Maldonado vs Pokrajac is a fight that I feel presents an interesting judging challenge, as both fighters can make credible claims to having been the victor.

I intend to set out how I judged the fights, and am interested in how other people viewed the result.

Below is how I saw things.

Before I begin, it is important to note that, for the purposes of this discussion, you do not have to stick with the approach of the Unified Rules. If you have a separate philosophy concerning what wins a fight, then you are encouraged to expound it here.

My personal method for judging fights rests on one criterion - damage. My chosen concept of attaining victory in a fight considers only the harm that is inflicted upon the opponent. Others, who perhaps place emphasis on the martials arts aspect of MMA, may be more likely to also consider control as inherently beneficial due to the conrtol-over-damage ideaology of several notable martial arts.

I, however, view takedowns and positional ground control not as offense, but as a set up for future offense, namely ground and pound or submissions. To me, they are not an attack, but rather a mechanism that enacts positional transition.This is just my personal viewpoint, please disagree with me in the comments!

Round One

The main reason that I believe the offical judges scored this round for Pokrajac is because he spent around half of it on top of Maldonado. While here, he consistently attempted to pass guard, and landed a smattering of ground and pound. The judges probably saw this as meritorious because the Unified Rules value Effective Grappling (and it was effective at keeping Maldonado on his back).

But, is it not arguable that the escape of Maldonado required as much skill, and was just as effective, as the relative stalemate of Pokrajac's control? Negating the grappling advantage?

Regardless, I do not value control, but do give Pokrajac a very minor advantage at this point due to the ground shots that he managed to land.

After a period of inactivity against the cage, Maldonado lands a heavy counter at around 4:28, and follows it up with a tremendous flurry of short shots. These are evenly spread between Pokrajac's head and body, and inflict greater damage than the ground shots which had landed previously.

These blows are not hugely damaging, but do seem to have a noticablee impact on Pokrajac. Florian even remarked that one particularly nasty left hook "buckles him (Pokrajac) a little bit". Pokrajac does land a couple of knees, which narrow the scoring gap, but Maldonado's body onslaught gives him the advantage at the end of the round.

I score this for Maldonado on the basis on his well landed punches. I can see the case for Pokrajac winning under the criteria of the Unified Rules, but do not feel that such a score fairly represents the outcome of the round's action.

10-9 Maldonado

Round Two

The first significant action of round two consists of Pokrajac landing a solid left hand lead, followed by several more significant punches. He then pushes Maldonado against the cage for some time and lands a good knee to the head. He is clearly winning the round at around the mid-point.

Then Maldonado reverses him and begins throwing many strikes from the clinch. Like Maldonado's punches from the first round, they are thrown with little wind up and at speed. Both the body and head are targeted. This goes on for a minute, and could arguably take the advantage from Pokrajac and give it to Maldonado.

I see the round as equal at this point.

The fighters exchange mostly blocked shots, and then Maldonado takes Pokrajac down. There are only ten seconds left in the round, and he does nothing from top position.

I score this round 10-10, but would perhaps give a very slight edge to Maldonado.

10-10 Draw

Round Three

The first two minutes of round three are contested on the fence, with the most damage being done by a Pokrajac flying knee, giving him an advantage at this stage, but not one built on much.

The fighters are then broken up, and both land. Maldonado's punches appear to be less damaging, and he is distinctly shaken around by those of Pokrajac. The action returns to the cage, and the advantage remains with Pokrajac because of the jolting effect of his punches.

As the fight enters its final minute, both men attempt to land some effective blows, and who gets the better of this exchange is unclear. It is a case of Maldonado's volume against Pokrajac's more signnificant looking strikes.

I feel that Pokrajac remains dominant, as his shots simply seem to be inflicting greater damage throughout.

10-9 Pokrajac

Final Score: 29-29 Draw

Unsatisfying, perhaps, but representative of just how close the fight was.

I hope that you enjoyed reading about the way I scored this fight, please post your opinions on the outcome in the comments.

I have recently been focusing on core work, and am having a lot of success, but could use a little advice with two acpects of my work-out. The first being that I am finding most oblique excercises far too easy, and with the exception of side plank, I haven't encountered any that are particularly challenging anymore. Could you possibly suggest some advanced oblique exercises? The other issue is that I am not doing nearly enough work on my lower back, and was wondering what you would suggest, as the advice I have recieved regarding this area hasn't been very helpful - it seems to be a much neglected area. Thanks a lot. Matt

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone could give me a little advice on the use of steam rooms and saunas.

