Complete Crap
Masians, I’m wounded, and not because I lost a carelessly wagered hundred bucks on Sam Peter. Yesterday’s action in the ring was incredibly disappointing to me. Both major fights featured lackluster performances that made me ache for the current state of boxing, from the loser in one bout and the winner in the other. I’ll start things off with far and away the more shocking result…
He’s heavy… AND he’s my brother
Ah, quitting on your stool. Few things are less likely to endear you to the fight community, and few a more destructive harbinger for the future of a career.
Sam Peter’s sit-down retirement after the eighth last night was no doubt a product of the WBC’s bizarre adherence to open scoring. Big Sam was taking a whupping in there, nothing was going his way, and the news that he’d won exactly one round to that point on all three judges’ scorecards proved too much bad news for him to bear.
The scoring system aside, though, it’s hard to forgive a fighter for throwing in his own towel the way Peter did last night. Yes, Klitschko was outclassing him in every way, and yes his efforts to turn the tide of the bout were proving futile at every turn. But Sam has been known to turn things around with one big shot before, and he’d landed a few bombs in the prior couple of rounds that were without question his best shots of the fight. Vitali was starting to wear down just enough for Sam to get close now and then, and it was giving Peter the opportunity to make the fight into the kind of infighting brawl that it needed to be if the Nigerian was going to transform that nightmare in there into a happy ending.
Don’t get me wrong – I had no illusions that he was going to make it happen. Though I don’t want to take too much away from Vitali, I was more struck in this fight by Peter’s lethargy and incompetence than I was by Vitali’s renewed vigor. I doubt the edition of Sam Peter that stepped in the ring last night would have beaten Jameel McCline last year, or Oleg Maskaev in March. He certainly stood no chance to get past Vitali, given the skill, speed and overwhelming size differential he faced. And fighting the way he did, he was tailor-made to get completely embarrassed. If you stand in front of a man who is much bigger than you and has much longer arms and a respectable ability to punch accurately, and if while standing there you rarely move your head, and your jab is an off-balance friendly paw-slap that you rarely get off first or with any authority, and if your only feint under fire is to bend at the waist and put your head in your opponent’s wheelhouse AND STAY RIGHT THERE… well, if you do all those things over and over again, you are going to get the shit beaten out of you.
In the second round, Sam’s corner asked him if something was wrong with him, and it certainly looked like that way to me. He fought like about 50% of the man we’ve seen fight before. No one has ever confused the guy for Joe Frazier, but in the past he’s had infinitely more fighting spirit and guile than he did last night. And that bout was a perfect example of how one bad night can sour an entire career, because the way he went out in that ring is an indelible black mark on his record, one that I imagine in one foul swoop removed his name from the big-time heavyweight equation for the foreseeable future. The next time you see Sam Peter, I’m betting it will be on ESPN, and that’s if he manages to make it to television at all.
As for Vitali, I’m not sure that I’m entirely sold, although on paper it’s hard to argue with what he accomplished yesterday. He had a job to do and he did it about as convincingly as it could have been done, so bravo, Dr. Ironfist. He’s flippin freakin big, there’s no doubt about that. I wonder if he still has the pop that he used to, though, for as many times as he caught Sam with that big, downward right-hand tomahawk, he couldn’t put him down, and Big Sam, as we all know, has never needed a lot of coaxing in the past to taste the canvas.
But hell, he definitely marked Peter up good, so I’ll give him a pass on that one. He looked fast, too, but in that Sam looking like he was fighting under water, it was really hard to gauge what exactly was what in terms of the speedometer in there. Arturo Gatti looked fast for a few rounds when he fought Carlos Baldomir. As has been noted many times before, speed is relative.
Then again, even if he isn’t as fast as he looked, who exactly is Vitali going to fight who’s going to expose him? Now that he’s back, is he going to have to go through the formality of beating the crap out of the C-list of Russian pretenders out there, the Valuevs, Chagaevs and Ibragimovs of the world? What about Chris Arreola? That would be interesting at least, although more in concept I think than in practice, because the height and reach differential would put Arreola in one hell of a hole from the opening bell. Of course, you at least have the feeling that come the eighth round, swollen and losing by a wide margin on the scorecards, Chris Arreola would NOT be quitting on his stool.
But the bottom line is this: Last night’s result leaves us with no choice but to accept that the best two heavyweights in the world – the only genuinely viable heavyweights in fact – are two big white Ukrainian brothers, neither of whom in my opinion is very good in the grand scheme of things, and what’s more, neither of whom has any interest in fighting the other.
Sheesh. Things just keep getting more and more boring for the big guys and there’s seemingly no end in sight. Help us, David Haye. You’re our only hope.
