Pretty boy Mayweather and Cory spinks Won because of Clean Punches
By Mortz Marcelo Ortigoza
Philippines – Had Cory Spinks unbridled the mystery of Jermain Taylor that Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright’s failed to do?
Most of the crowd that cordoned the ring and the boob tubes’ spectators thought so.
However, two of the three judges synonymously gave Taylor 115-113 split decision to retain his Junior Middleweight’s diadem.
In the said tussle, one could see the foxy Spinks outsmarted Taylor in most of the rounds by either hitting him with combination in a guerrilla mode of ambush, or by his unpredictable footwork as complimented by his weaving and bobbling.
It was déjà vu to what Floyd “Pretty boy” Mayweather, Jr. had done to Oscar dela Hoya last May 6, 2007.
Only the latter won, while the former lost.
However, the furor on both of these fights would forever haunts the way the roller-skate’s bugaboo of Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Haggler keeps the discussion among boxing aficionados’ alive.
Now here’s my query: Does the pugilist’s aggressiveness made the day, or it is the boxer’s defense and clean punches?
Taylor and dela Hoya were the predator in most of the rounds, but all the punches they unleashed were mostly duds.
While Spinks and Pretty boy whose defensive maneuvering made them the real dude because most of their volleys were clean punches.
The HBO’s compubox on the acrimonious Dela-Hoya-Mayweather’s post fight would attest on this.
The same story, I believed, with the Taylor-Spink’s brouhaha.
Clean Punches, Aggressiveness, Ring Generalship, and Defense (that I abbreviated as CARD) are the Ceteris Paribus ( All things are equal) of scoring.
If we oblige Spinks and Mayweather Jr. to fight tit-for-tat their opponent by disregarding defense through footwork and stick-and run, then Spinks and Mayweather (and even Roy Jones when he fought the bigger John Ruiz in the Heavyweight Division) would be instantly annihilated in the opening round, this at the expense of ticket and pay-per-view’s buyers.
Then the excitement of boxing as a mind game would never be the same again when smaller fighter out hustled the bigger ones.
Gee whiz, if we just bowed to the fist-waving advocates of all-aggressiveness’ crap, then boxing would become a mechanical game at the expense of intelligence.
Thus, pugilism will be no different to bar brawl.
It’s like banning foreplay in bed scenes. Man, we could not just go for the bull’s eye. We have first to savor excitement.
All aggressiveness boxing?
Boy, I could not do anythin’ but to rephrase Don McLean’s in American Pie: “But something touched me deep inside, the day the boxing game die, so… bye-bye Miss American Pie…
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