 

After I exercise, I love to have a good long steam, followed by a cold dip in the pool, and a pleasant sit in the sauna. I am interested as to whether this causes my muscles to recover better, as I have read is the case, or if I may actually be draining myself somewhat due to prolonged usage.

Any opinions on this?

Thanks

Matt

 

P.S Great blog!

Following Joe Rogan's rant about the juding of MMA bouts, I feel that something should be done to represent the unhappiness being caused by the flaws in the current system.. Please e -mail boxing@boxing.nv.gov (or a more suitable address, if you have one) to voice your displeasure with the status quo, and press for suitable change.

 

The more you can write, the bette. However, if you do not have adequate time, then you may find the following template suitable.

 

I fully support Joe Rogan's comments and stance on the recent judging of MMA bouts; feeling that it has reached a point where it is causing considerable harm to the sport, and an unreasonable degree of injustice to individual fighters.

Surely, it is not acceptable for things to continue as they are, and I hope that you take my concern, a concern shared by the vast majority of fans, seriously, and address this issue accordingly.

Yours Sincerely

 

 

Please do make an effort to send something, guys, otherwise the situation is far less likely to change.

So here I am, a boxing fan in MMA territory. As any boxing fan does every now and then, I recently got a bit tired of all the nonsense in that sport, and while doing so found myself with nothing to watch. As a remedy to this, I decided to give MMA a try, having only ever watched a little, and not thought much of it.
Since then I have watched the last few UFCs, and thought to myself two things:

1. These guys aren't very good at boxing!

2. This is awesomely good fun!

 

This blog was recommended to me as a place to advance my enjoyment of the sport, so I joined up.

Now, I was wondering if anyone here could give me a little advice on what I should watch to get caught up with the great and pivotal moments of MMA history. So, any suggestions?

It has been a while since someone ran a fanpost in this style, and a lot has changed recenlty which could affect the p4p rankings. In my list a few people who were solidly stationed in the top 5 have slipped down, and some new names have squeezed in. Here it is, and please do post yours :)

 

1 Pacquiao

2 Mayweather

3 Dawson

4 Martinez

5 Bute

6 Ward

7 Bradley

8 Marquez

9 Mosley

10 Williams

So now it isn't Freddie Roach who is faced with the task of helping his fighter overcome the brilliance of Floyd Mayweather, it's Nazim Richardson, another superb and highly regarded trainer. I don't doubt that he and Mosley are going to come out with some very strong tactics to try to topple Mayweather but I'm really not sure what they will be. However as with Manny Pacquiao I do think there are some things Mosley would do well to remember if he wants to win this fight.

Work the body- Perhaps this seems obvious but I don't think that the importance of this can be too overstated. The only person to ever really bother Mayweather was Castillo and he went to the body like mad. Mosley is clearly a very different boxer from castillo but ever since his days at lightweight he has shown that he can body punch well enough to change the outcome of the fight, with a boxer as hard to hit cleanly as Floyd is, he will need this not just to wear him down but possibly also to be seen to be outworking Mayweather.

Establish the jab- Mosley never used to be much of a jabber, in his first fight with De La Hoya he barely threw any, but in his most recent matchup he showed a nice stiff jab that worked well in keeping Margarito at bay. When De La Hoya fought Mayweather he was most effective in the first half of the fight when he used his strong jab to try to keep Mayweather off balance as much as possible. If Mosley wants to be able to set up clean shots to the head then he needs to be very disciplined with those jabs and throw a considerably large amount of them.If he does this then Mayweather will be unsettled and easier to hit.

Adversity- This is a slightly vague area which has been mentioned a few times by posters on here; how will Mayweather react to actually being hit cleanly by a power shot? After all, times when this has happened have been few and far between and Mosley hits pretty hard and with very good accuracy. We can't tell but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Mayweather falls apart a bit when he gets hit flush a few times. What would happen next? Maybe he becomes even more defensive, maybe he actually gets into a war. I'm not saying that he will struggle mentally with adversity which he is unaccustomed to, but it is a possibility.

