The Bradley Effect
posted by Large
Masians – to borrow a line from ole Jim Anchower, it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya.
Taking my customary late winter’s nap through the dark period of March Wackness, I didn’t think I”d make it back on the stick here at the Mas until PWill/Winky, a curious dish of oft-ducked southpaws served up on HBO this weekend with a side order of 24/7 and a Thrilla in Manila doc appetizer.
But this past Saturday’s Tim Bradley/Kendall Holt scrap brings me back into the fray a few days early. It was a great fight, I thought it was scored perfectly and each man comported himself with fire, guts and dignity in victory and defeat. All told, one of those rare evenings where nothing seedy happens and you come out proud to be such a devoted follower of the hardest game.
If you didn’t see the scrap, I definitely recommend checking it out, if only to witness the first-round knockdown that Holt laid on Bradley. I include this ghetto-ass YouTube vid below just to wet your whistle – the smacketh gets layeth downeth at around 2:06:
Gus Johnson (who is really lighting up that Showtime play-by-play gig, by the way) and Al Bernstein marveled throughout the rest of the broadcast on Showtime that Bradley took that perfect left hook to the chops and lived to tell the tale. I echo the sentiment, although I do think the punch caught Bradley ever so slightly off balance and way the fuck by surprise, which made it a little more spectacular than it actually was. Nevertheless, if you do manage to catch the actual broadcast, you’ll see in the replays that the punch actually rolled Bradley’s eyes back in his head. Holms was definitely buzzed like four Hennies and a splif. He jumped up immediately after going down, took two steps back towards his corner, and said “wait just a goddamn minute here, I’m fucked up” and took a knee for an eight-count. Good for him. Many a fighter before him in this age of sudden bravado has gone for an early shower because his machismo refused him a good eight seconds of much-deserved fog clearage. Bradley was still shaky at the end of the first, but he had the legs to make it out of the round, which may not have been the case if he’d leapt right back on the horse.
On my scorecard (and the judges’ I gather) Bradley proceeded to win the next seven rounds on pure guts and relentlessness. He kept flinging himself at Holt with the same abandon that got him clobbered in the first round, although making the crucial adjustment of pulling his shots back quick and ducking like a muh-fuh when he was whirling his many whirlwinds of combinations. As Gus and Al pointed out over and over again, Bradley was indeed shoe-shining it up with amateur gusto, shoeshining like Crazy Tommy before he made his nut, but those flurries did not to this fight fan appear to be wholly ineffectual. And even less so on the ineffectual front were the leaping lefts and rights that Bradley was digging to Holt’s body. Sometime around the seventh, in fact, I thought Holt might go because of the accumulation of body shots. It brought back memories to me actually of the young Cotto, working his man’s ribs so consistently and with such force that come the middle rounds you started to see real pain in their eyes. Holt was wincing a lot in there, and Kendall Holt is one mean hombre not much given to wincing.
Which makes it all the more impressive that Bradley managed to roughhouse the shit out of him with headbutts and lowblows and just a constant barrage of general mayhem. It was all the roughhousing, in fact, that seemed to get Holt back into the fight, as the non-stop headbutting got such a rise out of him that he came out swinging in the ninth and unquestionably won himself his first round since the first.
I gave Holt the tenth, too, and I’m guessing that one judge agreed with me on that while the other two didn’t. It was definitely close. Bradley came back to grind out the eleventh and then seemed well on his way to owning the twelfth too when Holt finally found Bradley’s button again, catching him with a monstrous uppercut that saw Bradley stumble forward grasping onto Holt, then the ropes, and then, for only an instant, dropping his glove to the canvas to steady himself, a moment that I missed on first watching but the ref did not. This was only one facet of what I thought was a stellar job of refereeing all night throughout twelve rounds of non-stop, borderline illegal nastiness, so add that to the various blue-ribbon aspects of this bout.
You have to remember here too that Bradley, who fought about a gazillion amateur bouts, never has tasted canvas in his entire career. Say what you will about Kendall Holt, but the man can bang. Bradley said as much in his post-fight interview, although he added with a perfect assessment of where he stands in the fight world right now, “aw man, people are going to be lining up to fight me now after they see those two knockdowns, thinking I got a glass chin.” I know Money May heard that. Huh, Money thinks. Diamonds cut glass.
