The view from here is that Tony Weeks should have given Kovalev five minutes to recover from the low blows and deducted a point from Ward (who’d been previously warned for going low). Most likely, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Kovalev looked to be finished. But the same could have been said of Anthony Joshua after six rounds against Wladimir Klitschko. And boxing fans know how that turned out.
Meanwhile, controversy over the ending shouldn’t overshadow the fact that Ward turned in an impressive performance.
Andre was an Olympic gold medalist. He has fought and beaten more than a few top-tier fighters in their prime. His talent warrants his being regarded as a superstar. But as Larry Merchant recently noted, talent isn’t enough. Being a superstar requires that the public feel a connection to a fighter and be moved by him. Ward’s style of fighting is too clinical, and he’s perceived as too aloof for that connection to occur.
Or as Matthew Swain wrote, “Ward is calculated precisely at every moment. In the ring, he uses balance, timing, and range to make the fight exactly as he wants it to be. It’s like a symphony that you know is technically perfect but lacks anything emotive. Ward is much the same in person. Every phrase, every facial movement, every appearance is controlled to room temperature.”
Ward views things differently.
“I’m boring because I don’t act a certain way on 24/7?” Andre asks rhetorically. “What’s that about? I’m understated. That’s my lane and I’m comfortable in it. I can’t go into a fight thinking about its entertainment value. I just need to do me, execute the game plan, and get my hand raised at the end of the fight.”
And in a June 7 media conference call, Ward elaborated on that theme, saying, “Everybody has to be careful when they say ‘the fans,’ because they don’t speak for all the fans. It amazes me that you’ll have one person speak for all boxing fans all over the world. If you love boxing, yes, you may have a certain style that you favor. But when I look at the sport of boxing, the guys that were on top for ten years, eight years, seven years, they could do it all. They could bang with you when it was to their advantage. They could outbox you when it was to their advantage. And if you love boxing, you love it all. I appreciate the boxer. I appreciate the boxer-puncher. I appreciate the brawler, who maybe doesn’t have the skill to box. I think it’s really selfish to just act as if one style is the only style that all fans across the world want to see and that everybody else is not worth watching. I think that’s inaccurate, and I don’t think that’s the way the sport should be represented.”
Age, Bad Judging, and Jeff Horn Beat Manny Pacquiao
I could agree with the judges who decided Manny Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn. But then we’d all be wrong.
On Sunday, July 2, 2017 (Saturday night in the United States), Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn met in the ring at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia, before 51,052 fans to battle for the WBO welterweight title.
Pacquiao, who entered the contest with a 59–6–2 (38 KOs) record, is no longer the force in boxing that he once was, either as a fighter or a commercial attraction. Five years ago, Juan Manuel Marquez left him lying face-down on the canvas. One punch in a fight that Marquez was losing turned Manny’s world upside down.
Pacquiao has had seven fights since then, highlighted by an embarrassingly lethargic outing against Floyd Mayweather in 2015. The last knockout he scored was thirteen bouts and eight years ago. Still, entering the ring to face Horn, Pacquiao was widely regarded as a quality fighter. He was good enough last year to outclass Tim Bradley and Jesse Vargas en route to unanimous-decision triumphs.
The 29-year-old Horn (16–0–1, 11 KOs) wasn’t seen as much of a threat to Pacquiao. He’d never fought professionally outside of Australia and New Zealand. The only recognizable names on his record were Ali Funeka and Randall Bailey, both of whom were years removed from their prime and have not won a fight since Horn fought them.
There was the usual pre-fight hype. Freddie Roach (Pacquiao’s trainer) told the media, “I have not seen this Manny Pacquiao in seven years. He reminds me of the old days, of the Manny who fought Ricky Hatton, just destroying them.”
Pacquiao, for his part, declared, “In all my years of boxing, I have never been as motivated and fired up as this fight.”
That led to the question of why Manny was more “motivated and fired up” to fight Jeff Horn than to fight Floyd Mayweather. But no one was taking his comments seriously.
Meanwhile, Horn’s trainer, Glen Rushton, told the media that he had a “secret ten-point plan” to beat Pacquiao.