Speed- Just don't try to be faster than him, it isn't going to work. In your prime, maybe, but not now. It's not even that he's that much faster than you but his reactions still look great while yours have faded a bit and he was faster regardless of this. Mosley needs to go in with the intent of setting up powershots not trying the Judah approach of throwing Mayweather off by beating him to the punch. That was a good plan, but Mosley simply doesn't have the speed to do that.

As with last time these are just the basics which i think he should follow and as far as a prediction is concerned; I have no idea!

What are your thoughts and ideas concerning the tactics and outcome of the fight?

From the generic gangster rap to the equally generic heavy rock we don't hear a great deal of original or particularly good ring walk music. The Germans have a thing about the Scorpions, some boxers have raps written about them and even performed live, Ricky Hatton has his kind of funny the first time Ricky Fatton song, sometimes someone frankly undeserving comes out to Roy Jones' Can't Be Touched and 9/10 it's nothing great.

However sometimes the boxer picks something you really like, or is funny or just a nice change. What do you think are the best examples of this?

Or what would you walk out to? I would come out to Pendulum's Blood Sugar in it's entirety and walk slowly whilst raving.

Before I write this I want it to be clear that I am not a Mayweather hater, in fact you could count me as a fan. I admire his technical skills and his brilliant style, however I think his resume is a bit patchy for a man who sees himself as the greatest boxer of all time. Secondly I am no Pacquiao fanboy. I think he is great to watch,excellent at boxing and superb for the sport but I in no way see him as infallible and proof of that can be seen in the fact that I would pick Mayweather to beat him if they fight. Thridly this is not about Mayweather being a coward, or blood tests, so I would appreciate it if no one mentionss either, especially the latter.

What I am trying to do here is create an objective comparison between the two fighters who currently contest one another for the place of number one p4p in the sport. I am basing this comparison on their resumes and will be ultimately trying to assertain who will be remembered better by history.

To start I am going to compare the fighters they have both faced. Oscar De La Hoya is a bit of a no brainer here. Weight drained and faded when he faced Pacquiao, that win really counts for very little. However it should be remembered that the vast majority of fans and boxing writers picked De La Hoya to win, even to win widely. Fighting Oscar may have been easy for Manny but it was expected to be a stern challenge.  Mayweather faced De La Hoya at 154 where Oscar was far more comfortable and Floyd clearly wasn't at his absolute best. Even though Pacquiao's win over De La Hoya was far more dominant than Mayweather's, Mayweather's still counts for more.

However it is a different story with Ricky Hatton. To say that Floyd wasn't at his best at 154 is nothing compared to how Hatton looked at 147. He had only had one fight there and in it he very nearly got beaten by Luis Collazo. Compared to his dominance at 140 Hatton really didn't look that good as a welterweight, mainly because he had lost his overpowering strength. Mayweather's victory over Hatton was a very good display of a boxing from mayweather combined with a terrible style matchup and discomfort at the weight for Hatton. On the other hand Pacquiao took on Hatton at the weight class where he ruled. He had just beat up Paulie Malignaggi and was the Ring junior welterwegiht champ. Manny knocked him out in two which was phenomenal and while it is true that the style matchup here sucked for Hatton too it seems clear to me who fought the better Ricky, and who beat him more convincingly.

In terms of comon opponents I like to ignore Marquez for various reasons which I will touch on later. Now I would like to compare their most recent opponents seeing as they were both welterweight fights and are very relevant to my point.  Pacquiao took on a top 5 welterweight, top 2 or 3 even, and beat him in dramatic fashion. Crushing knockdowns. superb handspeed and excellent resilience were all on display. Pacquiao dominated a very good fighter in Miguel Cotto and astounded many people in the boxing community, including me. Mayweather did something far less impressive in taking on Marquez, a guy who looked uncomfortable at lightweight. Frankly Marquez should be at 130 to be at his best and was 15 pounds out of his comfort zone and had never fought at junior welterweight let alone welterweight. I'm honestly not sure I would pick Marquez against any top ten welterweight and if he fought Pacquiao at that weight it would be over in two.

As far as I'm concerned Pacquiao outclassed Mayweather in terms of opposition in their most recent fight and Marquez simply had no business being at that wegiht. The fight Floyd had with his essentially counts for nothing.