But I get ahead of myself. I was nervous, I admit, when they were totaling up the scores for this thing. I had it 114-112 for Bradley, although 8-4 in rounds with the two extra points for the knockdowns. Sometimes in a fight where one guy wins it on points and yet the other gets more seriously hurt, I feel like the result is unsatisfying, because what is a fight after all besides a hurting contest? Here, though, I felt like Bradley had dished out more than his share of hurt to Holt and deserved to get the W on sheer moxie. He brought the fight all night, he worked his ass off, and, well, there’s no better way to sum it up really other than that tired old battleaxe of pop sports psychology – he simply wanted it more.
I was prepared to see his efforts unrewarded, however, but I had no reason to fear. A unanimous decision was awarded to Bradley, with the scorecards reading 114-112 and two 115-111′s. I almost couldn’t believe it. As far as I was concerned, the judges had gotten a close, tough fight exactly right. That shit, my friends, does not happen very often. And I know, I know, what the hell do I know, I thought David Diaz was going to upset Pacquiao, so who am I to say my scorecard is correct? But you know what? My inner prognostification mechanism has been off for about ten months now, I readily admit that, but I’ll still stack my scoring up against anyone’s. The ringside gabbagools Showtime had for their press row scoring had two even cards and a card giving it to Holt by a point. Without reservation, I call that pure, amateurish gabbagooliganism. Bradley won it fair and square, and thank God the judges saw it the right way, because it was an inspired and meaningful fight and it would have been a shame to see it tainted.
Some beautiful moments after the bout included Holt and Bradley actually talking about the fight together in Holt’s corner as if they’d just sparred and were analyzing and complementing each other’s performance. I haven’t seen that often before, if ever now that I think about it. And then Bradley wept what were most un-Floyd-like tears of genuine joy. Meanwhile, Holt, though clearly disappointed with the verdict, said only that he was disappointed in himself. When the Showtime lady (and who the hell is that lady anyway?) baited him about all of Bradley’s headbutts, he admitted that they’d bothered him, but then quickly qualified that with Tony Soprano’s benediction of Buddhistic dismissal… “whaddyagonnado?”
Which was probably the right way to see it. What was he gonna do? He fought a rock-solid fight and put his man down twice, and he still conclusively lost. Disappointment is about the only way to go with that. How else are you going to feel in the epic contest of wills that is boxing when a less talented and less physically gifted man straight up outwills you? D to the izzeye, S to the izzay.
Me, though, I was anything but disappointed. Combined with the Valero knockout from the Lightweight Lightning card, I came out of the weekend amped for the big-time fights to get back in the ring.
Likewise, I’m amped to get back to the Mas. Lot of A-list action coming at us in the next few weeks, and I’ll be on the case, I promise, starting with a PWill/Wink prognostification piece this Friday. Spring is here, and so is Large. Word and word.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I agree, Bradley put up one hell of a performance. Where does he go from here though? I can’t see Pac, Hatton, or JMM fighting him which means he’ll have to look down for big fights right now. He’s got a mandatory with Devon Alexander but he’ll probably give up his belt before that fight happens. The most logical fight in my mind is with the Galaxy Warrior. Would be an exciting scrap in which both fighters would have a lot to gain.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:42 am
First of all, good to see you back Large!
Second, yeah Bradley fought a good hard fight, though I still think, Holt mainly fucked it up by refusing to let his hands go. Sure Bradleys body hammers had something to do with it, but Holt stopped to jab and just wasn’t active enough in the middle rounds.
Third: Gene, I’m with you, Nate is the right fight for Bradley… not sure, if he can win it though. Nate is – if age or the weight class doesn’t catch up to him – a bad mofo, he can bang and he won’t stop after 2 rounds like Holt.
What’s your take on Valero Large? Dude can bang and he seems very fast too me but his chin is so wide open, he makes Gamboa look like Sweet Pea. I’d love to see him take Katsidis or Juan Diaz in his next one. Also, that Lightweight card was great by itself, four really good fights.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Trickster – thanks, it’s good to be back. I always feel like half a man when I’m not active at the Mas. But, you know – a brother has to eat.
I enjoyed Lightweight Lightning as well, and it seems like a model for the sport moving forward. Taking a page out of the MMA book, really, stacking up excellent matches for the hardcore fans and putting it on a reasonably priced PPV.
Valero is the small, Venezuelan Edison Miranda. And thus, soon he will get a big fight. Pacquiao/Valero would be some Hagler/Hearns shit.
