April 30, 2021

Chris Arreola put up a good account of himself in his last fight. Against Adam Kownacki he went the distance and in so doing set a record for most blows thrown by a heavyweight. The fight wasn’t particularly competitive in that he lost most of the rounds, maybe all, but in each one he was engaged and competing. His performance inspired a blog post too (see ‘Props to the Nightmare’).

In that post I mentioned that he had said before the fight that if he didn’t win, he would retire. I defended that decision, saying it was great to see a warrior go out in one piece, his dignity intact.

“I’m too old to start over, and that’s where I’ll be if I lose, back to square one.”

So I cringed when I first heard of the matchup. But then I thought about it: Why would Arreola change his mind about this?

No doubt if he pulls off the upset, there will be a big payday yet in his future. Maybe even another good showing in a losing effort will yield for him another lucrative fight. And even if he gets stopped, he is still getting $500,000 plus a share of the pay-per-view receipts for this one (maybe as much as $1,500,000).

He is forty years old, but in a sense he is still in his prime, if he can make that kind of money. It’s his profession, what else is he going to do?

As for Ruiz, everybody wants to see him trimmed down. I’ve read that he is down to 255. I’ve seen some photo-shopped pictures, too. We’ll all see the real Andy tomorrow night. I can tell you, 255 on a 6’-2” frame is not trim. If that number is accurate, he’ll still have some upholstery on him.

And this won’t matter against Arreola. He has always fought with a spare tire too. What will make a difference is Ruiz’s speed and superior boxing skills.

Ruiz by stoppage.

May 2, 2021

Arreola continues to be the story. He continues to surprise me. First, he weighed in at 228 – the lowest of his professional career. Second, he’s an Angelino. I was under the mistaken impression that he was Mexican by birth and not an English speaker. During the pre-fight hype he said that this fight was not about the paycheck, that he wanted to best Ruiz since Ruiz had done what Arreola felt he should have done (win the world title). Given the amount of work he put into training, I believe Him.

He has changed his mind about competing at the top. He plans to continue.

And he fought a good fight. Good enough that he got all pissy at the judges scorercards, thinking he had won more rounds than the one or two they gave him. He was wrong, but I believe he was sincere in that belief. (I was a little surprised that he went all potty-mouth in front of his six year old son.) In his mind, it was a close fight.

He had a great fight strategy that had him winning until Ruiz figured it out. Too bad he didn’t seem to have a plan B. Ruiz racked up round after round with hand speed, counter punching and boxing finesse.

As for Ruiz, I was a little disappointed. Sure, he won, and won convincingly. But we all knew he would do that. He was a 20 – 1 favorite. I wanted him to mow Arreola down in 1 or 2 rounds. Had he done that the tapeworm

would likely put him at the front of the line to face one of the tall-and-lazy ones. You know, the ones that won’t fight each other.

I suppose now he’ll have to face Ortiz or Wilder or Whyte. Or, God help us all, a rematch with Arreola. Can’t we make that illegal? You can have a return bout, just not back-to-back.

And they should start stripping titles from these wankers that would rather dicker over money than actually fight. I mean suppose you were looking at a fifteen million dollar payday. Would you put the whole thing in jeopardy by insisting on sixteen?

Me either.

Wankers.

December 11, 2020

I’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time, like Dubois / Joyce it seemed like the day would never come. But here we are.

I’ve thrown some shade Joshua’s way in the past mainly because I’m pretty juvenile and I’m a huge Klitschko fan.  After the frustration of Fury’s becoming a boxing champ by not boxing, followed by the frustration of him flaking out on the rematches, I would rather have seen Joshua get knocked out.  Then Klitschko could have retired as champion, with one more enormous plume in his well-feathered cap.

C’est la vie.