“I can get the job done if I follow it one hundred percent,” Horn assured those who were listening.
Pacquiao was a 5-to-1 betting favorite.
The night began on an inauspicious note for ESPN (which televised Pacquiao-Horn in the United States). A Major League Soccer game ran longer than expected and delayed the start of the telecast by four minutes.
Joe Tessitore, Teddy Atlas, and Tim Bradley called the action from ringside backed in the studio by Steve Levy and Stephen A. Smith.
ESPN’s telecast opened with Shane Mosley Jr. (10–1, 7 KOs) vs. David Toussaint (10–0, 8 KOs). Suffice it to say for the moment that Shane Mosley Jr is to Shane Mosley as Frank Sinatra Jr was to Frank Sinatra. Toussaint won a narrow split-decision victory in a boring fight.
Next up, Irish Olympian Michael Conlan (2–0, 2 KOs) was matched against Jarrett Owen (5–4–3, 2 KOs). The five guys Owen beat had a composite ring record of 4 wins in 30 fights, and he’d been knocked out by a fighter named Haruki Noma (who never won another fight). In other words, the result of Conlan-Owen was preordained. Owen entered the ring expecting to lose and did, on a third-round stoppage.
IBF junior-bantamweight champion Jerwin Ancajas (24–1–1, 16 KOs) vs. Teiru Kinoshita (25–1–1, 8 KOs) was the third televised fight of the evening. Tessitore trumpeted the fact that Kinoshita had won his most recent three bouts by knockout. He neglected to tell viewers that the three opponents Kinoshita knocked out in these fights had a composite ring record of 0 wins and 9 losses. Ancajas won on a seventh-round knockout.
That set the stage for Pacquiao-Horn.
Horn came to win, not just survive. He fought aggressively in the early going, abetted by the fact that Pacquiao is now thirty-eight years old with the wear and tear of a twenty-two-year ring career on his body.
Manny’s reflexes have slowed. Against Horn, his timing was off. He no longer commits to the straight left hand like he used to and was unable to counter effectively for most of the night. He cut Horn near the corner of the right eye in round three and did some good body work from time to time. But that was all he did in the first half of the fight, which looked to be even after six rounds.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao’s blood was flowing. He suffered a deep cut on the hairline from an accidental clash of heads in round six and another deep cut above the right eye from a second clash of heads in round seven, cuts that required nine and eight stitches respectively to close after the fight.
By round eight, both fighters were tiring and beginning to lose form in what had become a sloppy bloodbath. But Pacquiao was getting the better of it.
The action peaked in round nine, when Pacquiao pummeled Horn around the ring, prompting referee Mark Nelson to visit Horn’s corner during the one-minute break before round ten and threaten to stop the fight.
But Pacquiao was unable to close the show.
Then came the judges’ decision: Waleska Roldan 117–111, Chris Flores 115–113, and Ramon Cerdan 115–113 . . . all for Horn.
It was a bad decision. Scoring off of television (not as good a view as the judges had), this writer saw it 115–113 for Pacquiao. If one gave all the close rounds to Horn, those numbers arguably could have been reversed. But it would have been a stretch. And 117–111 was beyond the pale of reason.
Teddy Atlas, sitting at ringside, was apoplectic when the decision was announced. “They gave Horn a trophy for trying hard,” Atlas raged. “You’re not s
upposed to get it for trying hard. You’re supposed to get it for winning.”
Then, after considering his thoughts more fully, Atlas said of Roldan’s scorecard, “It’s only one of two things. It’s either incompetence or corruption. When you see 117–111, I don’t think anyone could be that incompetent. I’m sorry. If you know the sport, you watch the sport, you can’t be that incompetent. So what else could it be? Corruption.”
However, Atlas’s reaction was calm compared to that of Stephan A. Smith.
“It was a bogus decision,” Smith told viewers. “The thing that I’m depressed about right now is that I don’t have the three names and a mug shot of each of those officials for the crime that they committed of robbing Manny Pacquiao tonight. There is no excuse for a decision like this.”
