Fights That Didn't Look Right To You

dagosd2000 · Post by **dagosd2000** » 13 Jan 2008, 00:57

I like to question things. Buzz caught my attention on the NH primary. But honesty is the best policy,whether it's politics or boxing. Now how about some fights that you've seen that didn't"look right" to you. I think as boxing fans we want to know everything is on the level. A fight that always "looked wrong"to me was Archie Moore vs. Floyd Patterson for the title. My pal "The Mongoose" looked awkward,stumbling backward,a listless jab,no fighting on the inside,and didn't throw a punch with mean intentions. And what put him away in Chicago wasn't 1/10th of what Marciano hit him with. To paraphrase the Black Sox scandal:Tell me it wasn't so Arch.

Have you guys ever seen a fight that didn't"look right" to you?

Jaclem · Post by **Jaclem** » 13 Jan 2008, 01:08

..i wondered why the referee stopped the leonard/benetiz fight when benitez just had a cut on the forehead and it was in the fifteenth round. benetiz didn't protest and even smiled. leonard would have won the decision....fairly...if it had gone that far. to more than a few of us it appeared that the stoppage was done to give leonard a knockout win...which some late odds favored.

as i said....i just wondered....

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 13 Jan 2008, 08:55

Archie himself speaks to that night in his book. If you do a search I believe Jaclem (a rather well informed contributor here) speaks rather well to that issue.

I found this one regarding Archie and the Rock
http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... +patterson

As I recall Archie felt he had a bad day at work with Patterson. He felt poorly going in and he was very dissatisfied with the outcome as a result of him "not being on". This in terms of his physical ability being compromised by a bug of some sort. My memory sucks on this. I don't think it was an excuse, however it was not a fix of any kind just a guy regretfully having a bad day at work based on some biologicals when the chips were down.

scartissue · Post by **scartissue** » 13 Jan 2008, 09:20

The Stanley Ketchel knockdown of Jack Johnson. I have watched this over and over and as Ketchell throws his right, Johnson appears to be already beginning a descent and Ketchell's right merely skids across the top of his head. Also, Orlando Canizales against Rolando Bohol, in the 5th when Canizales drops him with a right, it looks to me again as if he was already going down and rolled with it. The announcers were so into the fact that Canizales had broken the bantamweight title defence record that that's all they were commenting on.

Scartissue

Goodnight, Irene · Post by **Goodnight, Irene** » 13 Jan 2008, 09:36

Might just have been the shaky footage though from those old films, Scar.

scartissue · Post by **scartissue** » 13 Jan 2008, 12:44

I had to trust my eyes on this one, the footage isn't that bad. What you have to do is put everything you've heard about the fight out of your head and trust your own opinion, not what you've been told. As the right is coming at him Johnson has his right and left foot sort of criss-crossed and he begins to drop. The right hand skids off his head. I've shown this to people who initially rolled their eyes at me only for them to let out an "Oh, yeah!" when they really scrutinized it. Unfortunately we don't have the technology to view it from different angles so we're left with only opinions. And it's not easy flying in the face of Boxing mythology.

Scartissue

Syntax Error · Post by **Syntax Error** » 13 Jan 2008, 12:58

1) Lewis -v- Tyson: Don't get me wrong, I know it was a mismatch (something I said often in the build-up to the fight, in the face of much ridicule) & Tyson was shot to pieces, but something just was not right in that fight. Tyson was way too subdued; he took a frightful pummelling (Lewis actually carried him; he could have won in the 3rd), without once resorting to gutter tactics or acts of cowardice, which was so unlike Tyson when he sensed he was in for a beating.

2) Riddick Bowe -v- Herbie Hide: I know that Hide spent more time horizontal than vertical, but one of the knockdowns was highly suspicious; Bowe did not even hit him & Hide collapsed to the floor.

scartissue · Post by **scartissue** » 13 Jan 2008, 13:05

Correction: It's been awhile since I saw it and had to rewatch just now, Johnson's feet didn't criss-cross, his left foot sort of turned in and he toppled over. Ketchel's right hand came from left field. I don't think anyone couldn't see it coming. Johnson may have been ducking the way his head was going at the time, but the more I see it I'm not even sure Ketchel's glove even skidded on Johnson's skull. If it did it was barely and like I said, Johnson just topples over with no left foot to support him the way it was turning in. Youtube has a couple of films of this. One showing the knockdown and KO and another longer version which also shows a slo-mo replay. Judge for thyself.

