No Fighter Brings Out The Cookbook Analysts Like Mayweather

Published

10 years ago

May 1, 2014

With the welterweight bout between title holders Floyd Mayweather 45-0 (26) and Marcos Maidana 35-3 (31) culminating this Saturday night, a lot of attention has been focused on Mayweather’s boxing style and dominance. And with that the cookbook analysts are drawing up battle plans and fight strategies; you know, the writers and analysts who basically suggest A + B = C. And when I hear those types belabor their points of what and what-nots Mayweather’s opponents must do in order to beat him, it illustrates how little they know regarding fighting applications and how they apply in actual ring combat. What they don’t understand, or in some cases refuse to, is that physicality will beat the cookbook recipe every time.

I recently read an article in the Macomb Daily in which boxing writer Marvin Goodwin stated that Maidana won’t beat Mayweather because….”He’ll follow the same pattern as Floyd’s other victims. They start the fight tentatively, star-gazing at the Mayweather aura while Mayweather dictates the pace of the fight, breaks his opponent down piece by piece and ultimately wins.” This cookbook analyst thinks that Mayweather’s opponents are “star gazing at the Mayweather aura.” The fact is, his opponents do their best work in the 1st round, as Floyd scopes them out. They become intimidated more and more as the fight goes on (the way that Canelo Alvarez did).

I’ve seen everyone of Mayweather’s fights since he’s become a superstar, beginning around 2008, which is when the Mayweather aura began to evolve into what it is today, and that’s not what I’ve seen. What I’ve seen is championship caliber fighters start the first round with a plan and thought as to what they want to do – only to find that Floyd is bigger, stronger, harder and better than what they thought. They aren’t standing there like a mummy gazing in awe. Here’s another stellar capsule of advice from Mr. Goodwin.

“Mayweather opponents, it’s time to rip that script to shreds and take a risk. The ultimate plan should be to get Mayweather out of his comfort zone. Don’t make it a boxing match, make it a fight, a knock-down, drag out, alley brawl with violent intentions, because that’s what fighting is. Don’t tiptoe around, start immediately from the opening bell and make Mayweather defend himself from a fusillade of angry punches. Make him react from a position he’s rarely faced. He’ll either back away from the surprise attack, assess the unpredictable situation and and try to regain his bearings, or he’ll stand his ground and fight. Either way, he’s out of his comfort zone, and perhaps more vulnerable to defeat.”

Yeah, like there’s a fighter around who could surprise Mayweather. The idea is idiotic, Floyd has seen it all. The above statement illustrates the cookbook perfectly. On paper, it makes perfect sense and if there’s a fighter out there fighting between 147-154 who could physically apply the above plan, he’d stand a great chance to be successful and maybe even beat Mayweather.

I love how these guys suggest, get Floyd out of his comfort zone, make it a fight and alley brawl with violent intentions because that’s what fighting is. Yes, that’s what fighting is but these geniuses must not realize that Mayweather punches back, and it doesn’t tickle. Getting busted in the face with a real sharp jab, the kind that Floyd throws, hurts, disrupts a fighter’s aggression, and blinds him for a second to the point where Floyd can send a direct right hand behind it that is going to land flush. Then he re-adjusts his body and is either in a better position to hit you again or he’s gone and the counter coming back is going to miss him. What so many guys who say Floyd can’t punch don’t realize is that he punches hard enough to keep his opponents off of him and prevents them from taking their liberties with him.

The cookbook might suggest that he’s not Thomas Hearns when it comes to punching power, but the reality of touching hands with him convinces many of the opponents who fight him that they just can’t walk through him as if he’s handcuffed. Because if they could, someone would’ve done it by now. (Jose Luis Castillo came the closest in their first fight). As I’ve often said, boxers just don’t shut it down and stop letting their hands go for no reason. The only thing that causes that, unless they’re injured, is the guy standing in front of them punching back at him.

Sure, there have been fighters of the past who could’ve gone to Mayweather and forced him to fight them off, but there’s no one fighting today between 147-154 who can do it, including Marcos Maidana. When Maidana is in the ring with Mayweather this coming Saturday night, he better have a big enough punch to make Floyd do things that he doesn’t want to in order for him to survive the fight.

Also, he must have the means to deliver that punch without getting tattooed, beaten up and peppered in the process. If he can’t execute the above he has no shot, none whatsoever, to even keep the fight close let alone score the upset. Some may suggest that if you parry Floyd’s jab and force him to his right, he’s vulnerable.

I could go on and on highlighting strategies that might get him off his game and make him more susceptible to defeat. But if the fighter following the recipe isn’t physically skilled and strong enough to execute the plan, the plan is moot and the boxing laboratory wasted a lot of time cooking it up. When in doubt refer back to the two title bouts Marvin Hagler had against Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard in 1983 and 1987. The cookbook said Hagler was least effective fighting as the attacker and was his most effective fighting as the counter-puncher as his opponents pursued him. Yet, Marvin decimated a lot of fighters as a contender and champion who tried to counter him as he was carrying the fight to them.

