Large Elsewhere
Dudes, I have four pieces posted elsewhere that I thought I’d bring to your attention, a feature on the James Kirkland/Joel Julio fight tomorrow night, a recap of the final presser and a recap of the weigh-in, all of which are up at HBO Boxing, and then my weekly boxing notes over at The Sporting Blog, where I discuss the weighty matter of Ricky Hatton’s weight. I’m hoping to get a preview of tomorrow’s fights up here either tonight or tomorrow, but I can’t make any promises, cause these last few weeks have drained Large’s resources considerably and absolutely wiped me out writing-wise. But I will be ringside for tomorrow’s event and posting a recap up at HBO – I should be able to get something up here at the Mas also after the fights are over. In conclusion, I’ll just say this – as I pointed out in my weigh-in piece, Brother Mandingo is a fierce-looking motherfucker up close and personal. Julio does not, at first inspection, look equal to that task by a longshot.
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James Kirkland Steps Up (HBO Boxing)
“This is definitely James Kirkland’s first major league fight,” Kellerman told me. “Before this it was like triple-A and now this is a major league fight he’s having on Saturday. And if he wins this one, and then one more major league fight, then he’ll be looking at the postseason, the really big fights.”
Fight Week Blog: The Presser (HBO Boxing)
“I always have my eye out for the fly details of fighters’ regalia at press conferences. And while there were some very cool tracksuits on display today – Arnaoutis’s team in matching white “Team Mighty Mike” togs and Joel Julio’s trainer wearing a jacket with “Joel Julio” on the back in a decidedly throwback, block script – far and away the coolest piece of gear I saw on the afternoon was the windbreaker worn by Victor Ortiz, with a logo on the left breast, “VVO,” in cursive script with two red boxing gloves dangling through the center…”
Fight Week Blog: Weigh In (HBO Boxing)
“There was absolutely no way you could look at those two men standing next to each other and think that Julio has a chance in hell to defeat Kirkland in a prizefight. Then again, great bodies don’t win fights (you hear me, Frank Bruno? Jeff Lacy?), and neither do furious stares. That’s why they play the games, as they say…”
Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes (The Sporting Blog)
“… Just last fall, after his fight with Paulie Malignaggi, Hatton’s new trainer, the one and only Floyd Joy Mayweather Sr., was telling the press that he thought Ricky’s drinking and rapid weight fluctuations were catching up to him, and that if he didn’t cut it out his career was in jeopardy. And though Floyd Joy is often full of the most preposterous blarney, in this instance, one is inclined to think he’s on to something.”
March 7th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Hey Large,
Good stuff. I would respectfully disagree about the Hatton weight piece. In my opinion too many people point to De la Hoya’s weight as the reason he lost. It was his speed. And desire. Both were gone. Oscar’s a businessman now, not a fighter. If you watched the HBO 24/7 series before the Pacquaio fight, Oscar prepared for that fight like….a businessman. Beautiful gyms, dinners with the family in a nice spacious resort, playing with the kids, acupuncture treatments. He looked like the most satisfied man in the world. He didn’t pick Pacquiao because he was “hungry” to prove something he picked Pacquiao to avoid Margarito. It was the smart, easy opponent. A wise business decision. Or so he thought. I saw Oscar fight in Vegas at 160 in 2004 against Felix Sturm. He looked like he did against Pacman, slow and satisfied.
Hatton is like Duran. He parties too much after fights, but he needs to drop the weight. 140 is the best weight for Hatton, anything higher and he doesn’t have too work as hard to get there. So he won’t be as effective. Duran was the same way. He dropped 25-30 lbs between fights for a decade as a lightweight. It didn’t hurt him at all. Once he started fighting at 147-160 lbs, he didn’t have to prepared as hard and was never as sharp. Ultimately, Hatton’s real problem is movement. He has little. he comes straight in making it easy for good fighters to time him and catch him (like Floyd did). Floyd Sr. should only be concerned about this. He’s going to need to show movement against Pacquiao. He’ll need to feint him out of position, move the body and head, slip punches or he loses. At any weight.