Scartissue

dagosd2000 · Post by **dagosd2000** » 13 Jan 2008, 13:35

BoxBuzz wrote:Archie himself speaks to that night in his book. If you do a search I believe Jaclem (a rather well informed contributor here) speaks rather well to that issue.

I found this one regarding Archie and the Rock
http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... +patterson

As I recall Archie felt he had a bad day at work with Patterson. He felt poorly going in and he was very dissatisfied with the outcome as a result of him "not being on". This in terms of his physical ability being compromised by a bug of some sort. My memory sucks on this. I don't think it was an excuse, however it was not a fix of any kind just a guy regretfully having a bad day at work based on some biologicals when the chips were down.

Thanks for steering me over there Buzz. As you guys know I used to bounce into Archie's boy's club once in a while. It wasn't my place to ask him about the Patterson fight. I'm looking at his authorized biography by Marilyn Douroux(which Arch signed) He says after losing to Marciano he got away from fighting and started playing with a jazz ensemble(Some pretty good musicians:Herbie Hancock,Kenny Clarke,and Lucky Thompson). Well the late nights and lifestyle of those guys were on the opposite poles of a fighter's regimen. What was that Redd Foxx line?"I hope your daughter marries a jazz musician" But then he says he lost interest in being a musician and started training for Patterson.

Moore says"I trained harder than ever before, boxing six rounds a day,doing three and four miles of roadwork a day." He goes on to say"I was overworked by my trainer'Cheerfull Norman'" Archie said"I was no match for Patterson....my legs felt like was moving on foam rubber....my legs were weak" Well that's good enough for me. You can f--k around with a Presidential election and I can understand why. But Ol' Arch doing a flop,I wouldn't be able to go on.

By the way buddy,I see your bro' is going to be jammin' today in Arizona with some of the cats to pay tribute to Oscar Peterson. I read Herbie Hancock is going to perform. I bet he throws in a riff for the Ol' Mongoose.

theone · Post by **theone** » 13 Jan 2008, 16:37

something about the Hopkins/Delahoya fight fight seemed funny to me. Not saying it wasn't a legitimate fight; but...i don't know. No matter how many times i watch it i cant shake that feeling.

tagjohnson · Post by **tagjohnson** » 13 Jan 2008, 18:54

Brewster/Klitschko I was truly bizarre, Klitschko was just handing out a beating winning every round and dropping Brewster in the fourth and in the fifth he just falls apart from apparent exhaustion with the referee stopping the fight after the end of the round. Two things; I have never seen a fighter just fall apart like that from exhaustion and two the referee stopped the fight after Klitshcko arose from a knockdown after the bell ending the round and was walking to his corner. Never seen that one either. There is no chance that Klitschko was throwing the fight and I saw him before the rematch swearing up and down he was poisoned. And I really wonder about that ref. Like I said I've never seen a ref do that before.

HomicideHenry · Post by **HomicideHenry** » 13 Jan 2008, 19:04

Moore-Patterson, I have heard was a tank job. Moore was winning the first four rounds rather easily (who knows, probably just to show Patterson who was the better man in there), and then he went down from a punch that wasn't anywhere near the fist flying ferocity of Marciano.

If you ever notice in Moore's fight record, there is some fights along the road, that just make no sense or don't seem plausible. Not to say that Moore did in fact do tank jobs, but it does seem odd.

As far as a straight up funny ass fight, if there ever was one, occured to Randall Tex Cobb, and he was "knocked out" in the 1st round to a guy named Dee Collier who just had a handful of fights, most of those being losses. First instinct tells me Cobb went into the tank for that fight, just to make huge money on the long shot odds that Cobb couldn't possibly get knocked out by someone like Collier (if Holmes, Dokes and other elite fighters couldn't do it, who could?).

Robinson · Post by **Robinson** » 13 Jan 2008, 20:07

Wasn't it Miles Davis who had the Archie Moore session along with ones dedicated to Duran, Ali and Leonard oh and of course Johnson.

Wouldnt be suprised if Herbie did too. That'd be awesome to hear his dedication to Moore.

