(Gentleman, we’ve got the august Shoefly on the prognog piece this week, and yes, the contest is on. Call the round, call the cards, call it call it call it and win a Mas shirt of your choice. But remember… be specific, be very specific. -L)
posted by Shoefly
There’s losing, there’s losing by knockout, and then there’s losing by beating. The type of grueling, pounding, and unmanning hurt they don’t tell you about when you first walk into the gym; the sort of hiding a proud kid who always got his way could never imagine. I’m thinking here of a fight like Calzhage/Lacy. A man enters the ring as a champion and exits a bruise on legs.
I generally think the modern obsession with a fighter being damaged and faded following a loss is unhelpful and inaccurate, but when a boxer receives the deep hurt it’s impossible not to look for signs of a changed man.
And that’s what Saturday’s Diaz/Malignaggi fight is really about; how much of Juan Diaz is left? Did the great Juan Manual Marquez knock something essential loose when he ripped two-dozen of the most lovely uppercuts you’re likely to see into the younger man? It was a terrific fight, one of those classic encounters that are so familiar across the course of boxing history; the young lion vs. the old champ, the reckless pressure fighter vs. the counterpunching genius.
Oh my people, what a night. Let me just put my apologies up top here for being MIA for a while and then get right to the good stuff. I have indeed been mired in some television-type business as I-berg pointed out, not to mention that I recently moved Mrs. Large and Reggie Large to a new house. Things have been non-stop. But I will tell you this – I’m going to be doing some fight-week reporting from San Jose next week for HBO leading up to next Saturday’s BAD card headlined by what promises to be a meanass smackdown, James Kirkland vs. Joel Julio. I will certainly bring some of that insider love here to the Mas.
Now to revisit what we just witnessed. To start off, let’s understate the case a bit and say that Marquez/Diaz is the hands down FOY right now and no matter what happens in the rest of ’09, it will at least be garnering some honorable mentions in that category come December. Because this was a memorable scrap.
Though I didn’t weigh in here with a prognostification, I’m on record going way back to when this fight was announced as saying that I thought Marquez was going to take the Baby Bull to school. And though Diaz gave an admirable account of himself tonight, I can’t say I ever really wavered from that prediction at any point in the fight. There was that one left hook that Diaz landed in the second, I think, that staggered Marquez a bit, a shot that in the moment gave me pause, but when I saw the replay it didn’t seem to me that JMM was hurt so much as stunned and a little tied up with his feet.
It was impressive how much Diaz went for right from the opening bell. The kid was all the way down damn-the-torpedoes lane. There was a marked physical disparity in there too that I wasn’t expecting to see. Diaz looked considerably bigger, and with his relentless forward momentum, it felt a little like what in my memory Oscar/Floyd looked like in the first couple of rounds – a bigger man bum-rushing the shit out of a smaller man to the extent that the smaller guy, despite being the more skilled and savvy fighter, couldn’t help but seem concerned.
By the third round, however, Marquez had steadied the ship and started to turn the tide his way. I gave him the third and the fourth, and at that point the fight started to remind more of Mayweather/Hatton. You had the crowd favorite and the balls-out pressure fighter still seeming like he’s getting the better of the action because he’s always pushing forward, getting the big roars whenever he lets his hands go, when in fact most of his lunging shots are getting blocked or missing and he’s eating a lot of clean counters right on the button in return.
Our man is deep in TV land, so we may not get a Largian Baby Bull v JMM preview, but wanted to hit you fellas with the short videos we made with Diaz for Everlast around their photo shoot at Gleason’s this month. In the first we have the Baby Bull going toe to toe with his trainer Willie Savannah, and losing a unanimous decision for air time on Don King, the Galaxy Warrior, Katsidis, and Marquez.
Have a look and post your predictions for Saturday night. Best stylistic analysis of how the fight will unfold wins shirt of your choice. Closest to the the winner and the round or the judges scorecards for a decision wins shirt of your choice. Hit it on the button and get five shirts of your choice or a shirt and a hoodie. Must post before the fight starts to win. Good luck good sirs. Do Large proud.
After the jump are shorter topical clips, wherein we hear direct from Diaz on his “inner mexican” and training regimen. Read the rest of this entry »
