Boxing

so we’re getting spoiled with crawford vs spence tomorrow. who do you all have? i have to go with the majority and say crawford wins this, round 10 TKO i’ll say.

i see good arguments for spence too. one being that crawford won’t be able to ‘download the data’ early on in the fight like he’s been used to with the pace and volume of punches spence will put on him, such as not being able to clinch spence as easily as he did against his other opponents. crawford may need to land an early counter punch that hurts spence and thus slows down spences aggression (much like what we seen in garcia vs davis, although the fighters in this match are much closer talent and skill wise than that matchup). it’s as even of a fight as we’ve had at this kind of magnitude for a looong time.

what a masterful performance by crawford. i didn’t think the fight was going to be that one sided. made spence look like an amateur.

i gave spence one round (the first) and that’s only because he was putting spence on the back foot and being the aggressor. after that, it was all crawford starting from the knockdown in the second round.

LOL

so that was an embarrassment for the sport of boxing last night.

the guy whose considered the best HW of this generation got taken to a split decision against an MMA guy (albeit world champion) who hasn’t had a fight in over 2 years (37 years if you count the ring). that’s not to diminish ngannou either. the guy was gifted with dynamite power and has a granite chin. his technique excelled anything I thought he was capable of too, especially with how long he’s trained. but man, fury just looked fucking clumsy out there. i’m not sure if it was due to a lack of training and preparation (he said this would be like djokovic going up against a table tennis champion in tennis after all) or if furys body is now starting to fail him due to his lifestyle of not taking care of it. weighing 400 pounds and jogging up hills will inevitably take a toll on your joints and fury has only been fighting flat footed and slow fighters for the past 5 years. combine that with the new kronk style he’s adopted that could be hiding his diminishing athleticism that we’re accustomed to.

ngannou having the strength to not be overpowered in the clinch was also a big factor in this fight. it’s one of furys strongest attributes and one of the big reasons why he won the wilder trilogy. i’d love to see ngannou keep taking boxing fights. i know he’s 37, but with more training, who knows what he’s capable of for these next couple of years. i can’t say that any HW definitively beats him, although there’s obviously matchups where i won’t favour him either.

so fury vs usyk is now pushed to feb 17 since the fight with ngannou didn’t go as planned.. BUT

this new dec 23 card looks awesome imo

joshua vs wallin
wilder vs parker
dubois vs miller
sanchez vs junior
hrgovic vs di mori 
bivol vs lyndon arthur 
opetaia vs zorro
makhmudov vs kabayel

of course, we’d love to see joshua vs wilder. also the opetaia and bivol fights will likely be more one sided (hrgovic too) wish we could see opetaia vs briedis 2 and bivol vs beterbiev. i understand though since briedis is still nursing injuries and bivol will likely want a tune up fight after being out of the ring for awhile (if he ever fights beterbiev). beterbiev isn’t getting any younger either and hasn’t fought for almost a year. i wouldn’t be surprised *IF* joshua and wilder both win their fights we get an announcement that they’ll fight in the end of riyadh season. parker and wallin are solid opponents and are both improvements over helenius and franklin. i think joshua will be in for a tougher night though. wallin is like a poor mans usyk and i give him a decent chance to win. maybe like 30-35%, especially with how joshua has looked his past couple of fights. 

then not long after that we get to see inoue go for the undisputed super bantamweight. even though it’s shitty the undisputed HW clash was pushed back a couple of months, i can’t complain with what were getting to end the year. that’s a solid main card and great undercard. i assume joshua will get the last fight since he’s the most marketable out of the fighters.