Some Observations About Last Night's Fights
I'll get the little stuff out of the way first: Samuel Peter grabbed a share of the heavyweight title by knocking out former champ Oleg Maskaev in the sixth round of an inept, but not dramaless, struggle between two ponderously slow, unimaginative heavyweights. If Peter has any chance of establishing himself as a fighter worthy of public interest, he should insist on fighting the other champ (I can't include Ruslan Chagaev as a champion anymore; he simply doesn't fight anyone) Wladimir Klitschko within the next few months. That'll settle the world championship question once and for all. That said, do you have any doubt that John Ruiz, who professionally and with no undue effort, decisioned Jameel McCline in a near shutout, would force Peter into an oxygen-deprived coma eight or nine rounds in, were they to fight?
David Haye, with a "Gee, Ma, thanks for the chemistry set!" physique, billboard smile, and already in-place campaign strategy, did exactly what was necessary to springboard himself into some huge paydays. Haye is a perfect media construct. I couldn't tell much about whether he can fight; his opponent Enzo Maccarinelli so clearly can't that it was hard draw an educated guess. The big thing is that Haye can punch and will approach the big guys fearlessly. Showtime should find some recognizable heavyweights that they're sure David can beat and keep his face front and center while lobbying on his behalf for a heavyweight title shot (something he can't possibly win.)
In the evening's most interesting development, Juan Diaz got beat. More than beat. He got beat up. And he got beat up so thoroughly and so professionally by the totally well-rounded Nate Campbell that it puts him in a position where he needs to take stock of himself. This is exactly the kind of going over that forces a real fighter to evaluate his own talent, his own performance, and his own prospects, and then to figure out how he can correct the mistakes that made him lose. It's possible that Juan Diaz will never be able to beat Nate Campbell. But, in order to achieve what I'm sure is his goal of being a legitimately good fighter, nothing will do but that he come back to avenge his first pro loss. He needs better corner people, for starters. Although his corner can't be blamed for his loss (nothing he could have done last night would have bailed him out), sending Juan back out to do the same thing that was getting him shredded to ribbons while having the shit kicked out of him wasn't exactly yeoman service. Fire the bunch of them. But don't use them as excuses for the loss. Diaz, not surprisingly, showed not one trace of mutt during a fight that, realistically, should have been stopped by someone ten rounds in. If he's ever to develop into a genuinely good fighter, Juan Diaz has to be far less monochromatic. There was no Plan B option in place last night. That alone should be a big lesson to him.
Finally, a word on Nate Campbell. I’ve now seen him violently upend two undefeated prospects. The first, Almazbek Raiymkulov, took an even worse beating than Juan Diaz did last night. Campbell does some truly masterful work. He should be credited (at age 36!) for outworking one of the hardest workers in the business in Diaz. That’s a feat in itself. But more impressive still is the impassive economy of his working system. He uses his shoulders better than anybody currently boxing. Employed as forceful herding devices, he maneuvers his opponents into the exact position he wants them, then rocks back slightly and wings in pinpoint little hooks and uppercuts. He needs almost no space in which to work. This is Old-school stuff executed at its highest level. Nate’s been around a long time and really knows how to fight. He’s earned his paydays the hard way. I hope he’s able to really capitalize on his fine win over Juan Diaz.
posted by Charles Farrell @ 10:11 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
How artless these heavyweights are. Peter’s lumbering performance was effective against the 39-year-old Maskaev because the latter is basically done as a top ten fighter, has known it since postponing this fight for over a year, and was looking for a way out including repeatedly complaining to the referee about Peter’s real and borderline back-of-the-head shots, even until just moments before the fight was stopped.
What made having to use HBO to witness this show even worse was the announcing. You could turn off the volume to avoid their pitchmen, but you would also miss a lot of the atmosphere, the thud of the punches, and even the words of the referee and cornermen in the process. Perhaps as technology advances, along with picking camera angles, we will be able to choose selectively which audio tracks to hear and which to mute. We don’t have that yet, so we are still stuck with the tuxedoed talkers of the television networks/promoters.
The Peter-Maskaev fight ended in the sixth when Peter hurt Maskaev, landed a barrage of unanswered head shots, Maskaev slumped helplessly back into the corner, and the referee stepped in to halt it. Kellerman shouted, “That’s the kind of knockout we were looking for.” Steward said, “That’s a real heavyweight knockout.” Lampley echoed that it was “almost Kelly Pavlik-like.”
You would have thought that we had one of those memorable scenes where one guy stands victoriously over his fallen foe. While there can be no real questioning of the stoppage, there was no fighter falling to the canvas, no one being counted out, and no one vainly trying to arise and regain his senses. It wasn’t exactly premature ejaculation, but it also wasn’t a satisfyingly graceful climax.
They also called this fight almost like it was Ali-Frazier 1, which, coincidentally took place precisely 37 years prior, on March 8, 1971. The HBO-ers did this to hype a rematch between Wladimir Klitschko and Peter so there can be one heavyweight champion, who, of course, is signed to HBO. They also failed to mention the name of the sanctioning body of this fight, the WBC, which is a basic breach of journalistic responsibility. Excoriate them endlessly, which of course they mercilessly deserve, but don’t pretend like some state-run network in some dictatorship of some sort that they have no name. In fact, HBO is its own rival alphabet.
Kellerman’s postfight interview with Peter was almost all badgering him about his next fight rather than discussing this one. The HBO line was no Vitali, only Wladimir next. I assume that means that Vitali has no contract with HBO, at least yet. In any case, I think the public would accept a Klitschko duopoly, as long as the fights were interesting. Who will really care about Wlad-Peter 2 if it looks like Klitschko-Ibragimov and this one last night?
