F--- boxing

Tonight Vitali Klitschko beat Shannon Briggs by unanimous decision in Hamburg to retain his WBC heavyweight title. It was the main event of one of those huge German boxing shows. The Germans really do boxing well.

The fight turned into a pretty nasty spectacle

Shannon Briggs is a tough muthafucker, and tonight someone should have saved him from himself. Someone should have stopped the fight whether it was his corner or the referee. They didn't. It became hard to watch.

Then there was also the almost comical point in the 9th where the referee told Birggs' corner off for swearing but seemed quite content to let Vitali beat the fuck out of Shannon Briggs himself who, by that point, was able to do little other than stand there and get teed-off on.

Briggs becomes only the third person to ever go the distance with Vitali. In case your wondering, the other two fighters who have managed that were Kevin Johnson last December and Timo Hoffman back in November 2000. It should also be noted that when he did it Kevin Johnson spent the whole night in a shell. Everyone was saluting Briggs' heart when the fight was over. I can't help but think though that in years to come there will be a price for tonight.

 

I don't know why the referee didn't stop it. I know the losing fighter doesn't want it stopped and the fans would rather see a guy counted out then have a referee stop a fight while the guy is still on his feet, but there was no way Briggs was coming back to win. I know it's not slow-pitch softball, but that whole "a fighter should be carried out on his shield" ethos is bullshit.

 

I agree with your last point. The X Games sort of does the same thing: deify people who continue to compete despite being battered in crashes earlier in the competition. There's a thin, dotted line between bravery and stupidity.

 

I don't fault Briggs for wanting to finish the fight. He wouldn't be a fighter if he didn't. I do fault the referee and his corner for not realizing that the only thing he stood to gain by going out there round after round was a beating.
Briggs is in intensive care
http://www.fightnews.com/Boxing/briggs-hospitalized-63544

 

I saw bits of the Antonio Tarver heavyweight fight on Friday night. He looks like he ate a middleweight for lunch. He put on 46 lbs.

 

There's two big fights tonight.

In Manchester, in what is a huge fight in the UK, David Haye defends his WBA World Heavyweight title against Britain's 2000 Olympic gold medallist Audley Harrison. The fight is less than huge outside of the UK. It's garnering a lot of interest there though because Harrison is well know and has been since he won the gold meal and signed a big contract with the BBC. His first fights were broadcast on network TV. He has underachieved dramatically since then. The BBC lost interest in him and (and some say, because of him) boxing in general. Earlier this year he managed to resurrect his career somewhat. In April while trailing on the cards and with one of his shoulders badly injured he koed Michael Sprott in the twelfth round to win the European title.

Harrison's main problem seems to be that he is often overly cautious and seems to be a fighter who doesn't like fighting. He's better than a lot of people give him credit for though. This is his last chance, and maybe it'll be the night when he puts it all together. While I don't expect him to beat Haye it's not completely out of the question.

Then, later, at Cowboys Stadium Manny Pacquiao takes on, the newly US re-licensed, Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC light middleweight title.

This isn't exactly a revelation, and (yeah) he was really young when he started, but it really is staggering that when Pacman turned pro he was a light-flyweight and now he's up at light-middle and stands a good chance of winning a world title at that weight.

 

A fun fact. Margarito was fifteen when he turned pro and Pacquiao was sixteen. Despite only being in their early thirties they have both been pro boxers for, basically, half their lives.

 

The Mancini-Duk Koo Kim fight was 28 years ago today (it was a Saturday that year, too). I was 14 and had just started to like boxing. Aaron Pryor and Alexis Arguello's first fight was the night before and it must have been on HBO or on pay per view, because I couldn't watch it. I did watch Mancini-Kim and looking back, I'm surprised I still liked boxing after that.

 

Dyno: Both Pryor-Arguello bouts were on HBO and were epic battles.

I remember the Mancini-Kim fight being in the afternoon and televised on network TV.

 

Mancini - Kim was on CBS, I'm pretty sure. Cable TV wasn't available yet in my neighborhood in 1982 so no HBO (or Home Box, as we called it back then).

 

Yep, it was CBS. I remember going to my grandmother's the night before to watch Pryor/Arguello I on HBO.
Arguello was my favorite fighter.

 

Loved Arguello too. Saw the first Pryor fight on closed circuit at Massey Hall (no PPV or HBO in Canuckistan in those days). Saw the Mancini fight the next day on CBS (wow, 28 years, really?), Tim Ryan and Gil Clancy were a great duo behind the mike.