This tawdry incident in Dereck Chisora's Saturday win has everyone fired up one way or the other: 1. Heavyweight Malik Scott stood up at the count of nine, which is less than 10, and 10 is when one is normally counted out, and that makes some people angry; or 2. other people are angry about the first set of people being angry, cuz what's the big deal, Scott should've known better and wasn't as upset as everyone else seems to be on his behalf.
There's a way to blend those positions into one, which some have. Scott shouldn't have been counted out. He beat the count — that's indisputable. Why does the ref choose the moment he stands up at nine to render the call against him? It's an injustice, period. What comes next is not "blaming the victim" — whatever I think of what Scott did, he is not at fault. That said, if he stands up at eight, this doesn't happen. Nine is cutting it pretty close. Boxers who are hurt are advised to "take the eight count." Not nine, for this reason. I can't read his mind, and there's not enough evidence out there about what he was thinking to explain why he waited — maybe he was taking as much time as he possibly could to recover, maybe he (as some have speculated) didn't really want to continue and that's the reason for his lack of animated protest. To me, he looked more confused afterward than anything.
Naturally this has overshadowed the fight itself. Scott was in control early, boxing well and moving. By the middle of the 3rd round, Chisora had started to trap him against the ropes and work his body. By the 6th, Chisora had taken over, and probably was headed toward a victory, especially after he showed he could hurt and drop Scott. Too bad we'll never know thanks to a bad call. One man was robbed of a chance to prove he could recover and still win. Another man was robbed of the credit he might have gotten for a win untainted by controversy.
Quick Jabs
Adrien Broner will be dead or in jail within a couple years update: Here's a video that's been accurately titled elsewhere "Boxer Adrien Broner Pooping Money in Popeyes Bathroom." It's not as funny as he thinks it is, in part because destroying money that could've gone to good use instead is illegal and idiotically wasteful. That's not to say one of our old friends should've reported him to the authorities, though — that's for others to do, not the role of a boxing writer. (For some thoughts on another boxing writer overstepping boundaries recently, click here.) Other recent Tweets: "Nighas that know me know I will shoot them in the face trying to talk to my girl or any of my baby mamas" and "Niggas better stay in they lane for they float in a lake…………." I think I've finally figured out why nobody is doing anything to keep this guy from derailing his life or career, which is what's up next…
Broner is ratings gold, that's why. Whatever he's doing to eviscerate good taste, however he behaves like a person about to implode, it's all working to his advantage and those around him. I recently wondered aloud whether we were getting apples to apples comparisons of announced boxing ratings, and after talking to a Showtime official and HBO spokesman, I'm convinced we are, and that the number we've been getting that's sometimes described as "peak" is, in fact, the average for any given fight. Which makes Broner's last announced rating extraordinary: 1.3 million, more than most anybody else this year, and a big number for Showtime — about as much as he was doing for the larger network, HBO. And HBO has some good news of its own, based on that understanding of the ratings: Middleweight Gennady Golovkin drew 1.1 million viewers for his last fight. Golovkin has come a long way since doing horrible ratings in his HBO debut, with 1.1 million right in the ballpark of what most shows are doing on the network these days. That's a pretty rapid rate of growth, from less than 700,000 in three apperances. It's fair to say this Golovkin chap is officially catching on…
Then there's the case of junior featherweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux. We're hearing an awful lot about how much HBO doesn't like him or how much he's growing on HBO with nobody from HBO so much as quoted on background; everything's second-hand from Top Rank or his manager. I did very much like this commentary by Scott Christ as to why Rigo is getting the short end of the stick (assuming he is). I've tried to objectively determine whether there's a correlation between measurements of popularity and fighting style, and while there is one, it's very, very far from absolute. Rigo's fighting style is only one of his problems, as SC laid out…
Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are going back and forth again and it's even more tiresome and useless this time around. Pacquiao still wants the fight, says he's not a has-been as Mayweather says he is, Mayweather says Pacquiao needs to leave Top Rank and sign with Mayweather Promotions to get the fight, blah blah blah. Fight isn't going to happen and it would take a lot for it to get interesting again anyway, based on Pacquiao's recent loss. Meanwhile, Mayweather is breaking Las Vegas gates already for his junior middleweight clash with Canelo Alvarez in September, one of those "boxing is doing great, innit?" moments that also makes you go, "Jesus, it's expensive to be a boxing fan if the tickets sell for enough to break gate records." At least they're piling on the good stuff on this card. We already talked about one undercard bout earlier this week, and some talk was that Austin Trout-Erislandy Lara might happen at 154 on the same card too. It's a solid fight by the "importance" standard, but a bad one as far as style clashes go; Trout and Lara have both been in exciting fights, but they needed their opponents to force the action. Pairing fights like that with better style match-ups is a good move, so I think it fits on the Mayweather-Canelo PPV. Apparently, Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer does not…
Here's another big possibility for that undercard: The talk is early and not very definitive, but there's at least a chance Ana Julaton will be on the Showtime PPV. It would be huge for women's boxing to appear on one of the major networks, let alone a spot like that. Showtime's Stephen Espinoza at least has opened the door to women's boxing appearing on his network. Is there any reason not to at least experiment with it and see how it goes over with the fans?…
This isn't me pulling the "I'm just asking questions" trick that's used in performance enhancing drug insinuations. But I'm confused why a boxer who: recently enlisted the help of someone who was known to have dealt PEDs; who hadn't shown crazy knockout power in a long time if ever; and then who quickly knocked out a naturally bigger man who had faced some pretty big punchers without much trouble… hasn't prompted more skepticism. Again, I'm not at all suggesting super middleweight Edwin Rodriguez is on anything. I'm not any more skeptical of him than I am anyone else affiliated with Victor Conte, as he is, or Memo Heredia or whoever else with a questionable resume. Anyone affiliated with that crowd gets a raised eyebrow automatically. I have no evidence he's on anything and don't affirmatively believe he is as a result. It's just the kind of circumstance that usually leads to a bunch of accusations and hasn't this time. Maybe it's because it happened on a small card overseas, maybe it's because Conte has been in the Rodriguez camp for a couple fights, or maybe it's because Conte has his defenders who believe he can do no wrong…
I have my doubts Archie Solis is going to convince the courts in America to take up a lawsuit against Canelo Alvarez over an incident that allegedly happened in Mexico, but maybe the whole "Alvarez has a U.S." address thing will play…
This happened while I was in Japan. Gotta love Tony Thompson's interviews. I post only in case you never saw it.