HBO also couldn’t celebrate the looming entrance of David Haye into the heavyweight division because he had just fought and won on their rival network, Showtime. HBO’s tagline that they have the best fighters is exposed week after week. They even had to shill Diaz-Campbell, a good scrap, as fight of the year because their suits were too dumb to buy Vazquez-Marquez 1, 2, or 3, the latter of which is the clear frontrunner for 2008 fight of the year and will be quite difficult to beat.
They criticized the judges before the Campbell decision was announced, although in the end two of them got it right and the third was fairly close. Lederman gets just as many if not more wrong, most recently Williams-Quintana.
For Campbell, I agree this was a career performance. He has bounced around different promoters, had the Robbie Peden fiasco when he was knocked out after dropping his hands and mugging at him, and was written off as an aging underachiever. He adjusted perfectly to Diaz, and hopefully will get some huge paydays now.
Diaz grew up a lot last night. I doubt he will sack longtime manager and trainer Willie Savannah, especially if he lands with Golden Boy, as has been rumored. He will more likely replace Ronnie Shields. He is still just 24, although I agree that these types of fights age a fighter quickly. Think Fernando Vargas.
Agreed on the comments on Haye, although if he wants to earn the big bucks and not the middling pounds by fighting as a heavyweight in Madison Square Garden, Atlantic City, or Las Vegas, he will have to drop the Hulk Hogan physique. I’m sure his peeps know that, too, or will tell him. He may be no heavyweight savior, but at just 27, could provide some entertaining fights and beat a lot of these guys.
Eddie, I think that Haye would be better served (professionally although not fistically) by developing a bigger version of his current physique. It's part of what will lure in the public. If the primary responsibility of a professional boxer is to earn as much money as possible over the course of the fewest fights, then Haye will be smart to maintain "the look." It's more important than his putting on real boxing pounds as a bulwark against bigger guys. Unlike Juan Carlos Gomez, Haye is no heavyweight posing as a cruiserweight. In fact, he'll be just the opposite. Since his sojourn upward is likely to be both precarious and brief, let him get paid heavyweight money during his stay among the big guys.
By "Hulk Hogan physique”, I meant using Hulk Hogan "vitamins". If Haye wins a major fight in the U.S. but gets caught using something I don't know whether or not he is using, then he will sacrifice that earning power, especially in today's environment. He will likely have to fight a couple of gatekeepers on the way up, so a quick scandal would derail a lucrative fight in a couple of years. If he does it all naturally, more power to him.
I understood what you meant by "Hulk Hogan physique." We're talking about exactly the same thing. If that's what he's doing (and, like you, I have no idea whether or not he is), he should keep doing it and be careful not to get caught. He's far more likely to cash in on his looks, personality, and punching power than he is by his skill as a boxer. This is especially true at heavyweight, where his vulnerability to punches will only allow him a short window of opportunity. Think Jeremy Williams.
Aye, I think this is a longstanding juicy disagreement we won't solve here.
I didn't see the Ruiz-McCline fight. News reports said it was punch-and-grab by Ruiz -- and yet another win. He dominated the guy who dropped Peter thrice last year. I hope there are serious plans to bring him back from exile.
This is the predictable pro-Ruiz post. Sorry.
Of the top-rated heavyweights, only Wladimir Klitschko looks to be a problem for Ruiz--not an insoluble one, but a significant one, just because he's both hard to get to and physically strong once you get there. But he doesn't have half the heart Ruiz does, and if the fight goes long and Ruiz has made him work, it could go either way in the late rounds. I don't think a guy like Klitschko will be able to accept how strong Ruiz is, and he won't get used to it. Ruiz can't win just by staying in the fight, but if he works hard to make Klitschko work hard for the first 8 rounds or so, possibilities open up late.
Ruiz isn't going to get any gift decisions at this point, but he's a terrible handful for the other heavyweights. Everyone will continue to dismiss him as boring, and he will continue to be nine miles of bad road. I think Peter is particularly made for him to wear out. If he could get going along that path--and Peter's handlers would be fools to let him--a Ruiz-Klitschko fight after a Ruiz defeat of Peter would settle for me the question of who is the heavyweight champion of the world. Not that it would convince me that the heavyweights were any better than lousy these days, but it would put one guy at the top, at least for the moment.
I freely confess to being sympathetic to Ruiz, and to feeling that he has been criminally underrated, not because he's so great but because he, alone of all the recent heavyweights, has gotten everything possible--in terms of effort, dollars, wins, belts, you name it--out of his body and his talent. And I regard him as a sort of one-man corrective to the tendency to confuse muscled-up bodies and thunderous telegraphed punches with heavyweight prowess. The near-universal inability to see him for the consummate plug-away tough-guy professional that he is underscores, for me, the impoverishment of the fight world's analytical conversation. Writers and commentators are in such a rush to think like network executives that they can't see what they're looking at, when they even do bother to look.
I realize there's a kind of fighter for whom there's almost no place anymore. Guys like John Ruiz weren't so unusual in other eras and their kind of skill was appreciated, even if those skills never translated into box office appeal. Fighters like Gus Lesnevitch, Joey Maxim, and Joey Giardello were all cut from a similar cloth. They weren't graceful, they weren't great natural athletes, and they didn't do anything spectacularly well. But they were experienced, tough, and intelligent professionals who knew their business. You had to be very good to beat them. And it's worth noting that John Ruiz has never lost to a bad fighter.
I'm now going to stop my obsessive commenting on this particular thread.
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