Martin Bakole vs. Michael Hunter - 13 October 2018

[Ruthless-RKO]

Saw on twitter that 2 judges had it even with the other having Hunter `1 up going into the last round...

Whats next for Bakole?

Back to the drawing board. Needs some wins, then he can try again. How old is he?

[samwbr]

Is this show repeated?

Should be on 5 On Demand..

Got it now

[punchers chance]

I thought it was later on in the fight , but it makes you wonder with these shoulder injuries if something isn't quite right coming into the ring .

It was definitely the 8th (of 10). The conversation between Billy Nelson & Bakole happened after that round when the fighter indicated he wanted to stop. BN told him he wasn't having that and sent him out for the 9th. MB stood up and then turned as if he was going to quit and then seemed to change his mind, turned to face his opponent and carried on.

It was really unpleasant to watch. Seeing Bakole walk back to his corner at the start of the 9th only to be sent back by the coach was horrible. It was like watching a bullying father forcing his son to do something against his wishes just to save face.

Agree 100%.

[Controversial]

Bakole recently posted this on Twitter, fair play for trying to protect his coach.

“I would just like to say I asked my coach @BillyNelsonBox to pull my shoulder has it was sore, not pull me from the fight
Thank you for your support I will come back better I promise”

[tobyh5]

Bakole recently posted this on Twitter, fair play for trying to protect his coach.

“I would just like to say I asked my coach @BillyNelsonBox to pull my shoulder has it was sore, not pull me from the fight
Thank you for your support I will come back better I promise”

Yeah so that was not at all what happened. Does he think we don’t have the ability to watch it again and check ?

[jamamb]

lol, ya i think i dislocated my shoulder, why dont you pull it even further out coach

[MightyWarrior]

Jesus Christ that was brutal, for all involved.

Hunter brave as hell, I was worried for his safety, taking huge punches all night long from a giant of a man: that has got to be bad news. He’s too small for heavyweight, but he’s definitely got a heavyweight size heart, major balls.

Martin should have won that, but Christ almighty, his tactics seem to be walk forward, with no defence, and get whacked on the chin as many times as possible in the process.
The poor guy was clearly so determined to show how destructive he was, at all costs, on Saturday night live TV, that any thoughts of sane tactics seemed to fly out the window.

And Billy, having invested so much time money and love just couldn’t bear to see his man throw it all away at the end.

All he had to do was stick that long jab out and move around for six minutes and he would’ve survived. As he says, the shoulder wasnt dislocated ( as we saw in the last round, when he suddenly started throwing the right hand ) He was just tired and untested and overwhelmed by it all, and was looking for an out.
And I think Billy did the right thing, to try and convince him to stay the course, but the guys head just went, the right hands landed ....and who knows the way back from here. Well I guess Billy does.

[jamamb]

i rewatched and had hunter up 88-83 (woodhall had 88-83 as well i think, or possibly 87-84), dont agree that bakole 'should have' won, hes simply not that good, plodding , unimaginative, and hunter found him easy to nail

hunter did take shots and got jarred a bit at times, and you can tell he wont win at the upper hw tier. hes a solid fighter and can beat some okay guys at hw, but id like to see him back at cruiser

hunter stopped andy ruiz in the ams. someoneone on the current scene suggested hunter vs ruiz or jennings (both top rank guys) wouldnt mind those. but would prefer cw, though hunter missed the wbss.

[Controversial]

Bakole is limited, anyone who can move and box a bit would give him trouble.

[TopGun]

I tuned in on the premise that Billy believed Martin was the real deal as he is often tweeting about him...unfortunately I have to disagree with Billy even if his man had a bad night, you can always see class even if the fighter has a bad night but Martin is certainly not the second coming. Sorry Billy.

I wont comment on Billy not pulling him out as I'm not a professional coach and Billy knows far more than I do so it would be unfair as I'm sure he has his fighters best interest at heart.

Sorry Billy, not feeling the Martin love, in all honesty I dont think Hunter was all that good either, a solid compact fighter would expose Hunter too.....Good domestic level scrap I thought. Hunter would be a nice fight for Dubois to dismantle in 6 rounds I'd say.

Billy your thoughts?

[JamieM]

Billy Nelson was bang on to keep Martin in there. He was trying to get out of there and used shoulder as an excuse and was clear to see he was just frustrated and tired. I like a bit of banter but for the stick billy is getting it really is not warranted. He's s good trainer and genuinely is 100% invested in his fighters often giving them a roof over their heads and feeding them like their his own kids.

