Saturday, January 10, 2009

A day of catch-up

I, like most people, cannot watch boxing every day. Or MMA, for that matter. Need to throw different activities into the mix lest I destroy my life. However, because I skip so many shows, I often need a "catchup day" to start watching many of them, often in repetition. The snow gave me good reason to do just this. The basic theme? John Duddy. No, really. 

-JOHN DUDDY vs. SHELBY PUDWILL (3/16/06): Pudwill was a lousy fraud and got beaten violently, dropped early in round one with a left hook to the chin and he never recovered. Between the Pierre and Campos fights, so people were still somewhat willing to buy into Duddy. 

-JOHN DUDDY vs. DUPRE STRICKLAND (5/18/07): Strickland had an impressive record (as did many Duddy opponents) but it lacked any substance. He was knocked down on an off balance shot in the first and lost every single round of the fight on my card and that of the judges. A horrible fight in which Strickland ran and Duddy's lack of actual punching power made it impossible for him to slow down Strickland. Strickland did nothing to win. 

-JOHN DUDDY vs. ALESSIO FURLAN (7/24/07): Duddy's return to Ireland, a necessary move to remotivate him and keep him from going stale with the NY fanbase. A lot is said by the RTE announcers to hype him, and he lives up to it in some sense. Duddy drops him in the first and then out throws him most of the fight, with Furlan winning only the 5th. Furlan was given a ton of credit for a career journeyman, and much was made of his survival for 11 rounds against Sylvester. Duddy stops Furlan with less than 20 seconds remaining in round 10 after the second knockdown of that final round. Furlan made sure to land a few solid rights on Duddy, but being a weak puncher, nothing truly came of it. 

-JOHN DUDDY vs. PRINCE ARRON (10/20/07): Simply no way Nevada or NY would ever accept this fight. Arron is beyond overmatched and while he lands a pretty decent combination in round 1, Duddy simply piles over the stringbean with a few knockdowns. Arron is really looking for a soft spot on the canvas in round 2 when a solid slap on the inside puts him down and forces a ref stoppage. 

-JOHN DUDDY vs. HOWARD EASTMAN (12/8/07): Eastman looked good here, which is perhaps not the strongest complement to Duddy's skills. Lots of right hand uppercuts landed clean and Eastman as counterpuncher seemed to have the answer to Duddy's forward movement all night long. Earlier in his career, Eastman obliterates Duddy. At 37, it is a close fight due to Duddy's ability to soak up punches while throwing his own. I had it Eastman 96-94 but the ref scores it that way for Duddy. Eastman really ran out of gas in the 6th and just sorta coasted in from there. The announcers again put over Duddy's success and popularity in the US (hah!) as well as Eastman's ability. 

My thoughts with Duddy is that he probably gets a bad wrap. He didn't look bad with Eastman, who is very awkward. Alternately, a 37 year old Eastman shouldn't be competitive with a guy constantly brought up in world title bout talks. What I found most hilarious was watching these shows, you see several prospects as good or better than Duddy (Macklin, Quillin, Moore), and wh
atever momentum you imagine building for Duddy gets blown up. Duddy is what he is, which is Mickey Ward with good management.

OTHER STUFF:

-Peter Quillin had two fights on these shows. He was outrageous wild against Willie Cruz, just throwing shit everywhere. Fast forward to the Victor Paz fight and he's much, much more controlled. Viewing him versus Duddy, there's a marked difference in technique, hand speed, movement, hell, everything. He deserves some accolades.

-I might have seen Pawel Wolak/Troy Browning but forgot about it. He made Anthony Little look horrible with nothing but sheer offense, but I can't say I'm shocked to know that he lost to Ishe Smith in the last year. Zero pretense of defense.

-I've seen plenty of Paul McCloskey now. Good fighter with all the punches, but a lack of head movement means he probably won't progress beyond the Commonwealth level. He's beaten Garnica, and that deserves some respect in my eyes. Not much power, though.

-Haughian/Grassellini I is a tough ass fight to score. I actually had it wide for Haughian and was surprised as hell to see the italian winning the fight. Very competitive bout with both men throwing and blocking everything coming back. Kinda liked it. Haughian looked good against O'Connell as well. 

-Can someone explain why anyone likes Joe Greene? One punch at a time, slow, inactive, holds. He's beaten nobody good. Here against Brian Norman he gave away the first two, and he ain't superman. 

-Haven't seen Macklin in a minute but boy oh boy did he look good against Furlan. Just bashed him in. Great body punching.



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