Kym

bobbyd · Post by **bobbyd** » 14 Jan 2008, 02:36

BoxBuzz wrote:Archie himself speaks to that night in his book. If you do a search I believe Jaclem (a rather well informed contributor here) speaks rather well to that issue.

I found this one regarding Archie and the Rock
http://www.boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... +patterson

As I recall Archie felt he had a bad day at work with Patterson. He felt poorly going in and he was very dissatisfied with the outcome as a result of him "not being on". This in terms of his physical ability being compromised by a bug of some sort. My memory sucks on this. I don't think it was an excuse, however it was not a fix of any kind just a guy regretfully having a bad day at work based on some biologicals when the chips were down.

i think he was still recovering from the marciano fight.
moore/patterson would've been a tremendous fight a year earlier.
moore shouldve fought patterson instead of rocky and rocky shouldve fought coley wallace instead of moore.

p4p1 · Post by **p4p1** » 14 Jan 2008, 06:45

Syntax Error wrote:1) Lewis -v- Tyson: Don't get me wrong, I know it was a mismatch (something I said often in the build-up to the fight, in the face of much ridicule) & Tyson was shot to pieces, but something just was not right in that fight. Tyson was way too subdued; he took a frightful pummelling (Lewis actually carried him; he could have won in the 3rd), without once resorting to gutter tactics or acts of cowardice, which was so unlike Tyson when he sensed he was in for a beating.

2) Riddick Bowe -v- Herbie Hide: I know that Hide spent more time horizontal than vertical, but one of the knockdowns was highly suspicious; Bowe did not even hit him & Hide collapsed to the floor.

tyson is way unpredictable maybe he had just decided to take a beating if it came to him like a great fighter should

nobudius · Post by **nobudius** » 14 Jan 2008, 11:19

I was always confused with the way Duran/Marcel ended-it wasn't as though Marcel was getting his head knocked in at the time of stoppage.

I skimmed through Duran's auto recently, & it gave a small description of what happened- but it was still an odd ending to their fight.

HomicideHenry · Post by **HomicideHenry** » 14 Jan 2008, 15:40

Am surprised this one hasnt been brought up yet, considering its about the most controversail bout in history, but here goes:

CASSIUS CLAY (MUHAMMAD ALI) vs CHALES SONNY LISTON 2

Ambling Alp · Post by **Ambling Alp** » 14 Jan 2008, 17:02

How about Walcott-Marciano II ? There were several things that look a little odd.

First, Walcott walks around the ring, not doing very much. He seems listless.
Neither fighter was known for holding, but there was 9 clinches in less than one round.
Walcott gets knocked down but doesn't seem hurt at all.
The referee begins to count immediately, without making sure Marciano is in a neutral corner.
The referee also seems to be counting too fast.
Walcott looks like he could get up anytime around the count of 4, but stays down and seems to be listening to the referee's count, yet strangely doesn't get up in time. He pops up right after the count of 10.
At first he doesn't seem to be that angry, then after the fight is over for more than a minute he starts to act like he is angry.

There just seems to be a lot of odd things happening in a fight that took less than one round.

Goodnight, Irene · Post by **Goodnight, Irene** » 14 Jan 2008, 17:20

Walcott claimed to have blacked out during the count. Didn't look that way on the footage, but he'd know better than I.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 14 Jan 2008, 17:44

HomicideHenry wrote:Am surprised this one hasnt been brought up yet, considering its about the most controversail bout in history, but here goes:

CASSIUS CLAY (MUHAMMAD ALI) vs CHALES SONNY LISTON 2

Simple one....Sonny just lost his courage.

HomicideHenry · Post by **HomicideHenry** » 15 Jan 2008, 16:30

Dempsey-Tunney 2 was also controversial, and not just for the 'long count' either. It must be noted that the neutral corner rule was first used in a championship bout in the rematch between the two, ironically because Dempsey insisted on it.

Dempsey knocks down Tunney, and the referee urges Dempsey to go back to a neutral corner, but later on when Tunney drops Dempsey the referee immediately starts the count.

Seems to me, no matter what, Dempsey was going to lose one way or another to Tunney that night.

Ambling Alp · Post by **Ambling Alp** » 15 Jan 2008, 19:09

It has been often said and written that the "Long Count" in 1927 was the first title fight with the neutral corner rule, but that isn't true. In more recent writings it says the contrary.