Here it should be noted that Roldan was party to a similar miscarriage of justice three years ago when hometown favorite Heather Hardy was awarded a horrible split decision over Jackie Trivilino at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on the undercard of Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Chris Algieri. That decision was so bad that Hardy’s hometown crowd erupted in boos when it was announced.
More recently, Roldan was one of the judges involved in the injustice visited upon Roman Gonzalez when she scored his March 18, 2017, fight against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai a draw. The other two judges were even more off base, scoring that bout for Rungvisai.
As for Pacquiao, his age is showing.
Tris Dixon recently wrote of Manny, “We judge him by the standards he has set. And they are incredibly high.”
But Pacquiao can no longer meet those standards.
Mikey Garcia: Too Small, Too Slow, Too Good
Mikey Garcia is fond of saying, “Anybody can get hurt with the right punch. But there’s more to boxing than power.”
Adrien Broner vs. Mikey Garcia at Barclays Center on July 29, 2017, was an intriguing matchup and a significant opportunity for both fighters.
Broner (33–2, 24 KOs) turned twenty-eight one day before the bout. Early in his career, he blew through a series of overmatched opponents and looked great in the process. But he has struggled against more credible competition and, in his two step-up fights prior to facing Garcia, lost to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter.
Broner also postures so obnoxiously, says so many silly, self-aggrandizing things, and has been in trouble with the law so often that it’s easy to forget the skills he has and how hard it is to do what he does well in the ring.
Shortly after Broner–Garcia was announced, Adrien criticized boxing fans and the media, saying, “I just feel like they don’t put enough respect on my name. I’m the one the kids wanna be now. Coming up, everybody wanted to be like Floyd that’s my age. Now, coming up, all the kids wanna be like Adrien Broner.”
Not . . .
Still, Broner–Garcia offered Adrien a chance to reestablish his credibility as a world-class fighter.
Garcia (36–0, 30 KOs) is one year older than Broner and has met every challenge he has faced in the ring. But because of contractual problems with his former promoter (Top Rank), he’d fought only eight rounds in the preceding forty-two months.
Broner–Garcia wasn’t for a world title, but no one cared. It shaped up as the most important fight to date in Garcia’s career and an opportunity for him to take a big step forward in terms of public recognition and marketability.
Blue collar vs. gaudy bling.
Garcia opened as a 6-to-1 betting favorite, which seemed like ridiculously long odds.
Broner isn’t an easy out. The fighters he’d lost to—Maidana and Porter—were naturally bigger men who’d beaten him with roughhouse tactics and unremitting pressure, which isn’t Garcia’s style.
Also, Broner–Garcia would be contested at a contract weight of 140 pounds. That represented a new high for Mikey, while Adrien had fought between 140 and 147 pounds on six occasions.
“I’m still a lightweight,” Mikey said when the fight was announced. “I feel that my best division right now is at 135.”
Meanwhile, Broner has a long history of blowing off contractual weight requirements but told the media he’d “make weight easy.”
“I’ve gotten older and I’m getting more wise,” Adrien said. “This next half of my career, I’m focusing more on doing everything the correct way. The first half, I tried to do everything my way. It worked but I could have been better, so I want to try to do everything correctly. I haven’t made weight lately. For what? Now I got a reason to make 140. I ain’t giving nobody half of one million dollars.”
That was a reference to the reported $500,000 penalty that awaited Broner if he failed to make weight.
Then, not only did Adrien make weight; he came in at 138¾ pounds, safely under the contract limit and twelve ounces lighter than Garcia.
The pre-fight buzz had been, “For Broner to win, he has to show up in shape and bring his heart.” Now it appeared as though, at the very least, Adrien would show up in shape. By fight day, the odds had dropped below 2-to-1. People were starting to focus on the fact that Broner was naturally bigger than Garcia, faster than Garcia, and better than anyone Mikey had fought.
There were 12,084 fans at Barclays Center on fight night. Rau’shee Warren (14–2, 4 KOs) won a twelve-round decision over McJoe Arroyo (17–1, 8 KOs) in an IBF title-elimination bout. 2016 Irish Olympian and gold-medal winner Katie Taylor (5–0, 3 KOs) outclassed Jasmine Clarkson (4–8) in a mismatch that represented a step down from Taylor’s most recent opponents and ended in three rounds.
