It was definitely an edge of your seat fight and not the reason why you would normally think in a GGG fight. GGG came out with little urgency, under control, and finished the same way, with little urgency, no energy. Derevynchenko (DV) came in thinking upset and, in my opinion, clearly got it. The old saying about fighters getting old before your eyes, well, it looks like that’s exactly what happened to GGG. GGG looked gun shy, he looked soft in the midsection, he looked like he wanted a way out. DV was pressing the fight, landing the punches and taking the chances. It just seemed like DV just wanted it more. GGG looked old and like his legs were stuck in the mud with his shots falling short, missing and he was just not pulling the trigger when it seemed warranted. It seems like he over trained. I felt like that GGG was robbed against Canelo, well, they just put some of that robbery back into his account because DV was just robbed and GGG was the beneficiary. In truth, GGG is 37, even though he looked 100, and it is his call on what he should do, but, if he feels that he made enough money in his career, retirement from a rough and tumble sport like boxing prior to suffering any real damage doesn’t make him look weak but intelligent. GGG should go out on top, he has nothing left to prove, he has proved more than most in his sport. I will say one more thing, Canelo gave up the title instead of fighting DV, so there’s that.

 

 

Muncy’s foot when he caught the ball.

 

What a fight…… Yarde is a beast and Kovalev came in as beast tamer. It’s a must see fight. This fight will only help Canelo. Kovalev took a beating and Yarde took a worse beating. Kovalev should take 6 to 8 months off before fighting again. Canelo doesn’t have Yarde type power but some heavyweights probably don’t have Yarde type power but Kovalev should fully recoop before going again.

Watch the fight.

What was noticeable is that Kovalev’s right hand wasn’t doing much in the way of discouraging the young lion but that number 1, that jab of Kovalev’s, won the fight for him. He KO’ed the hungry fighter with a jab. He started with a jab and finished with a jab. I gave every round except the 7th and 8th to Kovalev. You can tell that Yarde was a little nervous in the beginning and that his adrenaline was flowing because every punch was fast and some were coming up short. He wasn’t pacing himself, he wasn’t trying to establish distance or timing. He was just throwing quick punches which were tiring him out. Yarde looked like he was trying to finish the fight in the first round. Kovalev, on the other hand, was establishing his jab and his distance, his experience showed. He wasn’t nervous or throwing all out fast punches, he was letting his opponent do it and run into his punches. Kovalev realized that 12 rounds is a long time while his opponent had only gone 7 rounds previously. Yarde started a marathon with a sprint and couldn’t finish the race while Kovalev started with a reasonable jog and didn’t have to finish, he just went further than Yarde and in boxing, that’s all you have to do. Yarde will get there. He’ll learn to lay off the gas pedal early and save some gas for the finish but for now the rabbit lost once again while the turtle is still the champion.

 

What is going on? Mets fans are asking for Callaway to be removed? What??? Do they think they are rooting for a nun softball team? Do they think that tempers aren’t going to run high from time to time? What Callaway did, while maybe not the best way of handling a heckler, and let us be honest, he was a heckler, I don’t think calls for the firing of Callaway. The Newsday reporter knows that Mickey’s head is in the guillotine and he is under pressure to win. The Wilpon’s have already made a meeting with Callaway known and that the meeting was about his future. While I wasn’t there for the exchange, I can assume, which we all know is a bad way to come to a conclusion, that maybe Mickey was taking the remark as a deliberate shot to his longevity and maybe the way it was given and whatever snide way it might have been said, that the Mets manager, after losing the lead due to a bad outing by one of his relievers, was already on edge. And we don’t know all the exchanges Callaway had with this reporter and maybe this reporter, as some have, has called for a change in managerial methods or maybe this reporter did nothing but was just there at the wrong place at the wrong time. Who knows what is going on except to say that the Mets have lost some heart breakers, but that’s on the players, not on Mickey, at least not for now. I say give the guy a break, let’s see how the Mets respond, because if they make they playoffs, everyone calling for his head, will be calling for his head on a bust to enshrine it. We still have another half of the season, let’s see what the outcome is before you start pulling your support. Plus, if you just watch the Mets to win, then you are watching the wrong team, wait, that came out wrong, what I mean is, I watch them because I’m a fan of the dog in the fight, how they hustle and how they try. I can honestly say that they are fighters and give you your money’s worth, even when they lose. They don’t quit. If you just want to see egos play, then the Yankees are right there for you with their high money, buy wins, mentality (I like the Yankees too). But if you want to see heart, all out effort, hustle and and can do mentality, then the Mets are the team.

