I know as time has went on some feel Richard Steele made the right call in Chavez vs Taylor1 in stopping the fight with 2 seconds left despite knowing the fight was almost over. Despite seeing the red buzzer that represents 10 seconds left. Despite that being the 1st time Taylor was in trouble or knocked down. But let’s look deeper, Chavez was the A side and a Don King fighter. A year later another A side Don King fighter Mike Tyson was fighting a tough challenge in Razor Ruddock. Richard Steele was the referee again and again he made what seemed to be a hasty stoppage in favor of the A side Don King fighter. When people made excuses for the Chavez stoppage like Taylor was down, he was beat up etc. Well Ruddock was on his feet wobbling but still very capable. It wasn’t the 12th round. He had been taking a beating but he was landing shots. This stoppage was so bad that they made them fight 3 months later. And when you have the same common denominator it doesn’t feel or look right. I don’t like it that the A side fighter, is usually the beneficiary to 80% of these questionable calls.
In most sports if you do a poor job, you lose your job. In boxing you get rewarded for it. Again I don’t want to say the judges in Canelo vs Bivol were corrupt. I don’t believe that. I don’t want to say they’re bad judges because they aren’t. But I think they made a mistake in which anyone can make. I also think they should be held accountable and they should be mandated to discuss their perception of the fight. That’s fair and I believe it will insure more objective judging. It will also give us a better understanding of what they saw. Maybe they can sway us with their perception and articulating of what they saw.
What was also bizarre is all 3 had the same exact scorecards. It’s good if each judge saw the same fight, it’s very relevant. But for each judge to have the same scorecard that the viewing audience didn’t agree with is very odd. Most people had Bivol winning 9 rounds and not 7. And I don’t know anyone who thought Bivol lost the 1st four. So out of the respect for the judges, let’s hear what they have to say and have them tell us what they saw.
I also want to bring up drug testing since we are talking about cleaning up boxing. When a date has been put to the side for a fighter and the whole world knows that fighter will be fighting on a specific time window. Testing should begin. It’s the most counter productive practice in the history of drug testing to allow the A side fighter to wait and wait and wait to announce his fights. In essence he gets to wait to drug test because the testing won’t start until after the fight is announced and signed. So now the A side fighter is basically determining WHEN the testing will start and when it will end. With advanced doping it’s almost impossible to catch the cheaters under these current A side conditions. You have to start testing earlier than their scheduled 8 week camps or else the testing is just surface level.
Hi Bread,
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/iihf-world-championship-2022-live-free-broadcast-on-14-5-2022/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/iihf-world-championship-live-broadcast-free-on-14-may-2022/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/slovakia-vs-germany-live-stream-free/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/slovakia-vs-germany-live-stream-2022-live-stream-reddit/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/iihf-world-championship-live-stream-reddit-on-tv/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/buffstreams-latvia-vs-finland-2022-live-stream-reddit/profile
https://www.dogwoodarts.com/profile/tv-latvia-vs-finland-live-broadcast-free-on-14-may-2022/profile
Many thanks for your fantastic analysis over the years. I had two takeaways from this fight. Firstly, the scoring was another embarrassment. The thought that these guys were one round from making it a draw makes my blood boil. Secondly Bivol has a super high boxing IQ and he flat out bewildered Canelo. Basically he kept him completely off balance in two ways. Firstly, the jab and the movement meant Canelo found it hard to sit on his punches and even if he got one off he was unbalanced for the next. He was barely able to throw any combinations. Secondly, Bivol constantly switched his game. One second he’s fighting off the back foot, disrupting with his jab but looking like a regular Canelo opponent who wants to stay away from Canelo’s power shots. This we’ve seen before and so has Canelo. Sooner or later he walks them down. But not this time because the next second Bivol completely changes his game and attacks Canelo with fast nasty combinations. But just when Canelo thinks he’s seduced Bivol into a firefight and things are looking up the next second Bivol is moving and picking him apart at distance. I think this combination of disrupting Canelo’s physical and mental balance won the fight. Canelo just couldn’t process it and figure out how to change the game so Bivol has to fight his fight.