Pulev is to me, a puzzlement.  He is 28-1 with only 14 knockouts.   He  He’s 6’-4” and fights around 250 – a big man.  How come he can’t knock anybody out?  He’s fought some real fighters recently. He beat Derek Chisora, Samuel Peter, Kevin Johnson, Hughie Fury – I guess I’ll have to look these up on youtube and see how that happened.  I just can’t picture it.  I’ve only seen the Klitschko fight.  In that, he was embarrassed.  Not only did he get knocked down 4 times, but like so many other Klitschko opponents, his offence was stymied to the degree that he looked like an imposter.  Like Leapai or Pianneta you had to wonder “is this guy a real boxer?  He looks like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.” 

That’s what I expect to see tomorrow.  Joshua will stymy and embarrass Pulev.

December 12, 2020

Well I wasn’t wrong.   I didn’t see the CompuBox numbers but it had to be very lopsided. And Pulev looked so small!  I mean they were supposed to be nearly the same weight and only two inches apart in height but it looked more like there was six inches and twenty pounds of lean muscle between them.

I was charmed to see him smiling, blood on his face, giving Joshua a high-five in what looked to be a hearty congratulation after the fight.  I’ve seen fighters do that before, but not Pulev.  When Klitschko decapitated him, he said “He got lucky” and “I want a rematch”.  Maybe he was just glad to get one more big payday at 39 years old. 

Or maybe he’s nuts.  It was pretty creepy how he grinned while getting his ass kicked in round three. He made it a point to show the crowd and the cameras that he was grinning, lifting his mug up into the light for all to see, almost getting nailed with a right cross as a consequence.  He mugged for Klitschko too after the first knockdown.  I guess maybe he’s just not used to getting hit that hard and it brings out the Pee-Wee in him “I meant to do that.”

I hope he retires with some dignity left, and doesn’t wear himself out trying to get a third crack at the title.

Eddie Hearn indicated that he might possibly consider a unification bout with Tyson Fury in the next year. Joshua said he wanted that fight sooner. Let’s start a pool – how many months before this fight takes place? Or maybe just go over/under on 24 months.

As a fan one can only hope.  Sigh wistfully and hope.

Meanwhile lets see these other fellows mix it up.  It’s time for Ruiz to make an appearance. Kownacki needs to get back in the saddle too.  Dominique Breazeale needs a match, as does Junior Fa. Joyce has called out Usyk – let’s see that fight.

As for Joshua, it was good to see him engaging again, you know, actually throwing punches with evil intent, not playing patti-cake  like he did in the Ruiz rematch.  He looked to be back in top form, his confidence restored. 

My buddy (that I was watching with) was rooting for Pulev, having become exasperated with Joshua’s “I’m God’s gift to boxing” comments.  They irritated me too, but I think that’s just a necessary attitude for a champion to have.  Like Iron Mike said you have to believe “I’m the greatest fighter God ever blew air into” to succeed.  Certainly his namesake likes to boast. And if those two ever get together (and please God, let it happen) I will not be making a prediction, just watching eagerly.

Of course I watched Povetkin vs. Whyte.  It was the first heavyweight fight of note in God knows how long.  And I enjoyed he crap out of it too.  There was a fair amount of drama, and a surprise ending.  Who doesn’t love an underdog win?  The lack of fans still bugs me, though.  It’s confusing – when someone gets knocked down, there should be an accompanying roar.  I mean there always has been.  Without the roar I find myself asking “What happened? Was that a slip?”

But worse than that is the number of masked men.  All the cornermen had them, the cameramen, and even the ref was wearing one. Of what possible use are they?  Are they suggesting that they could not check these men’s temperatures, or swab their noses before the fight to determine if they were carrying the bug?  Are they suggesting that even with the numbers reduced to, what, a dozen, that it was simply too many to test?

Welcome. To. Florida.

I think they refused to allow that measure of common sense to win the day because they wanted to present an optic. They wanted to show the world a group of hard, virile, and “toxic”. males kowtowing to PC nonsense.  It’s exactly the same reason they coerce football players into wearing pink on Sundays.

