posted by Large

Papa Was a Rolling Stone
Literally, the first thing I saw when I turned the corner off Figueroa and looked down at the facade of the Staples Center was Oscar De La Hoya’s dad standing alone directly across from his son’s statue (and if you’ve seen it, you know that statue looks about as much like Oscar as I do). Joel De La Hoya was in a suit but no tie, drinking a can of beer and pacing around next to the road like he couldn’t decide whether to stick around or maybe hop in a cab and go somewhere else. I went up and talked to him for a while, got his prediction for the fight (Ortiz by decision in a tough one) and his take on the comparison between Ortiz and Oscar, which according to him is a non-starter because ‘Oscar is left-handed, but I teach him to fight conventional… Ortiz, he fight left-handed… so I cannot compare them.” I left him then and made my way to the media entrance. When I looked back, he was still there, looking agitated and indecisive. I wonder if he ended up leaving. It definitely seemed like it was on his mind.

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posted by Large

When you’re pushing forty and you’ve chosen the sober path for yourself, when you have a wife at home and a rambunctious nine-month-old who makes it such that you rarely (dah… never) are to be found awake past eleven o’clock at night, and when you’re avidly working on the first paunch of your life and your hairline’s way down on the scorecards in its battle with Father Time and you smell of a good two hours of accumulated adrenaline sweat, and when because of all of these things and more you feel decidedly out of place amongst the emaciated and vapid vampires of Tinseltown after dark… when you are like this, people, it is VERY hard to know where to turn when you find yourself all amped and aimless after a fucking ferocious fight in L.A. lights a candle up your ass the size of a forest fire.

Me, I’ve chosen this cafe (and when there is a DJ in the corner playing an endless thrumming ode to digital technology, can an establishment actually be called a “cafe?”) in the lobby of my unfortunate hotel, The Standard, to try and wrestle with my feelings. For now I resort to prose – maybe later I will shift to rhyme. Maybe I’ll take the mic in this joint and drop knowledge. “I got so much trouble on my mind, refuse to lose…” I doubt I would even scratch the surface of my surroundings. Around me are gathered some of the most expensive-jeans-be-wearing motherfuckers I’ve ever seen in my life. The people who party away their lives in these ultra-fashionable hotels… they are a race unto themselves.

Another race altogether, nearer to my heart needless to say, are the men who choose to make their monthly nut with their fists and their faces, and oh did we see a prime example of their work tonight. My mind still reels, my heart still beats a little too eagerly for me to sit still. This incessant godawful house music has nothing on the beat of my heart right now.

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posted by Large

No A-listers in the ring this weekend, but we do have two guys who are well on their way to the top of the heap, JuanMa Lopez in A.C. on an Arum in-house pay-per-view and Victor Ortiz in L.A. headlining B.A.D. on HBO (no Rocky Juarez/Chris John rematch on the BAD card unfortunately due to John being ill – poor Rocky, man, the guy is cursed). Also, we got King Arthur on Showtime on tape delay in his middleweight tune-up from Germany, a fight that some people are saying (including one of our very-plugged-in No Mas people who I will not out but I think you dedicated Masians know who I’m talking about) may be Showtime’s precursor to an Abraham/Froch donnybrook at 68.

Just to let you dudes know up top, I’m covering Ortiz/Maidana for HBO tomorrow night, so look for my post-fight recap over there. I’m going to try and put together a little video of the goings-on to run here at the Mas. Also, I did a profile of Ortiz for HBO this past week, so check that out if you are so inclined – Victor Ortiz’s Date with Destiny.

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posted by Ariel Helwani

If you’re a degenerate combat sports gambler, boy, do I have the event for you.

It’s fitting that Saturday night’s “Ultimate Chaos” pay-per-view event is called such, because a quick look at the card shows a bunch of bizarre match-ups that don’t quite justify the $29.95 pay-per-view price tag. I mean, I’m down to watch Bobby Lashley vs. Bob Sapp any day of the week for a good laugh or two, but considering how bad Sapp has looked in his last few fights, I’m not expecting this one to last very long. It will be interesting to see whether Lashley can out-muscle the gigantic Sapp, as this is the first time in three pro MMA matches that he will be facing a fighter bigger than him. That said, I still like his chances via first-round TKO. The good people at bestfightodds.com have Lashley listed as a -550 favorite, so if you are feeling crazy you may want to drop a few on Sapp at +400 just for the hell of it. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you, though.

(By the way, did they travel back to 1986 to produce their preview video? I have never watched one of these hype videos and actually felt less excited afterwards about watching the event… video after the jump.)

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posted by Large

Pascal’s wager is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

posted by Ariel Helwani

Here’s what you need to know about last weekend’s UFC 99 event:

1) Marcus Davis looked tentative against Dan Hardy. He lost their grudge match, and is still upset about it. He would like a rematch. Not sure what it’s in it for Hardy, though.

2) Caol Uno’s return to the UFC didn’t go as planned. He was too focused on taking Spencer Fisher down and was unsuccessful in doing so.