Sometimes a win is just as good as a loss
I’m wondering if maybe Chad Dawson thinks, because of the Rocky movie and because he knocked out Roy Jones, oh, four years ago, that Antonio Tarver is a GIGANTIC star. Is that possible? Because that’s about the only thing to my mind that could explain Dawson’s performance last night, that he thinks Tarver is so huge that merely walking away with a W is a major triumph that will up his Q factor to the point where he’s immediately a candidate for the big big money bouts.
If this is what he thinks, of course, he’s wrong as rain. Tarver was never on the A-list in the first place and he’s been out of shouting range of the big-time since he got pantsed by Bernard in 2006. All he is now is a washed-up 39-year-old with a big mouth and some minor credibility based on his trilogy with Roy.
In other words, he’s EXACTLY the kind of fighter that a young up-and-comer with the eye of the tiger looks to make his name against, to knock into tomorrow with an astonishing KO that is so vitriolic and vicious and viviacious and vivisectional that it makes SportsCenter and goes viral on YouTube and gets the Calzaghes and Pavliks and even Bernards looking in his direction and starting to see dollar signs where his eyeballs should be.
But Chad Dawson, evidently, is not interested in money. All Chad Dawson was interested in last night was surviving, piling up the points against a very soft Tarver who was practically begging to be finished and escaping unharmed with a unanimous and otherwise utterly forgettable victory on points.
Way to go. Dawson fought in pyrotechnical but largely ineffectual flurries, did a lot of rope-a-doping, and took entire rounds off. What, were you tired, Chad? You’re 26 years old and this was your close-up. You want to go to the top of the heap and you’re fighting a guy who is DONE, who’s shaky on his legs and throwing pitty-pat combinations at you that wouldn’t faze a featherweight. And what do you do? Hot-dog it and play it safe at the same time. Dawson fought the last three rounds last night like he was De La Hoya fighting Tito. Even though Tarver got tagged with a flash knockdown in the 12th (one that was mostly a slip) I still gave him the final round just for the fact that Big Bad Chad was backing up on his bicycle the whole time and not even trying to land anything of consequence.
It was a disgrace. It’s inarguable that Dawson has the talent, and I even think he has the power. It’s the desire that he lacks. You just have to wonder what’s going through the kid’s head when he’s in the marquee boxing event of the weekend on Showtime fighting for belts and a chance to make a major statement and he chooses instead to coast his way to a routine win on points. I guess he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to be rich.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I think it’s important to note that Vitale made Sam Peter look pitiful with out ever putting his hands up. He was toying wih Peter the entire fight. I can’t imagine Juan Carlos Gomez will do any better to be honest.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
No doubt about it, Gene. I actually thought that the low hands thing was working well defensively against Peter because of the way Peter was stepping to him. But yeah, hey, if I’m coming off like I’m hating on Vitali, well… I guess I am a little, because I’m just not that impressed with him and I never have been. But without question he beat the bejabbers out of Big Sam last night and deserves props for that.
You see that David Haye is now saying he wants Vitali and then Wlad. From his lips to Allah’s ears.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I’m boycotting the HW division from now until further notice. It’s embarassing for the sport at this point and I can’t justify getting excited about a single hypothetical matchup out there.
Chad was pretty disappointing too. I really like the guy, which is why I’m a bit bummed to agree w/ your take on his lack of desire. No way that Tarver shoulda made it through this one on his feet.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I see some of your points on Dawson, but it did feel like Tarver has a decent beard on him. Hard to gage the power behind certain shots because they were so fast and he was coming with so many, but I don’t believe he dogged it to the extent you’re saying.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I was wondering if this was covered yet: I’m going to Jones/Calzaghe and I know No Mas fave Salita is on the undercard. I thought it was supposed to be a title fight, but Kotelnik pulled out. First citing a rib injury and then the purse…. Would it be out of place to ask No Mas Friend Kurt for some clarification? What happened and who is the kid he’s going to fight now?
October 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Kopper – it looks like we’ve had a second opponent bounce on us as well. This kid Willie Limond (who’s flooring of Amir Khan doesn’t look so novel anymore) signed to fight us but now says “his heart is not in the fight” because of all of the stuff about Kotelnik – he stopped training. Even though we have a signed contract – there’s not much you can do if a guy decides not to fight (see Campbell vs. Guzman).
We are scrambling for an opponent three weeks out from the fight. The promoters have offered us this kid David Torres – 20-1(13) from Washington. If that’s the best we can get – we’ll take him though it’s still not a done deal. There’s a press conf. scheduled for next Tuesday so hopefully we’ll have someone inked by then.