Let me start off by saying…. what a fight! This fight had every soap opera plot consolidated into 7 rounds. Drama, expectation, let down (for some) and a cinderella ending (for others). This was Baer v Braddock, Tyson v Douglas, Rahman v Lewis conceptualized in the modern day. If this was the outcome you expected, outside the Ruiz family, then you are the smartest boxing analyst there is. This isn’t a knock on Ruiz but he was a 25/1 underdog. That’s $250,000, a quarter of a million dollars, if you bet $10,000. I had that, I wish I had known. Ruiz is a good fighter, budding on great now, and the first time I saw him fight, my first thought was that this dude has some fast hands, but boxing reasoning prevented me from giving this guy the chance he obviously deserved. AJ is taller, has a crazy amount of reach and is punching down, adding more power to his shots. Ruiz, on the other hand had to wade in, punch up, and had to be the aggressor. This usually doesn’t make for a great chance of success but Iron Mike made a pretty good living at doing just that. The Wreckin’ Mexican got off the canvas to deliver what might be his virtuoso performance. I don’t know what the future holds but this guy will always go down in the annals of boxing history as a world champion. Something that few have experienced but many have craved. Ruiz is a hero to many. Good for him. For those selfish people that bet money on him and refused to let everyone else know whatever insight they had, next time just respond to one of my blogs, I’ll listen… and the beers are on you for the next year.

I congratulate the new WBA, IBF, WBO champion….And New! Andy Ruiz but I also congratulate Joshua for stepping in the ring and going out on his shield. It’s no easy matter, stepping into the square, and he has nothing to be embarrassed about. Not many people can you know. Step into a square ring, knowing that the guy across from you is going to try render you unconscious. I have trouble asking my ex-wife if I can be a week  late on child support, they’re asking the other guy to give me your future paydays that is meant for your family. To be fair, she’s Colombian and speaks faster spanish then Ruiz’s combos so we’ll just call it even.

 

 

The tag line for this picture was that the scorecards proved that Canelo built an early lead, my tag line would have been “How the F**k could these scorecards be so different”.

The one thing that I got from these scorecards is that something is definitely off. There is something wrong here, when three capable judges disagree so much. They disagreed on 5 out of the 12 rounds. They disagreed on over 42% of the fight. How can you get a clear decision when that happens. That was a statement, not a question, ergo the absence of a question mark. That is a failing grade in any other event on this planet. The problem is not the judges, it’s the commission. They haven’t done enough to evolve to settle these problems. Boxing is the only sport that has not tried to figure out ways to improve these disparities. I can give a few right off the top of my head

1. Put the judges at a better vantage point. They should be at the same level as the fighters or higher. When the fighters are at the corner further away from a particular judge, the nuance of slip and counter are harder to realize when you are looking up. They are lot easier to notice when you are viewing down. I know that this might obstruct some of the fans but that’s why you have the jumbotrons for the spectators. We prefer that anyway
2. Make all decision fights, especially title bouts, provisional decisions until confirmation by the same three judges and three separate judges.. Meaning that that all decision fights would be reviewed by a panel afterwards to confirm. Can’t tell you how many times I watched a fight on TV, from a better vantage point then the judges, and wondered what the f**k (that stands for fuck) were these judges viewing. This gives a cushion to change a bad decision without having to do the silly appeal stuff and give the appearance of the sport being less fixed for the superstars, ahem, clearing my throat, the Byrd decision in the first GGG v Canelo fight is a great example why you should implement that rule, you can even call it the Byrd rule. Don’t mean to be to harsh on the lady but she got it wrong and most likely because of her vantage point.

