Chuvalo was incredible, easily the GOAT chin.

Cool post!

I agree with most, except for thinking Monzon wins it more often than Hagler. I think hagler would have to swarm him, and that could spell disaster.

Yeah for sure. It's so sick to watch his fight against Foreman knowing the power big george had.

really good fights this weekend.

Nishioka vs Marquez should be a war despite marquez being past it.

Cunningham fights cuban hernandez. Could see an upset happening here.

Sergio Martinez also back in action, though against a way inferior opponent unfortunately. Some of the brits in this thread may disagree with this.

Yeah, Barker's going to get destroyed. He's not a bad fighter but he is no where near the level of Martinez.

Which got me thinking....which division has the biggest gap between number 1 and number 2? Maybe Martinez at middleweight or Donaire at bantamweight?

yeah probably those 2. But the bantamweight division is really good so thats saying a lot about donaires skills.

mw is atrocious. Whos even second best? Pirog? lol.
I guess when abraham gets back down it will be more interesting.

Will obviously be the hw division when vitali finally retires.

cunningham owned.

Really though, sucks it ended that way. Shaped up to be pretty good.
I agreed with Hernandez as the winner, having him up by 1 point.

But to score it a TD? What in the world? That was the lamest cut stoppage I've seen in a looooong time.

Sergio is just a great athlete. Nice to see Barker get the payday, but he's in way over his head.

Barker doing a great job. Expected Martinez to start slow but this is a lot closer then expected. Sergio having trouble figuring out the range. Needs to move more laterally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPlKsswm4_o

Martinez was beginning to wear down Barker and find ways around the high tight guard. Mostly because Barker wasn't throwing any more coming in, just defending. That punch hit behind the ear, right where there is a bundle of nerves. Bad place to get hit. He did better then I expected by executing a good game plan, but eventually got broken down. But exposed a weakness other opponents will watch now in Martinez.

I do think if Martinez would have started moving more laterally earlier and turning Barker to create openings it would have been more dominant.

Barker bossed a large part of the fight and most of what Martinez threw at him was blocked off his gloves, i was surprised by the performance from the guy i'd never heard of and a bit disappointed that Martinez looked so ordinary.

should mention that Martinez must have lead in his hands/gloves because the shot that dropped Barker didn't look all that bad.

Andy Lee was good enough to totally dominate Vera, impressive.

It wasn't about how hard, but about where. Barker ate plenty of harder punches then that. Check out 4:30 while it lasts. Came in directly behind the ear.

Larry is one of a kind.

Is he getting out of touch with the modern athletes?

lol.. merchant thinks floyd and pac are too small for martinez, but he thinks it is realistic to fight b-hop?

i seen that and it still looked like a nothing punch (granted i've never been punched behind the ear so wtf would i know).

he actually was taking punches behind the ear a lot in the 10th as Martinez was working around the guard, so I'd imagine already had some stuff going on, like nausea building up. Then the last punch was quite far behind, almost a rabbit punch. Trust me, they are no fun. I got hit with an insignificant punch there once sparring...felt a bit sick instantly, then within an hour developed a headache that had me in tears and couldn't walk, as was being loaded into an emergency MRI.

just wondering, was the punch that ended the fight an illegal blow?

It's more about intent. That shot seemed to glance off the glove before hitting that area. All fight Barker was holding his hands right in front of his face so Sergio had no place to go but around them...so the ref will take that into consideration. It happens a lot and is hard to avoid. Guys turning away on you punching etc it will happen. But also, it is often intentional as I'm sure you've often seen. Which will get a warning, lose a pt, then continued lead to a DQ.

i don't understand, because Barker had a good guard then Martinez is allowed to hit behind the ear?

also i thought Martinez hit where he aimed, not saying he targeted there all fight but in that one instance he caught him where he wanted to.

--

lol i just watched the vid again and i can't believe i'm parroting Jim Watt, i must be wrong

lol

it wasn't so much Barker had a good guard, but he had an effective guard and game plan against Martinez, a person who usually just counters right up the middle. So he effectively took that away by keeping his hands high, tight and in front of his face...but left the sides of his head open. The prob doing that is 1. that area is open (Sergio took a while to figure that out) 2. the risk you run of receiving those more dangerous behind ear, back of head punches.

During the fight I made a post about Sergio needing to use lateral movement when he was getting frustrated. The reason is his style, his stick his face out to lure you in, then counter you with sick athlete reflexes up the middle was ineffective...Barker blocked the middle. It was a good plan. So what u do is move the person in circles, attacking the side of head, side of body creating openings, then when hands move to protect those areas, the middle opens back up. Sergio never really got there. He just smashed in Barkers ears.

I really enjoyed that fight, maybe Pac and Mayweather will be interested now that Martinez didn't look super-human, although he still isn't a big draw so I doubt it.

Apparently Barker suffered a perforated eardrum.

I had a bad feeling seeing Barker crumble holding his head the way he did. I guess it was sop taking him to the hospital afterwards. Sorry to hear about the perforated ear drum. Hope he's ok otherwise. He gave it a hell of a go in the fight.

I don't know if it's accurate but I read someplace where Martinez has offered to come down to 150 to fight Pacquiao. Martinez only recently moved up from Jr Middleweight so maybe he could make 150. If Pacquiao can't get Mayweather maybe Martinez at 150 or so might make sense for him. Especially if he figures on it being his last fight.

If not Pacquiao I'm thinking Martinez' best hope for a big payday might be Canelo Alvarez maybe in a couple of years if they both keep building.


PairTheBoard

I know he got a relatively late start to his career, but Martinez is already 36 years old.

Did anyone see the fight of the year?

I didn't see it, it was on Boxnation wasn't it? How was Richard Keys as the presenter? Did he make any lewd comments?