Clean Fighters

This past weekend had one of the biggest fluxes of high level competition in all combat sports that there has been in a while. I made it a point, after talking about the matchups at work, to watch all of them in their entirety. Among these fights was; Terrence Crawford vs. Thomas Dulorme; Lyoto Machida vs. Luke Rockhold; Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Adrezj Fonfara; and Lucas Matthyse vs. Ruslan Provodnikov. Those were the main cards that I made a point of watching, and in every one of those fights except for the Crawford and Chavez fight, I felt like there were question marks.

 In recent times, I've been going into research and analysis of the corruption behind sports, and the fact that Mayweather, a fighter that I admired to a great degree, while having the tools to dispatch of Pacquiao, shows that today fighters see boxing more as a racketeering business than a sport.

  I gained a huge amount of respect for Crawford in his win, as he showed an amazing ability to adapt to a very skilled opponent in Dulorme and turn the pressure up at will. He has the aura and attitude of a perfectionist when he fights, and I can see him dominating this division or even moving up one weight class in the near future. He is going to be able to do things similar to Mayweather  in this sport due to his skill and athleticism. He won't be bothered by size often in his career.

 In the Machida vs Rockhold fight, I just shook my head. Luke Rockhold was almost certainly juiced the heck up for the fight. From the opening bell, he was eating clean counter shots from Lyoto and showed absolutely no concern for any assault from his opponent. When a fighter is juiced, there is not only physical things in their body that give it away, but also certain behavior. A juiced fighter will show no fatigue, or concern at all for pain or danger. There is a natural reflex that the body has when it is assaulted, even if clean shots aren't being landed. When you watched that fight, Luke Rockhold taunted Lyoto while taking direct punches to the front of his face, without even moving an inch. It was over before it started. He eventually muscled Lyoto over and got a submission.

 In the Chavez fight, the issues with Chavez's defense and technique surfaced again. He has moments where he looks impressive, but he wasn't able to overpower the bigger Fonfara, and eventually had to quit on his stool.

 The Matthyse vs Provodnikov fight was strange. Everyone picked Ruslan to win by brutal KO in this fight with good  reason. He is the naturally bigger powerhouse, and we all saw Matthyse get hurt by a small Danny Garcia. However, in this fight, Ruslan's output was way lower than usual, and he seemed to lull several times in the fight. Lucas looked very sharp and good with his offense, mixing it up beautifully, but it didn't look natural to see him be the first person to take almost no damage at all from Ruslan over a 12 round fight. I'm not sure what that was about, but Danny Garcia's stock rose with that win.

 Not one fight was in question this weekend. There were upsets, but none of them were close. Now we look forward to May 2nd, where many predict a KO for Manny Pacquiao, and many a KO for Mayweather. That fight has me annoyed. When you hear Floyd's family and fans talk about the fight, it makes you wonder why they wanted it in the first place. They don't see Manny as a challenger at all. That is sheer stupidity, and a part of me is hoping that Bob Arum's prediction of a KO for Manny is correct. I'm sick of the easy street that Mayweather's career has been. The problem in this fight, is that while Manny is the perfect opponent for Floyd, he just happens to be in an undersized body. That, as Floyd pointed out in an interview earlier, will play a major role. I think Manny was smart to work on his speed. He had an edge before, but now it is apparent. The way I see things playing out is still a Mayweather KO, late in the fight or perhaps the middle rounds. However, I'm rooting for a great Manny performance, and even an upset. I think as the fight starts, Mayweather fans and his uncle and father are going to be struck speechless, as they have to come to terms with Pacquiao's underrated boxing ability, which they refuse to respect. The question is can Pacquiao sustain that pressure and keep Mayweather from resetting and figuring him out. If he doesn't stay on Mayweather like Maidana did, Mayweather will set traps and move, looking for counter shots.

  Floyd senior says that Alvarez, Guerrerro, and Maidana would destroy Pacquiao. Therefore, he feels like this is an automatic stoppage. However, for everyone that will look at this KO and say that Floyd's training is the key; think about something- when he fought Maidana the second time, he had taken on Alex Ariza as his conditioning and dietary trainer, when he was already peak human. Let's not be stupid and forget that Mayweather always pushes himself to the limit. He pushed himself just like he is doing now, in fear of another tough fight. The first thing I said going into the rematch was, " I hope Maidana is ready. This is not going the distance." And what happened? Mayweather showed that he is out of gears and showed up with an inflated belly, taking much of the same damage if not more. He didn't rise to another level. He only looked slightly more durable and gritty in that win, going to the body with hooks and straight with some success and damage. That's all. I remember feeling for the first time, that what Freddie Roach says about his legs being gone, is true. He showed that a lot of his tough talk is simply posturing. So why do you fans think that a devastating KO in this fight for him would be natural. Why do you suddenly believe that he can create another gear after failing to do so in his last fight. Remember, he predicted a devastating domination in the Maidana rematch, and then backed up with excuses when he couldn't deliver.


  What we seem to forget about Manny Pacquiao in our degradation of him, is the fact that he has faced bigger punchers and bigger opponents than Floyd. If anything, talk about Floyd's speed and how Manny hasn't faced than yet. But to suddenly act as if Floyd's size is going to overwhelm Manny, when a tougher Clottey, Margarito, and De La Hoya didn't, is just being ignorant. But at the same time that I say that, this is the one fight where Mayweather is going to be depending on his physical advantages to win. All of the talk about how much smarter he thinks he is, is mere posturing. He fears Manny's intellect. If it weren't for those physical advantages that Floyd has, he probably would have never agreed to the fight. I want to see a natural boxing match on May 2nd. Let the best man win. I'm hearing that the fix may be in for the judges to give Manny the fight. Oddly, I'm happy to hear that. Because at least I know that if that's the case, it can tip the scales even, since Mayweather is clearly going to do whatever it takes to win, including cheat with steroids. I'm not demanding an outcome, but I must say that if Pacquiao wins on May 2nd, I will officially back off of my conspiracy theories in boxing for the foreseeable future.


  We have to wonder how clean fighters today really are. Whether it's throwing a fight like Nonito Donaire's opponent did a few weeks ago, or a fighter walking into the ring juiced up like Rockhold most likely did. Often, the upper powers of the fight organizations will cover it up, in the name of money. I watched Nonito Donaire's opponent cover up and refuse to fire back, under an onslaught of haymakers, until the fight was stopped. No sane human with boxing knowledge can look at that and not see it was fixed. Unfortunately, people turn a blind eye, and while the former is rare, the latter is completely lacking amongst the fans of the sport. He didn't even think of returning fire in that fight, and to make matters worse, the fool peeked over his gloves when Donaire stepped back to wait for him to continue. It was one of the worst acts I've seen in a while, and it's in a period of time where people are so stupid that it goes right over their heads. And who knows if Rockhold's test will come back positive. In sports today, it's getting to the point where the eye test is the only thing that will ever give it away. Fighters like Marquez can cheat, and ride off into the sunset. I just hope that for just this one fight, on May 2nd, that crap can be put on hold, and I can see the so-called greatest fighter ever, be truly tested.