However, when he fought Duran and Leonard, he looked very ordinary coming forward as he was getting hit with jabs and right hands as they were moving away and kept him turning. And that happened because both Roberto and Ray were physically gifted fighters who could be effective fighting in retreat. It’s not a coincidence that they were the only two fighters who went the distance with Hagler during his seven year reign as middleweight champ.

There aren’t many things Mayweather says that I agree with. But the one thing he has said repeatedly over the last few years is “there’s no plan to beat me.” And he’s right, he’s very versatile and capable of adjusting to different tactics and strategies. The part that no one ever picks up on is, there have been fighters in the recent past who by just being who they were as a fighter would’ve either been a living nightmare for him or would’ve taken him apart. And that’s because they had the skill-set and physicality to disrupt him and force him to go places and do things in the ring that he wouldn’t want to do.

Roberto Duran: He would’ve pressured and mauled Floyd all over the ring fighting between 135-154. Duran wouldn’t have been slowed, disrupted, neutralized or bothered by Floyd’s offense or punch, he would’ve physically overwhelmed Mayweather both physically and stylistically.

Actually, his pressure and elusiveness would’ve forced Mayweather to rush his offense and made him vulnerable to Roberto’s array of hooks and right hands to the head and body. In much the same way Jose Luis Castillo did during their first bout, only ten fold.

Sugar Ray Leonard: He would’ve made one adjustment had he fought Mayweather, and he’s even stated it in the past. And that is he wouldn’t head hunt against him, he would’ve gone to the body more, and Leonard was a debilitating body puncher. Leonard had the skill, speed, punch and fighting aptitude to better Mayweather at anything he tried. Other than saying Floyd was a better defensive fighter, mainly because he’s not as offensive minded, what advantage would Mayweather have?

Leonard was faster, better offensively, punched much harder, was every bit as versatile and if toughness is a debate I’ll go with Leonard based on his level of opposition and who he defeated during his career. Leonard wouldn’t beat Mayweather because of a brilliant fight plan or strategy, he would beat him because he’s even more gifted and skilled and had the physicality to better him at every turn.

Thomas Hearns: He would’ve been Mayweather’s biggest nightmare. Hearns had such an abundance of reach and power that Floyd could’ve never countered him effectively without reaching for Thomas. Hearns could’ve stayed on the outside and pot-shotted him without ever being touched even if he missed. If a shot Oscar De La Hoya stymied Mayweather with his jab, Hearns would’ve punished him.

Against Hearns, Mayweather would’ve had to take some chances and go on the attack. However, walking into Hearns’ power would’ve been suicide for him. Mayweather wanted no part of Paul Williams and smartly retired to avoid fighting him before Williams could really make a scene challenging him. And Williams was barely a poor man’s Hearns. And just as it would be the case with Duran and Leonard, Hearns had the physicality and skill set to better Mayweather. No cookbook strategy or fight plan needed. Just being himself as a fighter would’ve got the job done. Even the three greats above couldn’t surprise Mayweather as suggested by Marvin Goodwin, they were just monsters.

When all is said and done, unless Maidana catches Mayweather on the chin with a lottery punch Saturday night, he has no chance to beat him. Mayweather has already defeated two bigger and stronger fighters (Miguel Cotto and Saul Alvarez) than Maidana in recent fights who tried to bring the heat and overwhelm him. Cotto won four rounds against Mayweather and giving Alvarez every benefit of the doubt, maybe he won one round.

No doubt Maidana will try to overwhelm Mayweather and rock him with looping left-hooks and over-hand rights like he did against Adrien Broner in his last bout. But the difference will be he’ll never get as close to him and will be peppered and tattooed much more on the way in. Once that happens and Maidana realizes that it’s not by accident, his aggression will be impeded some and then Mayweather will be in a position to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants as often as he wants and then the route will be on.

Marcos Maidana will lose to Floyd Mayweather this weekend not because he didn’t fight his fight or the right fight. No, it’ll be because he wasn’t good enough or physically strong and gifted enough to execute his perfectly laid out battle plan. Once again it will be shown for all the cookbook analyst that the plan is only as good as the fighter given the task to execute it. As Barry Tompkins once said on HBO, “I know how to dunk a basketball, but until they lower the rim, I can’t do it.”

A lot of fighters today may know the recipe as stated in the cookbook to beat Floyd Mayweather. Their only problem is they are not physically gifted enough, strong enough or skilled enough to pull it off. The only way a less talented fighter beats a superior fighter is if he gets incredibly lucky (seldom happens) or that the better fighter isn’t in shape or takes the guy lightly (those things never happen with Mayweather).

Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Frank Lotierzo

Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-289-East-L.A.-A-Fight-Town-Claressa-Shields-and-More

Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-Jake-Paul-and-Women's-Boxing-a-Curmudgeon's-Take

Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Former-World-Bamtamweight-Champion-Richie-Sandoval-Passes-Away-at-age-63

Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!