stuck around because I was still giving Jermain Taylor the benefit of the doubt. Taylor’s style is.. is.. well, I don’t know what it is. When Jermain took on Bernard Hopkins, Hopkins’ style took the blame for the 2 fights being stale. When Jermain fought Winky Wright, people said that Wright’s defense can make anybody look bad. I know it’s hard to look good against a guy that seemed more interested in track than boxing, but Jermain Taylor just didn’t take the fight to Spinks the way I had hoped the bigger, stronger, champion would. Even Taylor’s trainer, Emmanuel Stewart wanted more out of Jermain. Stewart to Taylor before the 12th round:
Don’t give a fuck whether you land or not just let ’em go. Don’t worry about it, he’s gonna be a shitty fight but you gotta let punches go. You can’t wait until you gettin him, if you miss him buuyoow and go right back..and don’t take 30 seconds and start another punch… but you gotta get ready to fight this Goddamn round man. He is doing exactly what he said he was gonna do.. Trying to steal the bullshit championship. but you gotta throw some Goddamn punches, quit going up and down up and down..get in there and fight.. you got 3 minutes man, you gotta fight.
The transcript doesn’t do justice to the tone and frustration in Stewart’s voice, but it’s exactly what anybody watching this fight was feeling. There was no doubt that Jermain won the fight, but he’s just not living up to the potential people see in him. I’m not sure if he ever will.
The were only two interesting parts of this fight. 1) After the fight when Cory Spinks was “running around, celebrating as though he has just won the World Series” (c) Jim Lampley, and 2) the judges scores. Let’s look at the scores.
Judge Michael Pernick scored the fight 117-111, and Judge Gale Van Hoy scored the fight 115-113 both for Taylor. The judge’s scores could be reversed because Michael Buffer announced that Van Hoy had it 117-111 and Pernick had 115-113, both for Taylor. The scores in the beginning of this paragraph are from ESPN. The score that both ESPN and the HBO broadcast agree on is Judge Richard Flaherty’s 117-111 scorecard in favor of Cory Spinks. Whaaaaa?!? To quote Jim Lampley on his views about Flaherty’s scorecard “on the basis of that I would say that he should never judge a major championship again. That’s a complete travesty”. I’m not saying that Flaherty was getting paid to score for Spinks, but after a card that far off, I hope he was. I hope he made as much money as possible for working the fight because I wouldn’t let him judge a wet t-shirt contest at this point.
One last boxing related story. In the middle of April I had a post about Joe Frazier suing his daughter. Then I had another post where I reported Joe had called off the dogs on the lawsuit. In that post (this post) I said the only reason he was calling it off was because Jaquelyn Lyde-Frazier was running for a seat on the city of Philadelphia’s Municipal Court in the May 15th Democratic Primary, and he didn’t want to ruin her chances, but I expected the lawsuit to be refiled on May 16th. I was right. Sorta. He refiled on the 17th:
Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier has refiled a lawsuit against his daughter, days after she won a primary election for city judge. Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde turned over some of the documents that are being sought, but hasn’t fully accounted for the money she managed for her father from 1989 to 2004, Frazier’s lawyer said Thursday. The 63-year-old Frazier sued for the return of his records in April, but suspended the suit as his daughter waged a campaign for Philadelphia Municipal Court judge. “Joe just didn’t want to ruin his daughter’s judgeship [race],” Frazier lawyer Michael P. Kelly said Thursday.
I guess I’m supposed to type something about blind squirrels or every dog, but I won’t. This should have been obvious to everybody.
Spink’s style frustrates crowd as Taylor wins by split decision. Courtesy of ESPN.com
Frazier seeks documents from daughter in lawsuit. Courtesy of ESPN.com
Frazier stops lawsuit against daughter while she runs for judge. Courtesy of YBB
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