They don’t like football, and they don’t like boxing.  In their minds violent sports are a key part of the socialization that molds young innocent boys into overly-aggressive toxic males, soldiers of the patriarchy.  They do launch frontal assaults too.  If you look for them you can find Op-ed pieces decrying the number of injuries that occur, dain bramage, etc. calling for a complete ban on contact sports. But they also work these more subtle angles, suggesting rule changes, shortening durations, adding padding, and so on. It’s the little-by-little strategy. 

It’s like the guy that left the construction site every day with his tool belt and lunch box in a wheelbarrow, and every day the security guard checked his lunch box and tool belt and never found a thing.  Finally he asked “I know you’re stealing something, but I can’t figure out what it is. Please tell me.”  And the guys says “Wheelbarrows.”

They are thinking “First we will make them wear the mask, then we will take away their sports and then their guns and automobiles!”

Actually it’s probably more like “If we can make these tough guys do this dumb thing, It will be that much easier to get the next wheelbarrow past the hoi polloi.”

“Let them have their transgender restrooms.  The Cleveland Browns are wearing pink, I guess anything goes!”

In the preceding paragraphs I used the word “they” over a dozen times.  “Aha!” You say.  “Who then is this “they” that you revile?  Do “they” even exist? Or is your tinfoil hat screwed on too tight?”

Shut up. 

They are the ones that oppose boxing, that want to abolish football, guns and cars that burn fossil fuels.  These are the ones that are sure that they know better than you do what is good and right. They believe that you are ignorant, and that if you were only better informed (Speak Out Against Violence!) you would join them.  

You call them what you will.  I will stick with “they”.

But they and their monkeyshines didn’t ruin the event. It was an interesting matchup, a top contender versus an old wizened warrior.  And I don’t mean old in the sense of creaky or derelict.  Povetkin seems to be as solid as ever.  And Whyte is the boogeyman that nobody wants to fight, it seems.

And they looked pretty even, and to me, well matched, Despite Whyte’s lead on the scorecards. Each round was competitive.  Then the two knockdowns happened, but Povetkin didn’t really seem hurt by either.  It did seem though that Whyte had sorted him out and was soon to lower the boom.

The combination that ended with a left uppercut to the point of the chin was thrown by Povetkin, not Whyte, and “boom” indeed.  Sheer brilliance.  Fast, too.  The old warrior still has a good chin and some spring in his step.

It was not that big of a surprise.  Klitschko beat him, but felt he had to cheat to do so.  I was more impressed with Povetkin’s restraint, not bitching about the holding, than I was with Wladimir’s knockdowns.  His only other loss was to Anthony Joshua, and to my way of thinking was ahead in that fight when he got caught in the 7^th.

I was initially pumped, thinking we would get to see Povetkin in another marquee matchup.  Maybe against Ortiz, or Ruiz, or even Fury.  But no, it seems they had one of those damnable rematch clauses in their contract and Whyte wants the rematch, is vowing to knock him out.

I don’t really want to see a rematch.  I don’t really want to see Fury / Wilder III either.  Miocic and Cormier just fought their “rubber match” in the UFC, and I didn’t want to see that, either. I wish they would just move on, fight other guys, give someone else a shot.

There have been numerous worthy trilogies over the years – Ali / Frazier leaps to mind.  Ali / Norton too.  Pacquiao fought Marquez four times (a “quadrogy”?) but these series did not occur consecutively.  They happened over a number of years with fights against other opponents intervening.  I mean I love (LOVE) watching Ohio State butcher the Wolverines every year, but I don’t want to see them do that every week.  It would just get a little stale.

There’s lots of good heavyweights out there, waiting for their chance.  Ajagba, Zhang, Joyce, Usyk, Fa.  Let’s stop the never ending rematches, clear our schedules and book some new fights (not Tom Schwartz, Tyson) against new and exciting talent.  Or old and cagey talent, like Alexander here.

