Fights "won" BEFORE the fight

[mikeeod]

1. Head Games: Some of my favorite examples of this are Liston vs Patterson (Floyd had a disguise in his bag to wear while leaving the building after the fight), Foreman vs everyone pre-Ali, Tyson vs Spinks, Riddick Bowe vs Larry Donald, and Steve Collins vs Chris Eubank (Eubank was rattled by Collins’ claim of hypnosis use).

2. Weight Games: Andre Ward vs Chad Dawson, Oscar vs Arturo Gatti, Gatti vs Joey Gamache, G-Man vs middleweights, and Ray Leonard vs Donny Lalond (won belts in two weights for one fight).

3. Judges Games: I feel like every boxing “cash cow” gets favor from judges so Canelo, Oscar, Ray Leonard, JCC…etc, all have some questionable wins. The interesting exception to me is Manny- he actually had some blatant robberies vs Tim Bradley and Jeff Horn while he was a cash cow.

4. Rules Games: Adding to the Hagler v Leonard regrets- DEFINITELY a mistake to allow Ray to get the bigger ring. Taking a different spin- prime BHOP was the master at using the rules to his advantage by fouling while the ref was out of position. I loved his tactic of using his left hand to position his opponents body between himself and the ref and then hitting low before maneuvering the opponent out of the way so the ref could clearly see the retaliatory low blow from the opponent.

[Master]

I think with Hagler v Leonard, Ray wanted 12 rounds not 15.

Ray conceded everything else including ring size just so he could have 12 rounds. It worked in his favour as the last 3 rounds probably would have been decisive for Hagler to win.

Hagler fighting orthodox for the first few rounds did not work either. He knew Ray had been practicing for a southpaw all year round.