[THEBUTCH]

Very entertaining fight. Hats off to Cyclone and Bakole and Hunter for serving up a treat

I think there's some overreactions going on here, except Bakole being pulled out when the shoulder popped.

I dare say Bakole was being hyped up a bit too much, but surely any remotely experience fan can take some of the comments with a pinch of salt. Bakole has shown promise, they took a gamble and it didn't pay off. I would have honestly waited for another 2/3 fights in the hope they could have got him at least 8 rounds under his belt. That said, Bakole did ok considering his lack of experience. If we want to see promoters/managers put their prospects in testing (and entertaining) fights let's not turn on them when they lose. Do we want to go back to the days of F W@rren and B Hearn compiling winning records, avoiding the fights fans want to see and regularly put of dull fights. Skysports went through a terrible period of screening some real dross.

Equally, let's not get carried away that Hunter is a formidable contender. He did really well and seized his opportunity with both gloves. Full marks to fellow.

[THEBUTCH]

Nearly forgot ... it's becoming more and more alarming to me that referees, corner men and doctors can't spot a dislocated shoulder. It was clear the shoulder had popped to some degree and IMO the fight should end at that point.

[PredatorHayds]

Saw this coming. Had a bit of a wedge on Hunter KO. I got a bit lucky in the last round.

From Billy’s point of view, I Understand. You’ve got a Heavyweight who shows signs of brilliance in the gym.
You’ve invested financially, mentally and physically. You know he has the power to turn the fight around.
You also realise how damaging the loss will be. In a split second you decide the risk is worth the reward and send him out for the last two rounds.

But IMO, all of the above comes a long way second to taking care of your fighter.
As a cornerman winning is important but your MAIN objective is looking after the health of your fighter.
Sending him out against his wishes with a dislocated shoulder is unprofessional and barbaric. Billy also should know better.

I understand why he did it, but he was wrong.

If you had a talented son turning pro would you let him train with Billy. I’m sorry but I wouldn’t want my son fighting with a dislocated shoulder.

[TheLeprechaun]

Saw this coming. Had a bit of a wedge on Hunter KO. I got a bit lucky in the last round.

From Billy’s point of view, I Understand. You’ve got a Heavyweight who shows signs of brilliance in the gym.
You’ve invested financially, mentally and physically. You know he has the power to turn the fight around.
You also realise how damaging the loss will be. In a split second you decide the risk is worth the reward and send him out for the last two rounds.

But IMO, all of the above comes a long way second to taking care of your fighter.
As a cornerman winning is important but your MAIN objective is looking after the health of your fighter.
Sending him out against his wishes with a dislocated shoulder is unprofessional and barbaric. Billy also should know better.

I understand why he did it, but he was wrong.

If you had a talented son turning pro would you let him train with Billy. I’m sorry but I wouldn’t want my son fighting with a dislocated shoulder.

Billy should have pulled him out.

While I think father son trainer relationship has so much where it could go wrong, I think that to an extent, a trainer has to treat his fighter like his own son. It's better if the trainer has fought himself and knows that the kind of risk his son is taking and is able to get that across to his son. The closest thing I can think of is Eubank Sr/Jr. The talk about warrior code and it's been drummed in to Eubank as a kid.

Now I think that we can all agree that Eubank Sr. wouldn't pull Jr. out over a dislocated shoulder, even if it happened in round 1. However, I think he absolutely would immediately pull Eubank Jr. out if Jr. told him he didn't want to continue like Bakole did. That's what it comes down to for me. If a fighter tells you he's done, you have to get him out. His heart has gone. No father is going to send his own son out there under those circumstances. Have we ever seen that done? I can't recall.

I think it would be really interesting to see Jr. in a fight that he was getting really badly beaten up in and had been down a few times but still wanting to continue and saying he was alright. If he fought GGG or Canelo and was really really struggling for example. Sr. knows that he would never want to be pulled out and neither would Jr. but he has to juggle that with being a father and seeing his son potentially getting permanently hurt, as that is where the fight is going. Sr. would never want to be pulled out himself but it's his own son in there so what does he do? I know it's tasteless but I'd love to see it.

Back to Billy and Bakole, I think as a trainer you always have to look for signs of your fighter wanting out and it's your job to get him out before he quits because when a fighter pulls a "no mas", lets be honest, it's seen as dishonourable. That's why you always see trainers trying to take the blame for stopping a fight when we actually saw the fighter want no more in the corner.

