Boxing's biggest championship theft?

Yes they were and they still are. People in that neck of the woods wouldn't mind it if some made it Eastern Virginia.

 

SweetPea-Chavez was a joke, and I love JCC.

 

Evander Holyfield's loss in the Olympics was the most blatant. He's destroying his opponent in the semifinals. the ref is from the same country as the guy Holyfield would have faced in the gold medal match.

Ref says stop as Holyfield is starting to throw a punch. Holyfield's punch goes through before the ref can step in and stop it for a TKO. Ref disqualifies Holyfield for throwing a punch after the fight was stopped, thus handing the gold medal to the official's countryman (I really can't remember what country it was).

I'm too lazy to look up the details and I'm not a big boxing guy and crap like that is a big reason why I never cared for the sport. The thievery perpetrated on Jones in the Olympics was anothe reason.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I saw Pea-JCC coming in the last round. Told my buddies to wait for the decision--they said it couldn't be anything less than a shutout, unanimous.

A guy who knew more about boxing than anyone I know--an ex-boxer who owned a convenience store--told me that SRL would beat MMH. He never missed on a major fight (SRL over Hearns, Duran over SRL in I, Hagler smoking Hearns) but I couldn't see (didn't want to see, in retrospect) Leonard even being competitive after the layoff. He said it was just a style match-up problem for Hagler and that's the way it turned out. I had it 7-5 Leonard, like Mr Huggy says, with Leonard running out to a 3- or 4-round lead ... unless you give MMH points for glowering. He just didn't get off.

Zarate was the worst.

YHS, etc

 

I was talking about '88.

 

Kevin Barry from New Zealand was the opponent. I had no idea the ref was also from NZ.

Holyfield was a monster in the Olympics. He's the only guy I can think of who KO'd every one of his opponents (I'm including Barry in that too) in the Olympics.

 

Leonard won the first four rounds. Hagler won maybe five of the last eight.
Of all the people who have said "Hagler was robbed" I have yet to hear one of them break it down round-by-round (the way fights ARE scored) and tell me which rounds Hagler won and why.
The judges score each round as it happens. They're seeing 12 one-round fights, not one 12-round fight. The numbers are added up at the end of the fight and it is whatever it is (at least in theory).
For those of you who buy into "the challenger must win convincingly to take the title" school of thought, tell me, if at the end of the fight, the challenger is ahead by a point or two on at least two of the scorecards, what are they supposed to do about it?

 

Smallpot, I think they've already done soemthing about it.

The incumbent wins the rounds that have no clear winner.

Not sure about what the biggest theft is, but I am still reveling in the Gatti-Ward fights of the recent past. That was great stuff.

 

Any other Nutmeggers here remember Bill Patrick of the Hartford CBS affiliate (channel 3) saying that he was so sure Hagler was going to beat Leonard he'd bet the house on it?

The night after Leonard wins, he opens the sportscast with "Hope you didn't bet the house."

Other than that, the thing I most remember about the fight is my mouth dropping open in shock when I went to the driveway to bundle the newspapers for my route the next morning. Imagine that. Not knowing the result of a major sporting event until you read about it in the paper the next morning.

 

Correct.

 

1972, MSG, Duran TKO over Kenny Buchanan with a low blow that the referees and judges missed but was perfectly captured by a photographer and ran in every paper the next day - Buchanan had the same expression on his face that Lee Harvey Oswald did after meeting Jack Ruby.

GREAT fight though.