Then the heavyweights took center stage.
Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (18–0–1, 16 KOs), age twenty-nine, is one of boxing’s more intriguing prospects. He has a huge personality and is touted as having a punch to match. But his work ethic is suspect, and he’d been out of action since August 2016 because of a contractual dispute with his promoter, Dmitry Salita.
Gerald Washington (18–1–1, 12 KOs), despite sporting a record comparable to Miller’s, was the designated “opponent.” But he wasn’t a pushover. In his most recent fight, Washington had been even with Deontay Wilder on two of the three judges’ scorecards when he was stopped in the fifth round. And he’d fought better fighters than Miller had fought.
Heavyweights are fun to watch. Miller is fun to watch and listen to. Among the thoughts “Big Baby” uttered in the days leading up to the fight were:
• “I never had to go to a Plan B or a Plan C because nobody can get past Plan A.”
• “Gerald Washington is not a bum, but I don’t see nothing too special about him. Deontay fought him and it took him five rounds to get him out. So I would definitely like to get him out earlier than Deontay to prove a point.”
• “I’ve never seen anybody go five rounds, get knocked out, and get praised for that. Where I come from, we call that an ass-whipping.”
At the final pre-fight press conference, Washington said simply, “I came here to shut that big mouth up.”
One day before the fight, Miller weighed in at a personal high of 298.8 pounds. Washington registered a more svelte 248.
The fight began with Washington jabbing and throwing occasional right hands while Miller walked him down with his own hands held high in a protective posture. In round two, Jarrell started going to the body with both fists, and Washington started to slow down. By round three, both men looked tired, which was a testament to Miller’s body attack and also his own lack of conditioning. By round five, both fighters looked like they were moving in slow motion. Washington started round six with new-found vigor and landed some good right hands. But Jarrell finished the stanza strong in the manner of a slow-moving avalanche.
After eight rounds, Washington’s corner had seen enough and stopped the fight. Two judges had Miller ahead 79–72 and 77–75 at the time of the stoppage. John Stewart’s scorecard was inexplicably even at 76–76.
The next bout matched former IBF 154-pound champion Jermall Charlo (25–0, 19 KOs) against Jorge Sebastian Heiland (29–4–2, 16 KOs).
Charlo had scored impressive victories over Julian Williams and Austin Trout in his two most recent fights and is a very good fighter.
Heiland had a 2014 knockout win over a faded Matthew Mackin on his resume but not much more. The four men Sebastian had fought since then have a total of sixty-six losses on their combined ring records. Yet that had been enough for Heiland to be ranked number one by the WBC, which qualified him to fight Charlo (number two) in a middleweight “title elimination” bout that was all but certain to eliminate Heiland. Charlo was a 20-to-1 betting favorite.
Charlo-Heiland was as one-sided as people thought it would be. Midway through round two, Jermall dropped Sebastian with a right uppercut followed by a vicious pounding that referee Benjy Esteves seemed vaguely aware of but was loath to interrupt. At that point, it was clear that Heiland was going to get beaten up until the fight was over, which was in round four.
After the bout, Heiland said he turned his left knee in the first round and that the injury hampered him during the fight. The available evidence strongly suggests that his knee was injured before the fight. More on that later in this book.
That set the stage for Broner–Garcia.
The fight began with Garcia trying to close the gap between them and Broner trying to widen it. Or phrased differently, Mikey was seeking to engage in violent confrontation while Adrien was seeking to avoid it.
Broner likes to lay back and counter until he has worn his opponent down. But countering like that is almost impossible to do against Garcia.
Timing can beat speed. Garcia dominated the first eight rounds fighting a disciplined fight, mixing punches to the head and body, and surgically carving Broner apart. Adrien shook his head so often to indicate Mikey’s punches weren’t hurting him that, after a while, one could be forgiven for fearing he’d get whiplash.
Protect Yourself at All Times Page 10