3) Mike Swick blew by Ben Saunders. He’s now 9-1 in the UFC, and itching for a title shot. One more big victory (Matt Hughes?) and he just may get it.

4) Mirko Cro Cop returned, eye-poked, won and then went back to Japan. Is it fair to compare this whole situation to the Carlos Boozer-Gordon Gund debacle from 2004? It’s pretty darn close.

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(For another take on the Cotto/Clottey drama, I bring you a piece from our man Shoefly, who sees fit to hit Josh Clottey when he’s down – L)

posted by Shoefly

I scored the Cotto/Clottey fight for Clottey 114-113, but I’m glad he lost. I found the whole thing sort of sick and depressing, like a slow-motion car accident or one of those science shows where they show you the details of the digestive system.

To be fair to Josh Clottey , and I won’t be after this , he probably did deserve to win that fight on points, and I think if he had committed the fouls Cotto did (the body slam, the blatant rabbit punch, the low blows) he would have had points deducted. Still, I have no sympathy for him, even when considering the egregious 116-111 card which had him winning only four rounds.

Joshua Clottey deserved to lose because he fought like a loser. He deserved to lose because he’s a natural second-best, taking over the mantle from the previous title-holder Luis Collazo as the ‘hard-luck story of his generation.” But the truth is… it’s not a matter of luck.

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posted by Large

I can’t believe what I’m reading, in the recaps and opinion pieces at other boxing sites and in the comments here at the Mas. What the hell were people watching last night that they can conclude after that fight that, ‘Cotto has lost it, Cotto isn’t that good, Cotto is still haunted by Margarito”?

To all of these people drawing these conclusions, I have a question: DID YOU NOT SEE THE CRATER OF A CUT OVER COTTO’S LEFT EYE THAT HE FOUGHT WITH FOR NINE FUCKING ROUNDS? JESUS!

To me, the cut essentially invalidates the fight and the result, period. It probably should have been stopped – that might have been in the better interest of both parties. Clottey is right to call for a rematch, and he’ll never get it, which is a shame, although he would have had his rematch if he’d manned up and gone out there and conclusively won those last three rounds, so he’s left to think about that when he’s fighting some up-and-comer on Friday Night Fights in November.

I’ll get to the decision later. It’s definitely debatable. But it was clear to me that Cotto would have been well within his rights to opt out of that fight at any point after the third round. Fights have been justifiably stopped for much lesser cuts. It also was clear to me that around the seventh round, when it was obvious that the cut was not going to stop pouring blood into his eye and making him all but defenseless to right hands, when even the announcers were starting to say, ‘man, they should probably stop this thing”… if the fight had been stopped then, Cotto would have had an indisputable lead on the scorecards. You can debate whether he deserved that decision after 12, but there is no debate that he was up after seven.

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posted by Large

Cotto’s approach tomorrow night will be everything, to my mind. I’ve mentioned this in the comments to my previous Cotto/Clottey post. Clottey has been seriously underrated by the oddsmakers and the media in this thing. He is one stalwart, hard-punching, iron-jawed, nastyass son of a bitch. He gave hell to Margarito and he spanked Zab like a baby and now he’s facing the biggest moment of his career. Cotto definitely has his work cut out for him if he wants to stay on that superstar train that possibly makes a future stop in Pacquiao Land, also known as Cash Money Town.

The best path to victory for Cotto against Clottey already has been intimated by insiders and pundits , the circular, in-and-out type of slash-and-burn ring generalship that made him look like the reincarnation of Ray Leonard for about five rounds of the Margarito fight. This approach seems like such a natural way for Cotto to go about fighting Clottey that even Clottey himself is talking about it. ‘If he runs like he did against Margarito,” Clottey said recently, ‘then there is going to be a problem for him, because I’m not going to allow him to run away from me, you understand?”

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posted by Ariel Helwani

The UFC returns tomorrow with another pay-per-view offering, and this time they’re coming at us from Germany for the very first time. Ja! Danke, Herr Dana. Remember, kids, you can catch the pay-per-view live at 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT instead of the usual 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT start time (if you are a creature of habit, you can also order it then, too).

This may be the best European card in the history of the UFC, with a guaranteed six fights airing on the pay-per-view. Here are my picks (betting lines courtesy of Bodoglife.com):

Proceed with caution pick: Cain Velasquez (-180) over Cheick Kongo (+145)
Kongo’s striking skills are better than Velasquez’s, but his ground game definitely isn’t. Heath Herring put out the blueprint as to how to defeat Kongo at UFC 82: Take him down and smother him. I don’t think Velasquez will lay and pray, but I think he will be able to impose his will on the Frenchman on the ground, while coasting to a unanimous decision victory.

‘Dog of the night: Caol Uno (+170) over Spencer Fisher (-210)
This may just be the nostalgia talking, but I am really psyched to see Uno come back to the UFC after a five-and-a-half-year hiatus (that’s Uno hitting the mitts with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card on the left). Fisher is quite an underrated fighter, and this should be a great standup battle, but what the hell, I like Uno via second round TKO.

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