posted by Large

Strictly hand-held is how I roll. The video below is cobbled together from some nuggets I culled from what I shot of the major players who hung around after the Pacquiao-Hatton press conference last Saturday night. I recommend you sticking around to hear the bite where Floyd Sr. dismisses Hatton as “damaged goods,” paraphrasing in his own broken English a point that Hemingway made much more eloquently in his great bullfighting tract, Death in the Afternoon – that once gored, most matadors are never the same again inside the ring.

posted by Large

In my book the only way a Ford beats a Cadillac is if the Caddy is like one of those new XLR-V coupes and the Ford is an F-150 and they’re competing in a towing contest.

What we have here is not a towing contest. What’s more, the Ford ain’t even a truck. He’s like, a Fusion.

But enough with the cars crap. What I’m getting at is this – for a fighter of average skills to beat a fighter of elite skills, there must be some x-factor that tilts the playing field in his direction and gives him at least a small chance at the upset, be it an advantage in size, power or heart.

Generally in these kinds of situations, that x-factor is power. The puncher’s chance. George Foreman on the button of Michael Moorer (funny that Moorer should come up, actually…). Oliver McCall with his eyes closed landing that wild miracle on Lennox’s glass chin.

But that’s not in play here. Hatton is not a particularly hard puncher and he’s never been the guy who changes a fight with one shot. He couldn’t stop Paulie Malignaggi, for Pete’s sake, who is borderline defenseless in the ring these days. Buddy McGirt had to do it for him (and I reiterate my feelings on that – shame on you Buddy).

No, if Hatton is going to stage the upset tomorrow night, one of the other two x-factors that can level a mismatch will tell the tale – size and, or, heart.

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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.

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.

posted by Large

Let the Monday, or in this case, early Sunday morning quarterbacking begin. Plaster of Paris in his gloves? Looking more emaciated at 47 than De La Hoya did? And getting… knocked the fizznuck out??!?!!?! Jesus man, my head is spinning like I just got punched by Shane Mosley a couple hundred times.

Oh wait, that wasn’t me. That was Margarito.

Look, I sensed it, I even bet on it, and oh how I wish I’d had the nads to prognosticate on it because then I could get all “kneel before Zod” on my brothers here at the Mas and feel all righteous and Zodly (Ricky Roe can step up to that mike). As it is, all I can do is count my money and admit that though I certainly felt like Shane had a good chance, I never would have bet a red cent on him getting the stoppage, not in a million years.

In the very first round, I started to wonder, though, because it just didn’t look like a Tony Margs kind of affair. He always starts slow, but even then he’s stalking, moving forward at angles, geometrically trapping his man over and over again and forcing him to fight his way out of trouble.

Here, well, it was immediately apparent that Shane was stronger than Margs, and what’s more, he looked bigger, which was almost as bizarre as Pacquiao looking bigger than Oscar last month. And Shane used that advantage to good effect, stepping into Margo’s lunges rather than away from them and often just manhandling him around the ring. The pattern was established early, Shane letting Margs walk to him, getting off first (and second, and third…), and then smothering his man before he got any chance to work. Lather rinse repeat.

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