THIS is Rafael's Fight of the Year?
Evidently Brother Dan and I have a very different idea of what constitutes a good fight. He seems to think it involves two borderline retards in pillow-sized gloves throwing off-balance haymakers at each other and connecting once every six tries with punches that have no pop on them because their authors aren't punching so much as just standing there flatfooted and waving their arms around.
And get a load of this shit: "While the fight doesn't quite reach the threshold of greatness achieved by the 2005 first battle between lightweights Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, it's pretty close. And we rate it ahead of the first Erik Morales-Marco Antonio Barrera war and the first Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti slugfest."
WTF? I mean, WTFF? Does he think we're going to be impressed because he came up with this obscure shitty fight from France as his FOY?
Personally, I've never had any beef with Rafael. He's an average writer at best, and always seemed to me like your above-average dork of fistiana who's never hit a bag a day in his life but has a closetful of Kid Gavilan videos, a stats freak, whatever. But this... this gives me pause about the dude.
Above is the first installment of four on YouTube that give you the fight in its entirety. I openly admit that I only got through the first three rounds. It's just so boring, but maybe it gets better, maybe later on you see the "raw, unvarnished, jaw-dropping brutality" that Rafael loves so much. If you do watch the whole thing, let me know. For what I saw, these two cats (their names, by the way, are Somsak Sithchatchawal and Mahyar Monshipour) are not elite athletes and have next to no boxing skills of any kind. Personally I think I-berg could handle either one of them, and I'm quite sure that I saw twenty fights this year more entertaining than this one.
Sithchatchawal-Monshipour fight best of year (ESPN.com)
16 Comments:
Agreed. I'm a relative neophyte to the sweet science; it still seemed a little odd that Rafael would tout a match where one fighter would throw 96 uppercuts in one round without
a) landing nearly any of them
or
b) getting punished for doing so.
i'm a newbie to fights too, but i sat through the whole thing and that ninth/tenth is really great. really just watch part 4 of the 4. just my 2 cents though.
Aight Foldy. If I'm gonna talk such trash I should at least watch the last two rounds. I'll get back to you.
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I was at this fight.
It was a battle and I was really rooting for Mahyar to win it because of his personnality. The shame is that this is the fight that ended his career.
If they were able to count them while they were still up, Sithchatchawal would have lost. Fabrice tiozzo who talks at one point is also a warrior.
There's no way this fight should be mentioned in the same breath with castillo/corrales
Madsear - are these dudes pretty famous dudes over there? Where was the fight at? Do you agree with me that the fight, although definitely a noteworthy brawl, is not in the elite category of sporting events?
Okay, okay, I seriously need to watch this whole thing. I'm a do that right now.
yeah! Mahyar Monshipour, Brahim Asloum (called The golden Boy like De la Hoya because of his olympic medal, the first since 1936) and Jean-Marc Mormeck are actual superstars when it comes dow to french boxing . You have tennisman Mansour Bahmani (with the enormous moustache) telling you how he was the one in charge of the belt for Mahyar and Then fabrice Tiozzo (him and his brother Christophe have been the face and heart of french boxing for a long time and they command a lot of respect) just says how much he appreciates Mahyar's fights and that they make him want to come back on the ring.
The fight was in Levallois-Perret which is a city in the parisian suburbs and also the biggest sports budget in France for a city of less than 60.000 people. They excell in everything. Didier drgba and Brahim Asloum are the posterchildren of that city.
I wasn't at the Moralez/Pacquaio fight but I watched it on T.V and these 2 fights are my favorite of the year because it just went back to the reason why I love this sport: it's messy, it's bloody and it's a matter of how much you can take. I was never as excited to watch a Sweet Pea fight than a Chavez fight because Chavez would guarantee me a battle, an experience enhanced by the fact that I had to wake up at two in the morning to watch those fights with my pops.
So the "brawl-iness" of the fight made it the best boxing experience I ever had but I know this wasn't the best Fight of the Year.
I haven't watched the Castillo/Corales so I couldn't comment on that one.
Aight, MS, aight, I feel you. And look, I have NO DOUBT that this fight was some shit to see live. It must have been mindblowing.
My major complaint with it... ah I still have a lot of complaints. Neither of the guys throws very convincing punches, a lot of pitter-pat hand waving, so the fact that they're taking so many shots doesn't impress me at all. But look, I don't want to hate. I wish I'd been there.