Gene, I disagree with you about Bradley’s options now. He came out of that thing with two belts remember, and though belts certainly don’t mean what they used to, when you got two of them it certainly ups your Q factor immediately. For me, he is an absolute natural make for Floyd right now, %100. Floyd had a big problem before – he needs a tune-up and yet he’s Floyd. Who was he going to fight that he knew he could beat that anyone would want to watch?
But now, here’s Bradley and his “glass chin” and his crowd-pleasing style and he’s got TWO BELTS at 140, which is the weight I’m guessing Floyd ultimately will want to fight Pacquiao at. It’s almost too perfect. Bradley sets up PERFECTLY for Floyd. And you know why? Cause he’s the black Ricky Hatton. Relentless pressure, not a lot of pop or skill, goes to the body, easy to hit but tough as balls. Which brings me to the next big fight that’s out there for Bradley. If Floyd passes, which he may very well do just because he may not want to jeopardize that stupid nasty Pac Man money for any tune-up bullshit, then I almost guarantee you that after Pac Man whups Hatton, Hatton will fight Bradley in England. It makes perfect sense. Hatton can say, all right, I’m through fighting these superduper elite pound-for-pound guys, maybe I’m not in their class, but I’m still the best legit 140 out there and I’ll prove it by taking Bradley’s two belts.
And for once in my life, that’s a Ricky Hatton fight I’d actually like to see. Bradley/Hatton is a very entertaining, ugly, foul-filled fight. Talk about your Irresistable Force vs. Irresistable Force fights. I mean, who ends up going backwards in that thing? Neither guy knows what to do moving back.
So, in conclusion, I think Bradley has some serious options out there. He all but said it himself – he’s a two-belt champ who just got dropped twice on national TV. People definitely will line up. Hell, I could even imagine Marquez fighting him in his continuing pursuit of Pacquiao. You know, like “all right Manny, you went to 135 and I chased you there and became unified champ – now you’re a 140 so I chased you THERE and became a unified champ! Where are you going to run from me now?”
April 7th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Hey Large – it is always wonderful to have you back stirring the luscious drink that is No Mas. That woman BTW – Karen Bryant – is the latest in a list of hotties – Suzzette Charles, Cassandra Henderson, etc. – who have no business doing post-fight interviews. She’s worked for CNN and E! but not for The Ring, MaxBoxing or No Mas – that I can recall. I’m wondering if Bill Maher does the casting for Showtime Boxing – maybe Ms. Bryant will be succeeded by Superhead.
As far as what’s next for the 140′s – from my “boxing insider” position (thanks Steve Kim) I can say that Money May is trying to put a fight together with JMM for the summer. If he can’t get a JMM fight, he’s actually thinking about fighting our boy Salita. In fact, the Money May crew were down in FLA recently meeting with the Steinbrenner’s to talk about the feasiblity of fighting D in Yankee Stadium. Mind you – this is all speculative and can change at any moment, but that’s what’s on Floyd’s plate.
A friend of mine told me that the Galaxy Warrior was more than likely going to fight Ricardo Torres on a Top Rank card this summer (either Pavlik or Cotto’s). So he is not in the Bradley sweepstakes either at this point.
Personally, having drafted the management contract between Kevin Cunningham and Devon Alexander (back when I co-managed Cory Spinks with Kevin) – I’m rooting for Devon to get his shot at Bradley. I think that’s a helluva fight and Devon is busy enough to beat Bradley. To my mind (other than a certain fighter I represent) – Alexander, Lamont Peterson and Victor Ortiz are the future at 140. One or all may get knocked off, but it’s exciting to see three young Americans who can fight make their way up.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Great points about the judging and refereeing in that fight, Large. Both were right on. The judge catching that last knockdown was perfect.
And while I did enjoy the fight and believed it was entertaining, I don’t agree with your assesment of the fighters themselves.
First up is Holt. He obviously has power, but he showed me no heart in that fight. The rough-housing you mentioned wasn’t nearly as bad as Holt made it look. There were slight head-butts, and Holt would immediately turn his back and walk away. He also kept pawing at a cut that wasn’t bleeding. He gave me the impression that he had no real interest in going to battle with an agressive, hustling opponent.
Regarding Bradley, I simply don’t think he has enough skills or power to be a real threat to any top fighters, including Ricky Hatton. Sure, Bradley comes forward, but he throws weak, looping punches that don’t have much on them.
