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Lampley Says Reckless Spontaneity Helped Maidana Test Mayweather’s Mettle

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Jim Lampley, host of HBO Boxing telecasts, knows as much about Floyd Mayweather as anyone. Until Mayweather signed his six-fight deal with rival network Showtime last year, Lampley and his ringside cohorts over at HBO called Mayweather’s biggest and most historically significant fights to date, including wins over Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Lampley told TSS he was surprised as anyone to see Mayweather struggle so mightily with Maidana.

“I said on ‘The Fight Game’ I thought Floyd would win 10 or 11 rounds in a one-sided, unanimous decision…I thought Maidana had the kind of straight-forward, unsophisticated style that Floyd could easily take apart, and it didn’t happen.”

Lampley said it was Maidana’s unorthodox approach and reckless aggression that led him closer to victory over Mayweather than any other fighter had since Jose Luis Castillo fought Mayweather the first time back in 2002.

“The one thing I come away with, and it’s something I’ve observed several times…is that when a guy is a conventional fighter and has a technically sound and conventional approach, he’s trained in the gym to deal with everything that’s right in front of him. He spars, typically, with guys with similar skills and similar conventional approaches. But when somebody comes in and throws punches from all kinds of odd angles, over the top as if they are coming off a tall building, uppercuts from the floor, etc., etc., sometimes the very sophisticated and conventional defender has trouble with the sheer reckless spontaneity of all that.”

Mayweather won a majority decision over Maidana. Judge Michael Pernick called it a draw at 114-114. But Burt Clements had Mayweather the winner, 117-111, while Dave Moretti scored the fight 116-112 for the same.

Pernick and Moretti were probably closer to the correct call than Clements. The fight was close, and Maidana deserved to win at least four or five rounds.

“Now, I scored it 115-113, or seven rounds to five,” said Lampley. “That’s pretty close. But I also thought it was pretty clear that Floyd had reeled in the situation, particularly in the second half of the fight, and won it. But I thought that Maidana got the jump on him, particularly early on, by throwing many punches from odd angles.”

Lampley likened what Maidana was able to accomplish against Mayweather to what Luis Carlos Abregu was able to do against Thomas Dulorme, when the two junior welterweights met in 2012. Abregu was the underdog but Dulorme’s conventional approach wasn’t capable of dealing with Abregu’s aggressive unorthodoxy. Lampley said it wasn’t a one-to-one comparison, of course. After all, Dulorme is nowhere near the boxer Mayweather is, and Abregu knocked Dulorme out in Round 7.

Still, the condition of what happened in the fight seemed similar.

“An extremely determined Marcos Maidana was throwing wild punches from all angles, and the punches he gave Floyd trouble with particularly were the right hand that was coming way over the top and the uppercuts that were coming from down under. And Floyd can handle everything that is right in front of him. But sometimes you just don’t see that other stuff.”

I asked Lampley if he thought Mayweather’s effort against Maidana was any indication that the 37-year-old might be slowing down somewhat. Did this version of Floyd appear to be sliding down the slope a bit?

“No, because his hands were still tremendously fast, and he landed with great accuracy when he threw. As the fight progressed, he gained more and more control of the situation because he got a clearer picture in his head as to what was going on. He just got jumped in the first round by a guy who threw three times as many punches as he was throwing from all sorts of angles…it almost doesn’t even matter if they’re landing, your eye is on them.”

Lampley said the boos from the crowd afterward, a signal they thought the wrong man was given the nod, was something he’s seen before. He likened it to what Antonio Tarver did to Roy Jones in their first fight back in 2003 and what Oscar De La Hoya did to Mayweather back in 2007. Both Tarver and De La Hoya were able to pin their opponents up against the ropes at times, making it perhaps appear to those in attendance they were landing more punches than they actually were.

Maidana, he said, did the same.

“A great defender like Floyd doesn’t feel the need to counter every shot. He’s going to hang back on the ropes in a lot of instances, duck, dive, slip and stay away, but the crowd in the arena has the naked eye disadvantage of trying to decide which punches landed and which ones didn’t, all they see is the guy throwing and throwing and throwing and they’re assuming he’s winning the fight. I think that’s what happened to Floyd the other night.”

I couldn’t help myself in asking Lampley if he thought, as I did, that seeing Mayweather struggle with an oddball like Maidana would mean he might also be more vulnerable to a fighter like Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao, I reasoned, is the master of creating good punching angles, and he throws punches fast and furiously.