Fabrice and Chris Tiozzo - I know those names. Those are the commentators for this fight? And Mormeck, of course I know him, saw the first O'Neill Bell fight, looking forward to the second, which is set for February I believe.
You live in Paris MS? By way of the U.S. peut-etre?
If you liked this fight, yo, then you MUST see Corrales/Castillo, their first fight. It will blow your mind.
This exchange of opinions right here? Makes me glad to be alive.
Vive la internets.
The fight was some sight to see alright. I mean never have I seen this much will to stay up in my life.
I know what you mean when you say this wasn't the FOY. These two aren't the most skilled fighters out there nor the most entertaining. They are two hard workers who work hard at their craft and seem to have their own pride as fuel.
I'll try to find the Castillo Corales fight in february when canal plus gives their FoY awards.
Fabrice Thiozzo is not commenting the fight. The way it goes is that Canal+ (the biggest cable channel in Europe, it's like HBO, ShowTime and Espn combined with Cinemax) has Jean-Claude Bouttier (of the Monson fights fame) and Christophe Delcourt as main Commentators but every round, a personnality comes and says whatever he wants for 30 seconds. So you see Fabrice Tiozzo speaking at one point as well as french actors who are not shown.
I do live in Paris but I never did live in the States. My mom's half american though so I'm usually there at least once a year.
http://www.canalplus.fr/
best channel ever
First of all, MS, great to have you aboard the No Mas team all the way from Paris. My girlfriend is a French professor, born in Switzerland to a French mother. She spends a lot of time in Paris, writes a lot about French hip hop and graffiti, very into Joey Starr and L'Atlas. Is boxing popular in that banlieue universe? Does it have hip hop street cred the way it sort of does in the States?
The Corrales/Castillo fight was in the spring of 2005, so it won't be this year's FOY anywhere. It was THE consensus FOY of 2005 everywhere here in the States, and when you see it, you'll see why. I'm sure I can dig you up a copy - when I do I'll send it to you.
Yeah, I'm hip to CanalPlus, watched a lot of soccer shit on the internet this summer, including that first Zidane interview about the headbutt. How are people feeling about Zizou over there these days?
One more question - how popular would you say is boxing in France in relationship to other sports? I remember one of the dudes in La Haine boxed.
I would say Boxing has a lot of street credibility here but not as much as Kick Boxing and Free Fight but you can say they are known fighters in the banlieues.
For example, Mahyar Monshipour is sponsored by Airness, one of the biggest streetwear brands in this place and he also hosts many mixtapes.
Same goes for Jerome lebanner who is the biggest endorsement by Joeystarr's brand Com-8. Jerome le Banner is oddly enough the most hood-friendly fighter here but it's not regular boxing.
In the banlieues, guys tend to like K1 and those sorts of things.
When it comes to regular boxing though, you'll find the 13th arrondissement (Chinatown) to have the tightest relationship between the two because one of the biggest rap crew from Paris (intra-muros that is), La Cliqua, included one of the best lightweights france has ever seen, Daddy Lord C who was also one of the illest MCs in the game.
He also has an endorsement with Wrung, another streetwear brand.
The connection is easy to see but to this day, france needs some kind of Fabrice tiozzo that comes from the hood. That would help the popularity of the sport.
People continue to love Zizou and nothing has changed. Had we won the World Cup, the Champs-Elysées would have been rebaptized though.
He's still on the covers of magazines, documentaries and books about him continue to come out and are selling tremendously.
The fight seems epic but i can only find round 10 on youtube
By the way, any new from L'atlas, the guy started a clothing line but no one has seen it since the announcement and I feel he's way less present in my neighborhood than he was a few years ago.
I've been managing boxers since 1995 and I've had a few world champs (Terronn Millett, Cory Spinks, Travis Simms) - and I so agree with this blog.
There is no doubting that this was a pier-six brawl and a very entertaining fight. It was also for a world championship at 122 and these guys fought their hearts out. But to say that it was better than Morales-Barrera I - that's just wrong!!!!! No disrespect to either of these guys but go onto Youtube and check out Leonard-Duran I, Leonard-Hearns I or Corrales-Castillo I. The big difference you'll see is SKILLS. Watching the last few rounds of Leonard-Duran I is like watching a Hong Kong martial arts fantasy film - except it's real. These guys don't get hit with the same punch twice - it's amazing.
In fairness, for entertainment value this was a great fight but for fight of the year you're looking for guys with a lot more ability. 2006 was kinda thin as far as competitive exciting big fights but this fight shoulda been an honorable mention - not the winner.
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