For anyone that has the book "Boxing An Illustrated History" (by Fleischer and Andre, updated by Rafael) they can see some interesting pictures.

In the 6th Edition, on p. 102, in the 1921 Dempsey-Carpentier fight, you can see Dempsey walking away (presumably to a nuetral corner)from the fallen Carpentier.

Dempsey didn't always go to the neutral corner in the 1923 Firpo fight and the referee let him get away with it. However on p. 105 of the book, you can see Dempsey waiting in a neutral corner with the referee counting over Firpo. So he went to a neutral corner at least once, indicating that the rule was in effect for this fight.

Btw, (though not a title fight) on p. 106 you can see Tunney waiting in the neutral corner while the referee counts over Tommy Gibbons in their fight in 1925.

In the 2nd Dempsey-Tunney fight, the referee did the right thing under the rules at the time of not counting at all until Dempsey went to the neutral corner. In later years, the nuetral corner rule would be modified referee would make sure the fighter scoring the knockdown would go to a neutral corner, but would pick up the count from the timekeeper of the knockdowns. However, at the time of the Dempsey-Tunney fight, the rule was that the referee wasn't supposed to start the count until the the fighter scoring fighter moved to a neutral corner.

The referee did error by not waiting until Tunney started moving to a neutral corner when he started his count when Tunney knocked Dempsey down on one knee. However, it really didn't matter much since Dempsey was just down on one knee and was going to easily beat the count anyway.

The neutral corner wasn't that new when Dempsey fought Tunney (although it wasn't always enforced.) Dempsey has only himself to blame for not going to a neutral corner immediately.

elmersalsa · Post by **elmersalsa** » 16 Jan 2008, 10:47

Ambling Alp wrote:How about Walcott-Marciano II ? There were several things that look a little odd.

First, Walcott walks around the ring, not doing very much. He seems listless.
Neither fighter was known for holding, but there was 9 clinches in less than one round.
Walcott gets knocked down but doesn't seem hurt at all.
The referee begins to count immediately, without making sure Marciano is in a neutral corner.
The referee also seems to be counting too fast.
Walcott looks like he could get up anytime around the count of 4, but stays down and seems to be listening to the referee's count, yet strangely doesn't get up in time. He pops up right after the count of 10.
At first he doesn't seem to be that angry, then after the fight is over for more than a minute he starts to act like he is angry.

There just seems to be a lot of odd things happening in a fight that took less than one round.

I saw that fight...Totally strange...Looks like an Italian Mob or Soprano's job.

dagosd2000 · Post by **dagosd2000** » 16 Jan 2008, 21:33

elmersalsa wrote:
Ambling Alp wrote:How about Walcott-Marciano II ? There were several things that look a little odd.

First, Walcott walks around the ring, not doing very much. He seems listless.
Neither fighter was known for holding, but there was 9 clinches in less than one round.
Walcott gets knocked down but doesn't seem hurt at all.
The referee begins to count immediately, without making sure Marciano is in a neutral corner.
The referee also seems to be counting too fast.
Walcott looks like he could get up anytime around the count of 4, but stays down and seems to be listening to the referee's count, yet strangely doesn't get up in time. He pops up right after the count of 10.
At first he doesn't seem to be that angry, then after the fight is over for more than a minute he starts to act like he is angry.

There just seems to be a lot of odd things happening in a fight that took less than one round.
I saw that fight...Totally strange...Looks like an Italian Mob or Soprano's job.

To all my pals who are into this sport:From Gans/McGovern thru Marciano/Walcott II and all the fights ,big and small ,in between,when I see "Chicago" as the city where the bout took place,I can't help think how those "Outfit" guys controlled that city. How many fights they were involved with,no one will ever know. The "Outfit" is gone and all those wiseguys took secrects to their graves that are probably best left alone.

granberry · Post by **granberry** » 20 Jan 2008, 02:50

Jaclem wrote:..i wondered why the referee stopped the leonard/benetiz fight when benitez just had a cut on the forehead and it was in the fifteenth round. benetiz didn't protest and even smiled. leonard would have won the decision....fairly...if it had gone that far. to more than a few of us it appeared that the stoppage was done to give leonard a knockout win...which some late odds favored.

as i said....i just wondered....

Because the fight took place in Las Vegas and the Vegas referee did as he was told because of the betting.

There were SIX seconds left when he stopped it.