These are just two thoughts off the top of my head. Whatever they come up with, I’m sure would be better than the current 57.5% grade that they got on this fight. One thing is for sure, they have to do something. First of all, the 7th and 10th rounds were definitely Jacobs rounds, not doubt about it. If you go by Moretti’s scorecard for the last two frames and you scored the 7th and 10th the right way, not doubters for Jacobs, then Jacobs is the victor. My scorecard is on an earlier post, but I had the advantage of replaying the fight and confirming the right call, which in my opinion was a draw. Come on boxing, even slow ass baseball has instant replay and a replay home office to review calls. You need to evolve with the times and figure out a better way to make the sport a little less controversial and a little more simpatico, what a funny word…. simpatico, anyway back to the point, fix it. Come on Nevada, you are suppose to be the superstars and megastars of boxing super bouts, because if New York does it before you, if they become boxing innovators before you, you will be in second place before you can say supercalifragislisticexpialadocious and that would be atrocious.

YESSSS!! The Mets are back baby! They tie it in the 9th with a home run, take the lead with heads up inside out hitting to the opposite direction in the 18th and their bullpen blows it in the bottom of the frame to go under .500 for the year. I’m so proud of these guys. Their consistency of doing the same thing year after year is awesome. There is no other team that can do what they do and how they do it. Fan for life….. I’m not being sarcastic, which might be the funnier thing. I’m just proud that they tied it and then took the lead but the weak spot has always been the bullpen after we take the lead. It could have been Clemens, Randy Johnson, Tom Seaver pitching that frame, we are just cursed for now. Still my team.

This was an amazing fight. I watched the fight again to make sure I was not mistaken. It comes down to the 11th round. If you gave Jacobs the 11th, then Jacobs won the fight, if you gave Canelo the 11th, then it was a draw. Jacobs didn’t lose but he is from New York, where getting robbed is a daily occurrence. Some notes from this fight. Jacobs can wallop but you’re not knocking down a concrete wall, and Canelo is as tough as the wall Trump wants to build. If you put a bunch of Canelos on the southern border you wouldn’t be able to get a tank through. That guy has a Thanos chin. Jacob’s shots were thudding, at least that’s what it sounded like but when you hit a concrete wall, that’s the sounds you are going to get. It was close but Jacobs clearly won 6 rounds. The 9 – 3 combo couldn’t miss. That’s the left hook to the body and then back to the head. Every time he through it, they landed. But god damn, what is Canelo’s head made of? It was an amazing fight, I had it a draw.

I am reading that some people found this fight boring. I thought it was a great fight. The difference in the top three middle weights is so minimal that either one can win on any given night. Breaking down the fight

Round 1 – Jacobs (close but clearly)

Round 2 – Jacobs (clearly)

Round 3 – Canelo

Round 4 – Canelo

Round 5 – Jacobs

Round 6 – Canelo

Round 7 – Jacobs

Round 8 – Canelo

Round 9 – Jacobs

Round 10 – Jacobs

Round 11 – Canelo (by a smidge)

Round 12 – Canelo

There’s people that were giving the early rounds to Canelo, They were wrong. Jacobs was the clear winner of the first two. There was a close round somewhere in there, I think it was the 4th or 6th that could have gone either way but I gave it to Canelo because the man rarely takes a step backwards. I thought the DAZN announcers were pretty good but I think that they were confused on which one was Canelo and which one was Jacobs because their scorecard might have been almost opposite of mine. I think they gave the 8th to Jacobs which might have been Canelo’s best round. I see a huge problem with DAZN taking over boxing and protecting their fighters on close fights.