[handsofstone]

It seemed to me there was definitely some heart lacking from Bakole, maybe Billy was just trying to coax him, part of being a trainer is pulling your man out the sh1t when their feeling sorry for themselves, I'm not saying Bakole was using the shoulder as an excuse to bail but he threw the right hand with intent afterwards a couple of times so it couldn't have been dangling like Williams against Potter

Billy was maybe just not wanting his man to go out with regrets, going by the judges cards all Bakole had to do was jab for the last 2 rounds and he could've won, either way Bakole showed neither the talent or championship heart to mix it with the top men, his defence was woeful, as bad as Eggington's the other week

[jamesmcdonnell]

It seemed to me there was definitely some heart lacking from Bakole, maybe Billy was just trying to coax him, part of being a trainer is pulling your man out the sh1t when their feeling sorry for themselves, I'm not saying Bakole was using the shoulder as an excuse to bail but he threw the right hand with intent afterwards a couple of times so it couldn't have been dangling like Williams against Potter

Billy was maybe just not wanting his man to go out with regrets, going by the judges cards all Bakole had to do was jab for the last 2 rounds and he could've won, either way Bakole showed neither the talent or championship heart to mix it with the top men, his defence was woeful, as bad as Eggington's the other week

I think Bakole wanted out of there,. Plain and simple.

He was poor the whole fight, never really imposed himself, against a much smaller man, and one who was very easy to hit inside.

Shocking scoring if Bakole was even level of the cards going into the last 2. He did bugger all most of the fight.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Saw this coming. Had a bit of a wedge on Hunter KO. I got a bit lucky in the last round.

From Billy’s point of view, I Understand. You’ve got a Heavyweight who shows signs of brilliance in the gym.
You’ve invested financially, mentally and physically. You know he has the power to turn the fight around.
You also realise how damaging the loss will be. In a split second you decide the risk is worth the reward and send him out for the last two rounds.

But IMO, all of the above comes a long way second to taking care of your fighter.
As a cornerman winning is important but your MAIN objective is looking after the health of your fighter.
Sending him out against his wishes with a dislocated shoulder is unprofessional and barbaric. Billy also should know better.

I understand why he did it, but he was wrong.

If you had a talented son turning pro would you let him train with Billy. I’m sorry but I wouldn’t want my son fighting with a dislocated shoulder.

I agree, he was clearly disheartened and wanted to nothing more to do with the fight. Was silly sending him out.

Don't think it was a full dislocation, but looked like a shoulder separation, as you could see the notch on his collar bone.

[gerryd77]

Hunter was good but no world champion.

[skanksta]

Hunter was good but no world champion.

OOh.
Miaow !

[Oiky]

Hunter was good but no world champion.

OOh.
Miaow !

F*ck me, I was way off with my prediction but that is a completely ridiculous thing to say

[Tuan_Jim]

Bakole does throw his punches with very nice form and I understand the comparing of them with Bowe's. He just doesn't have the drive or fitness or aggression.

[Boxerbeetle]

Hunter was good but no world champion.

OOh.
Miaow !

[Bodyshot3]

Enjoyed the fight........despite Paul Dempsey's usual idiocy.........and hats-off to Hunter who seemed to get that he would need to do far more than land lots of clean jabs of the back foot and stay out of bother to get the decision.

He'd need to unload and trade once in a while - both to keep Bakole thinking, rattle the big guy and nail down some close rounds - and he did just that and thoroughly deserved his victory

Not sure Hunter will be a factor in this land of giants.........he got Bakole at the right time......but based on this if he gets a shot he won't disgrace himself and will almost certainly do better than many others.

Right shame he's not two inches taller and an old-school stone heavier.

[DavidPayne]

The Bakole and Nelson exchanges really troubled me. Perhaps I'm becoming a sensitive old dear in my dotage but it stayed with me sufficiently long that I rewatched the intervals between 8-9 and 9-10 about twenty times on Tuesday and transcribed the dialogue.

Then wrote some pre-amble https://boxingwriter.co.uk/2018/10/16/m ... ter-in-10/.

Had a ton of feedback, mostly supporting the theory he should've been pulled out. To my mind, the words were evidence enough of a lost sense of priority but the tone, the body language, the facial expressions from both parties only added to that feeling.