lvlarc_uk wrote:viciousmaussa wrote:
Mundine is much more athletically gifted than Calzaghe. Better punch delivery, vastly better defence, equal handspeed (without cuffing and slapping). Mundine hasn't always been able to coalesce defence and offense. His first fight with Sean Sullivan or the Kessler fight being a good example.
However, he is rapidly maturing, has fought a range of awkward styles, and ppl are going to have to watch out for him in 2007.
I have to say, a lot of the Mundine bashing over here can be a bit strained, i.e. 'he lost to Siaca for God's sake'. Or 'he was lucky to beat Soliman'.
I had 'The Man' three points clear versus both opponents.
PS Calzaghe isn't going to fight a serious opponent in 2007. Let's none of us get out hopes up then we won't be let down.
PPS Taylor has some SERIOUS tweaking to do, if he is going to be more than a footnote at 168. A move up in weight is not going to be a Cotto-like transformation, because he needs to fix a number of issues.
Why don't you just say it, Mundine is the next Roy Jones Jr
Your 3 points margin for Mundine is abit dodgy. I haven't seen the Soliman fight but most say Soliman deserved the win and no way did he do enough to win the Siaca fight by 3 points, which was dull as fook btw.
One of the main issues with Taylor is his stamina, so that would be tweaked with the move up, although Taylor has already proven he has what it takes to beat the very elite. He didn't look great against Ouma as he neglected the jab but truth be told he barely lost a round.
Siaca barely layed a glove on Mundine, I had it 8-4 to Mundine, with Siaca scoring a knockdown making a 3 pt margin. It was a crap fight, a cautious fight. It's hard to score for Siaca, who was outmanoeuvred and beaten to the punch.
Lots of close rounds, but if Siaca stalks and hits arms and air, and Mundine lands one clean uppercut and gets in a couple of quick jabs, who do you go for? There's always a difference between 2 fighters and I favour Mundine on quality work (not to mention a fvcking great defence).
Whether it's 8-4 or 7-5, I find it hard to see any different than Mundine retaining the belt.
If Calzaghe beat Reid, if Taylor beat Hopkins not once but TWICE, I'd say Mudine certainly got the better of the Puerto Rican.
Mundine's a very good fighter who gets a lot of hate for his tactless post 9-11 comments (is he still barred from a WBC ranking?). He's also the highest paid super middleweight in the world and a fine boxer.
With the Soliman fight, again, Mundine's defence makes it so hard to score it for the other guy in low contact bouts. Soliman outworked him in the last 3 rounds, but the first 8 rounds wasn't really close.
Aussies like to score fights for ppl who put the hard work in. They have shitloads of rough, rugged fighters, but a lot of ppl like to score fights based on which way a man's feet are moving. Sam is a tricky bugger known for lacking accuracy, and that's what hurt him on the scorecards.
The Aussie commentators had Sean Sullivan beating Mundine (first fight), which is absolutely baffling because only one fighter was landing clean proper punches and it wasn't Sean, lol.
With Taylor, it's part weight/stamina...However, I would've liked to see him keep Ouma in the middle of the ring. Or maybe land hard shots, then sidestep, as he did with Raul Marquez. Ppl often think I dislike Taylor - I don't. I just want to see him put in a satisying showing.