Regarding Klitschko – he did what was asked of him and what most thought he couldn’t do – dominate Peter much more effectively than his bro, with 4 years of ring rust to boot. I don’t know what happens to heavyweights when they go to Germany, but one thing they don’t do is throw punches. Peter wasn’t much more active than Lamon Brewster was when LB fought Wlad in their rematch. It was a pathetic performance by Peter – he showed no desire to fight nor any heart in spitting the bit on his stool and giving away his crown. The heavyweights are mighty soft and mighty boring these days.
Dawson and Tarver produced fewer fireworks than I expected. Tarver looked like he knew he was outgunned from the first round on. He stayed defensive and tried to land a potshot or two. Dawson fought smartly and tried to put rounds in the bank and not give up the home run ball. It wasn’t exactly Leonard-Hearns but it wasn’t too bad either. Unfortunately, I don’t know where Dawson goes from here. I don’t see either Calzaghe or Pavlik wanting any. What could be intriguing is a mandatory he has with Tavoris Cloud. Cloud is a energetiv aggressive fighter with some pop. He doesn’t have the height or the science to outpoint Dawson but he could catch him with a finisher. He’ll at least try a lot harder than Tarver. A rematch with G. Johnson might not be a bad idea either.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I really hope Dawson has no place to go than into a rematch with the road warrior. Other than that, it was a disappointing evening – but hey, maybe Pav-Hop will surprise us.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Thanks Kurt. Here’s to hoping you get someone who can further Salita’s career. Can’t wait for the fight. I know a bunch of us are getting drinks before the fight (I-berg?) and if you’re around, beer on Kopper.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Woah- I dont think Dawson deserves anything but praise for his fight Saturday. He was still taking it to Tarver in the 12th, and Tarver’s never been knocked out or even seriously hurt that I’ve seen. So it seems a bit much to jump all over Chad for not getting the KO. Also, I think he is sort of a “reverse Kelly Pavlik”, in the sense that he looks like he’s hitting harder than he actually is (as opposed to having deceptive power). I guess because he throws those fast combinations. In any case, Chad Dawson made me a fan.
Also, Daniel Santos is fighting on the Pavlik undercard (the part televised by HBO, too), FYI. word
October 15th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Damn, so hard on Dawson. Next time he better just put his man away.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Kopper I am definitely down for drinks. Let’s plan for Jimmy’s Corner:
140 W. 44th St.
Any other No Masians in town let’s do this. Maybe 7:30? Kopper what time you think you’re gonna want to head in?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Unsilent, all I wanted was for it to look like he was TRYING to knock him out, instead of fighting in largely ineffectual flurries (many of which, impressive though they seemed, were blocked) and then staying on the bike. Come the seventh round, there was nothing left on Tarver’s punches, zero. I understand having to keep an eye out for Tarver’s big left because he’s finished guys with it before, but if I’m an up-and-comer who is completely dominating Tarver in there and I see that he’s looking VERY weak, I’ve got to at least throw a modicum of caution to the wind and lay it on the line for a big finish. Because Kurt is right – where does Dawson go from here? His win over Tarver did absolutely nothing for him career-wise. Or in political terms in this presidential season, he has no mandate. In my eyes he came out looking like a slick-boxing hotdog without much heart.
Are all you Masians going to Jones/Calzaghe? Make a man homesick. Although I have my doubts about that fight…
October 15th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Fellas please check out the new episode about Wil Rosinsky on:
http://www.nomas.tv
Let me know what you think.
ci
October 15th, 2008 at 11:43 am
yeah keep am coming I-Berg!
October 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am
OK, Jimmy’s Corner at 7:30 it is. I imagine the Salita fight will be the 1st fight of the night, so we’ll go in right before that starts.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
If we go to Jimmy’s Corner, we will need to find out when the 1st bout is going to begin (Kurt?) because its a bit of a walk to the Garden (12 blocks). Otherwise, we can go to Blarney Rock on 33rd off 7th.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
looks like haye will get wlad in june
im not a huge dawson fan…but the kid has skills…its not like he was andre dirrell in there against curtis stevens…it wasnt that bad…i dont think it matters much for his career whether or not he ko’d tarver or not…hes gonna be stuck fighting the diaconu’s or looking at glen johnson rematches…seriously tell me if he ko’s tarver what big fight is he gonna land? maybe at best a catch weight fight with jermain?…nothing big was coming up anyway…i think for all the trash talk for a well over a year that was spewed…dawson has some respect for tarver and kinda carried him..sorta like roy let tito finish on his feet when he clearly could have put him down
really wish i was goin to roy/calzaghe…tried to get some guys together…but they are cheap…plus wed already booked our 2nd trip in 2 years out to indy to see our pats against the colts(yeah this one hurts…at least the celts are in town the night before at conseco fieldhouse)…cant wait for the no mas preview as i will surely drop my view….and i cannot stand calzaghe and got roy at +280 a while back
i also managed to grab a free ticket to hatton/paulie…so ill be out there the 22nd
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