Lampley shut me down.

“It has nothing to do with what happened the other day, because Pacquiao is very conventional in his offensive approach. He throws punches from the same kinds of angles that most great fighters do. He doesn’t throw them up in the air or from the floor.”

Lampley implied Mayweather would have his way with Pacquiao should the two ever finally meet in the ring.

“What Manny throws, Floyd would see coming. And I also think the way Manny squares his shoulders to attack, combined geometrically with Floyd’s best punch, the right hand counter over the top, I think that Manny would be a sitting duck to that punch.”

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Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

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Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

LONG BEACH, Ca.-A cool autumn night saw welterweights and minimumweights share main events for a MarvNation fight card on Saturday.

Ukraine’s Eduard Skavynskyi (15-0, 7 KOs) experienced a tangled mess against the awkward Alejandro Frias (14-10-2) but won by decision after eight rounds in a welterweight contest at the indoor furnace called the Thunder Studios.

It was hot in there for the more than 600 people inside.

Skavynskyi probably never fought someone like Mexico’s Frias whose style was the opposite of the Ukrainian’s fundamentally sound one-two style. But round after round the rough edges became more familiar.

Neither fighter was ever damaged but all three judges saw Skavynskyi the winner by unanimous decision 79-73 on all three cards. The Ukrainian fighter trains in Ventura.

Bustillo Wins Rematch

Applerose2

In the female main event Las Vegas’ Yadira Bustillos (8-1) stepped into a rematch with Karen Lindenmuth (5-2) and immediately proved the lessons learned from their first encounter.

Bustillos connected solidly with an overhand right and staggered Lindenmuth but never came close to putting the pressure fighter down. Still, Bustillos kept turning the hard rushing Lindenmuth and snapping her head with overhand rights and check left hooks.

Lindenmuth usually overwhelms most opponents with a smothering attack that causes panic. But not against Bustillos who seemed quite comfortable all eight rounds in slipping blows and countering back.

After eight rounds all three judges scored the contest for Bustillos 78-74 and 80-72 twice. Body shots were especially effective for the Las Vegas fighter in the fifth round. Bustillos competes in the same division as IBF/WBO title-holder Yokasta Valle.

Other Bouts

In a middleweight clash, undefeated Victorville’s Andrew Buchanan (3-0-1) used effective combination punching to defeat Mexico’s Fredy Vargas (2-1-1) after six rounds. Two judges scored it 59-55 and a third 60-54 for Buchanan. No knockdowns were scored.

A super lightweight match saw Sergio Aldana win his pro debut by decision after four rounds versus Gerardo Fuentes (2-9-1).

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Tedious Fights and a Controversial Draw Smudge the Matchroom Boxing Card in Orlando

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Matchroom Boxing was at the sprawling Royale Caribe Resort Hotel in Orlando, Florida tonight with a card that aired on DAZN. The main event was a ho-hum affair between super lightweights Richardson Hitchins and Jose Zepeda.

SoCal’s Zepeda has been in some wars in the past, notably his savage tussle with Ivan Baranchyk, but tonight he brought little to the table and was outclassed by the lanky Hitchins who won all 12 rounds on two of the cards and 11 rounds on the other.  There were no knockdowns, but Zepeda suffered a cut on his forehead in round seven that was deemed to be the product of an accidental head butt and another clash in round ten forced a respite in the action although Hitchins suffered no apparent damage.

It was the sort of fight where each round was pretty much a carbon of the round preceding it. Brooklyn’s Hitchins, who improved to 17-0 (7), was content to pepper Zepeda with his jab, and the 34-year-old SoCal southpaw, who brought a 37-3 record, was never able to penetrate his defense and land anything meaningful.

Hitchins signed with Floyd Mayweather Jr’s promotional outfit coming out of the amateur ranks and his style is reminiscent in ways of his former mentor. Like Mayweather, he loses very few rounds. In his precious engagement, he pitched a shutout over previously undefeated John Bauza.

Co-Feature

In the co-feature, Conor Benn returned to the ring after an absence of 17 months and won a unanimous decision over Mexico’s Rodolfo Orozco. It wasn’t a bad showing by Benn who showed decent boxing skills, but more was expected of him after his name had been bandied about so often in the media. Two of the judges had it 99-91 and the other 96-94.