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago it seems, I watched a night of boxing held in an empty ballroom.  We were innocents then, virgins as it were to quarantines and masks and watching sports reruns on YouTube.  Back then it was supposed that the thing to be avoided was a large crowd, so they held the fights with just the principals, their corner men, and their immediate families.  Some officials and cameramen rounded out the number. 

We briefly thought that was the new normal. I had no inkling that we were about to enter a dystopian world devoid of sport.

Then they canceled the NCAA tournament, then NBA, and NHL, and MLB and on and on.

Joyce vs. Dubois has been moved to July, as has Whyte vs. Povetkin.  All the news is about who wants who – Breazeale wants Ruiz, Usyk wants Fury, Whyte wants Miocic.  Miller just wants to fight. 

Fast forward to Easter Sunday and I went to Ying’s.  Ying’s is the neighborhood Chinese greasy-chopstick.  Every neighborhood has one, and if they don’t, they wish they did.  The food is good and inexpensive, the service unreliable but that’s okay when you can get soup, appetizers and entrees for two for $36.00. 

They have their menus printed on what look like placemats, laminated plastic affairs printed on both sides. One menu is westernized food, with your egg-foo this and moo-goo that, the other menu has authentic Chinese dishes.  

Looking online for the fish soup that Lisa likes (It’s one of the Chinese dishes), I  could I not find it.  I didn’t see any authentic dishes at all, except for a short list of “Chef Specials” on the last page. Wondering what was up, I drove down there to find out (It’s just two miles) and was surprised to see ten cars (I counted) parked in front.

Because of the virus and the governor’s edicts, they had tables lined up blocking entrance to the dining room, creating a small waiting area.  There were no chairs there, to discourage loitering I suppose. Three Uber or Grub Hub drivers were  waiting for their food, but there was no one at the cash register.  After a minute a masked and harried woman emerged from the kitchen and got rid of two of the drivers, then spoke briefly to the other, then turned to me “And you? What you want?”

“I wanted to order for carryout” I said, “do you have the Chinese menu?”

“No Chinese! American only!”

“Oh.  Can I see a menu then?” I swear she practically threw one at me. “You call!” She seemed genuinely irked that I had showed up in person to make an order.  I said something about the menu changing, and she gestured to the one in my hand.  I nodded and said “Yes, I know, and I’ll keep this one.”

Then I ordered and paid and she again raised her voice, “Twenty to thirty five minutes!” I said okay and drove back home.

It wasn’t always this way.  The original Ying herself moved back to China years ago.  But when she ran the place, there were many original dishes, I mean her own inventions, including several salads, which are unheard of in China. Then her husband took over for a time, and it became a more mainstream western menu. Then some young Chinese men bought it and they introduced the little hunks of meat on a skewer and cooked over a flame thing- chicken hearts, whole little fish, even sheep testicles. That didn’t last long.

The current owner is the somewhat grumpy lady above, the author of the two-part menu and it’s demise.

Through all these changes, one thing stayed constant. The staff never seemed happy to be there.  It’s as if a curse of gloom enveloped the building.  They may have tried, but they never pierced that darkness.  I suppose a poor location is to blame – they just never get enough business to really make it worthwhile.  Also contributing is their miscomprehension of ‘service’- or at least the way we Americans comprehend it.  They could be slow, they’d forget something that was ordered, bring the entrée before the appetizer, etc.  Plus, wearing a long face while waiting tables is not the way to win big tips and enthusiastic return customers.

I’m a return customer and the grumpy lady knows me.  She knows what I order too. She has met my wife and all my children, as I go there to eat pretty often. I have decided long ago to look past the service stumbling for the sake of the good food. Instead of complaining I try to bring a smile to their face; to be, as much as possible in this context, a friend.