I think Nate Campbell would absolutely destroy Bradley, and I think Victor Ortiz would handle either one of the guys from this fight RIGHT NOW, and he’s still at an early development stage. I guess we will see soon enough, since Ortiz is fighting Kotelnik in a couple months for one of the trinkets.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I’m looking forward to the fight Saturday. I think Winky is going to beat Williams. I think he punches cleaner and is a better defensive fighter, but he has been off for long while, so you never know.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
You’re right Large, the Hatton fight would be a nice little scrap. As a Hatton fan, I’m hoping he doesn’t have to go down that road. Personally, I think Hatton takes Bradley out. Nothing against Bradley, but Hatton is too experienced and too strong for Bradley right now. Of course, I’m a pretty biased Hatton fan.
I’m looking forward to this weekend as well. Being from the St. Pete area, Winky has always been my favorite fighter so it’s great to see him getting back in the ring. If Winky is the same fighter who fought to a (win) draw with Jermain Taylor, he makes Paul look silly. If he’s lost a step, he’s headed into the lions den.
I think Winky’s got a few more great performances under his sleeve. I think he will frustrate Williams for 12 rounds and win the UD.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
hearing some rumors of a nasty day for miguel and his uncle…i guess things hit the fan
April 9th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Yeah I read the same thing Ricky. The report I saw said Cotto and Evangelista “exchanged blows” (which I’m assuming didn’t go well for Evangelista) and then Evangelista threw a cement block on Miguel’s Jaguar. In the old days of the west, they would hang you for stealing a man’s horse. Cars are today’s equivalent of horses in the wild west….I’m not saying Evangelista should be put to death but the man deserves a serious beat down for messing with Miguel’s Jag.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Just an update on something I mentioned earlier. It looks like Victor Ortiz will not be fighting for a 140 pound belt vs. Kotelnik, as Amir Khan has swooped in with a better deal to move up to 140 and fight for that belt.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Yeah, I read where Richard Schaefer said that Frank Warren scooped up Kotelnik for Khan despite the fact that he had an agreement with Kotelnik’s people in principle for Ortiz.
Something doesn’t seem right about that though. Does Frank Warren have more money and clout than Golden Boy? Me no think so. I’m wondering if maybe Golden Boy’s people didn’t watch that Bradley/Holt fight and think, “why not get our boy two belts instead of one?” Doesn’t Bradley/Ortiz sound like a natural make? Great fight for Ortiz.
By the way, just so you dudes don’t misunderstand me, I am under no illusion that Bradley is very good. I think he probably loses to Hatton, although I think it would be close, because as I’m sure you all know my estimation of Hatton is low. But I think that Bradley deserves to get at least one bigtime fight, and based on who it’s against, I could see him making it interesting, cause I think he’s got bigtime heart.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I got a piece coming at the Sporting Blog about the Cotto business, just a recap basically. Bad bit of business.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Will read your Sporting News piece Large. Just spoke to someone from Bradley’s camp – there’s no way they are fighting Devon Alexander. Not surprised – high risk, little reward. So just as quickly as he had two belts – poof! – he’s back to one, the WBO. They are trying to holdout and get him a fight with one of the big guys – Pacquiao or Hatton – looks like he’ll have a better shot at the loser.
Regarding Ortiz, I had heard about a month ago that Kotelnik did not want to fight Ortiz. Kotelnik and his promoter Kohl are not exactly on the same page most times. I think Kohl just bullshitted Richard Schaeffer until he could get a better deal. If HBO would have wanted the fight, Salita would be fighting Kotelnik – but HBO preferred Ortiz. I wonder if they’ll pick up the Khan fight.
BTW – just got a letter from the WBA stating that Kotelnik’s mandatory vs. Salita is due by July 12th. I think they scheduled the Khan fight for June 27th. Looks like we’ll have an interesting negotiation coming up.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:54 am
No word for Andrade? By beating Tsypko on the undercard, he just won a rematch with Bute! Remember the tragic ending of their first bout with Bute knocked on his feet but awarded the decision? Now its going to be part II and Montreal will be in flame (for that or Canadiens will have won the Cup). This time, I say Bute KOs Andrade in the 5th and the Canadiens gets the Bruins out in first round playoffs.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Kurt
You are so obvious!
Jealous of all the Black Girls
Which one turned you down?
Suzette? Cassandra? Karyn? Comparing them to Superhead?
Pretty Low.
Take a look at them – then take a good look at your wife.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Suzette Charles, Cassandra Henderson, Karyn Bryant
All Beautiful, Talented Women
Kurt Emhoff’s Homely wife???
Doesn’t even compare!