Benn (22-0, 14 KOs) was a late addition to the card although one suspects that promoter Eddie Hearn purposely kept him under wraps until the week of the fight so as not to deflect the spotlight from the other matches on his show. Benn lost a lucrative date with Chris Eubank Jr when he was suspended by the BBBofC when evidence of a banned substance was found in his system and it’s understood that Hearn has designs on re-igniting the match-up with an eye on a date in December. For tonight’s fight, Benn carried a career-high 153 ½ pounds. Mexico’s Orozco, who was making his first appearance in a U.S. ring, declined to 32-4-3.

Other Bouts of Note

The welterweight title fight between WBA/WBC title-holder Jessica McCaskill (15-3-1) and WBO title-holder Sandy Ryan (6-1-1) ended in a draw and the ladies’ retain their respective titles. Ryan worked the body effectively and the general feeling was that she got a raw deal, a sentiment shared by the crowd which booed the decision. There was a switch of favorites in the betting with the late money seemingly all on the Englishwoman who at age 30 was the younger boxer by nine years.

The judges had it 96-94 Ryan, 96-95, and a vilified 97-93 for Chicago’s McCaskill.

In the opener of the main DAZN stream, Houston middleweight Austin “Ammo” Williams, 27, improved to 15-0 (10) with a 10-round unanimous decision over 39-year-old Toronto veteran Steve Rolls (22-3). All three judges had it 97-93. Rolls has been stopped only once, that by Gennady Golovkin.

Photo credit: Ed Mulholland / Matchroom Boxing

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Zhilei Zhang KOs Joe Joyce; Calls Out Tyson Fury

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Joe Joyce activated his rematch clause after being stopped in the sixth frame by Zhilei Zhang in their first meeting. In hindsight, he may wish that he hadn’t. Tonight at London’s Wembley Stadium, Zhang stopped him again and far more conclusively than in their first encounter.

In the first meeting, Zhang, a southpaw, found a steady home for his stiff left jab. Targeting Joyce’s right eye, he eventually damaged the optic to where the ring doctor wouldn’t let Joyce continue. At the end, the fight was close on the cards and Joyce was confident that he would have pulled away if not for the issue with his eye.

In the rematch tonight, Zhang (26-1-1, 21 KOs) closed the curtain with his right hand. A thunderous right hook on the heels of a straight left pitched Joyce to the canvas where he landed face first. He appeared to beat the count by a whisker, but was seriously dazed and referee Steve Gray properly waived it off. The official time was 3:07 of round three.

Zhang, who lived up to his nickname, “Big Bang,” was credited with landing 29 power punches compared with only six for Joyce (15-2) who came in 25 pounds heavier than in their first meeting while still looking properly conditioned. One would be inclined to say that age finally caught with the “Juggernaut” who turned 38 since their last encounter, but Zhang, 40, is actually the older man. In his post-fight interview in the ring, the New Jersey resident, a two-time Olympian for China, when asked who he wanted to fight next, turned to the audience and said, “Do you want to see me shut Tyson Fury up?”

He meant it as a rhetorical question.

Semi-Windup

Light heavyweight Anthony Yarde was matched soft against late sub Jorge Silva, a 40-year-old Portuguese journeyman, and barely broke a sweat while scoring a second-round stoppage. Yarde backed Silva against a corner post and put him on the deck with a short right hand. Silva’s body language indicated that he had no interest in continuing and the referee accommodated him. The official time was 2:07 of round two.

A 30-year-old Londoner, Yarde (24-3, 23 KOs) was making his first start since being stopped in eight rounds by Artur Beterbiev in a bout that Yarde was winning on two of the scorecards. Silva, a late replacement for 19-3-1 Ricky Summers, falls to 22-9.

Also

Former leading super middleweight contender Zach Parker (23-1, 17 KOs) returned to the ring in a “shake-off-the-rust” fight against 40-year-old Frenchman Khalid Graidia and performed as expected. Graidia’s corner pulled him out after seven one-sided rounds.

In his previous fight, Parker was matched against John Ryder who he was favored to beat. The carrot for the winner was a lucrative date with Canelo Alvarez. Unfortunately for Parker, he suffered a broken hand and was unable to continue after four frames. Tonight, he carried 174 pounds, a hint that he plans to compete as a light heavyweight going forward. Indeed, he has expressed an interest in fighting Anthony Yarde. Graidia declined to 10-13-4.

The Zhang-Joyce and Yarde-Silva fights were live-streamed in the U.S. on ESPN+.

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