I came back in a half hour and there were ten different cars parked in front. My food was ready, I could see it on a table beyond the barrier.  I could hear her and a man yelling at each other in Chinese back in the kitchen.  That brought back painful memories.  I spent ten years cooking in various restaurants, so I’ve been in those stressed-out, blaming each other shouting matches. Not fun. 

In a minute or two she appeared, saw me standing there (with a new crop of Uber drivers) and walked briskly to the front and handed me my bag.

I held out my left hand, with a $5.00 bill in it.  She either didn’t see it or just ignored it, walking past me to answer the phone that was next to the cash register. I laid the bill next to the phone and walked out. It was just a token, a gesture.  Like a card when you’re sick “Hey I saw you. I’ve been there.” I heard her say something that might have been “thanks”, or she could have been talking on the phone, I wasn’t sure.

On the drive home, I thought about Forrest Gump and his shrimp boat. How he struggled to catch any shrimp at all until his luck changed, and then suddenly he was hip-deep in shrimp.  He and Lieutenant Dan didn’t curse the shrimp.  No, they reacted to the new circumstances with eagerness and gratitude.

They became wealthy.  May my Chinese friend do the same.

There is an opportunity for the same thing to happen in boxing too. (See? It is too about boxing!) Not long ago we had 2 or three fight cards on prime-time TV every week. So much boxing that I honestly didn’t watch it all.  I would DVR them and then look at the names to decide which ones to watch.  We had a wealth of televised boxing and then: *Urk?*  No boxing. 

The spigot has been turned off.  Now we wait and hope for a Forrest Gump, to bring boxing back to TV.  

I’ll have the number seven and some crab Rangoon. 

But I fancy a bit of pugilism, what do you say?

It’s shaping up to be an exciting Spring. As long as the money-grubbing – behind the scenes – sanctioning body weasels don’t ruin it. And that’s more than semi-likely, truth be told. But for now, lets bask in the possibility of these things coming to fruition and enjoy what Carly Simon and ketchup producers alike have extolled as one of life’s keenest pleasures: anticipation.

First is the tantalizing potential for a Dillian Whyte / Andy Ruiz April or May showdown. Word is that a seven figure offer has already been made and Ruiz is already training. (I know, he said he was training for Joshua 2 too but come on, stay focused! We’re being positive here!) If Ruiz can get past Whyte (and my guess is that he can) then he’ll get a shot at the winner of Fury / Wilder! (So they say). That would be awesome. Let’s see these guys mix it up while they are all still in their prime. Fury and Wilder have mutual rematch clauses, meaning whoever loses can opt for the trilogy, and that can stretch things out a bit, but even having the possibility of a Ruiz / Wilder or Fury match this close to reality is exciting. I thought it would take much, MUCH longer.

Kownacki meanwhile is apparently going the wanker route, fighting Robert Helenius in March. This has frustrated Dominick Breazeale, who was trying to get a match with him in order to reinsert himself at the top echelon of the division. The picture I saw of Breazeale accompanying that story was the angriest face I’ve seen on him. That was the face he should have had on when he fought Wilder. Maybe he can get a bout with Jarrell Miller. I’d watch that.

Usyk is involuntarily wanking, taking on Derek Chisora this Spring because well, a man’s gotta make a living I suppose… but then (assuming he gets past Pulev) he is next up to fight Anthony Joshua. That could be very interesting if my hunch about Usyk is right (that he’s fast enough and talented enough to compete with the big boys.

Conner McGregor is seeking a fight with Manny Pacquiao. Talking yesterday with a friend I mentioned this and and after noting that they will make a buttload of money said something like “This is stupid, he’ll just get knocked out again.” My friend replied “Well then everybody gets what they want.” Frankly I kind of doubt Manny would sign on to a farce like that.

But first up is the rematch between Fury and Wilder and I can’t wait for this one.

I was recently challenged to publish a prediction, so he goes: understanding that I already reported the fight as even money, my gun-to-my-head I have to pick a winner prediction is…Wilder by K.O.