Now lets look at some opponents from a little further back. David Diaz or Baldomir? Who was worse? Probably Diaz actually but the thing here is that Pacquiao was just stopping off in the lightweight division on his way to junior welter for a big fight with ricky. Mayweather actually expects us to buy Baldomir as a serious opponent. Sorry Floyd but 5 loss Carlos doesn't cut it at this level.

How about Judah? Well to be fair Judah probably fought his best fight against Floyd and he did trouble him early on. However he also only won four rounds in that fight, maybe even three. He had also just lost to carlos Baldomir, was chinny and had never been able to face adversity particularly well. Compare him to Barrera or the Marquez that Manny fought at super featherweight and he doesn't look good. Barrera was slightly faded but very, very far from shot and Marquez was a brilliant counterpuncher at that weight and proved to be a bad style matchup for Pacquiao. Frankly if you need it explained to you why those two fighters are better than the likes of Judah or Corley then you need your head examined.

Mayweather beat Arturo Gatti in a very convincing fashion but for all of Gatti's resilience and legendary warrior mentality he was still a B class opponent and there were much  tougher challenges which Floyd could have taken. Compare him to Erik Morales who Manny beat the second time. I don't really count the third match as Morales was past it then but in the 2nd fight Erik was overmatched not because he was shot but because Pacquiao was really good.

Mayweather has good wins over Corrales and Castillo but I would like to point out the often overlooked fact that Corrales was very weight drained for that fight. I think Mayweather would have beaten him anyway but it is worth noting.

To conlude I don't think Mayweather has ever beaten anyone that great. Lots of good opponents but no great ones. Ali is remembered for Frazier and Foreman, Hagler is remembered for Hearns, Pacquiao will be remembered for Barrera, Morales and Cotto, who is Mayweather going to be remembered for? His resume isn't that good despite his tremendous skills and if he beats Pacquiao none of that will matter. I hope he does improve legacy because it's clear that he is capable of it. However I am increasingly doubtful that he will.

The Klitschkos outright dominate the heavyweight division right now. For the last few years they have picked up three out of the four belts between them and fought off a lengthy list of challengers. They both have great amateur backgrounds including an Olympic gold. And though they are slow and sometimes sloppy, and can be incredibly dull to watch, they get the job done.

However one reason commonly put forward for their dominance is not their proficiency and skill but the lack of strong oppostion. It is true that since Lewis retired, and before then, the division has been in decline. We have seen sloppy, fat, chinny, powerless and stupid fighters make it into the top 10 of the division at various points and they have been far from good enough to hurt the big brothers. However the really interesting question which comes out of this is; would a Klitschko brother be as dominant, or even close to a title, in another, stronger, era? Essentially whether or not they are the best of a bad bunch or two good boxers who could go in with any of the best from history and put up a fight.

There is definitely a divide in opinion about this. Some writers, like Doug Fischer, have written articles praising the brothers, particularly Vitali, for what he percieves as a singular and effective style and physicality which would grace any division in history.

Others, and it is usually American fans, have declared the Klitschkos of being useless, lumbering, slow and dull. While the last last of these accusations is often true these critics probably go too far in their harsh judgement. As with so many things the truth is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. I personally view the Klitschkos as competent, clever and very physically gifted, not in terms of athleticism but the more simple height factor. But not good enough to beat most of the big names from history, or even do very well against them.

Below I have a poll of fighters who you think a Klitschko may or may not beat. Please take it and post your reasoning for your decisions, or any other thoughts on the brothers below.

Poll

Which of the following do you think a Klitschko brother would be most likely to beat?

21%

Mike Tyson

5 votes

4%

George Foreman

1 votes

8%

Muhammad Ali

2 votes

8%

Sonny Liston

2 votes

8%

Larry Holmes

2 votes

34%

Jack Demspey

8 votes

13%

Joe Frazier

3 votes

23 votes | Poll has closed

Pound for pound rankings are a great thing. To me they are a contstant source of interest as I always enjoy seeing  people's interpretations of which out of two boxers is the better, regardless of whether they weigh 200 or 106 pounds. Everyone has a different way of making their lists, some like to imagine what would happen if Ivan Calderon was a middleweight and whether or not he would beat Kelly Pavlik, others prefer to look solely at resumes. Some allow their personal feelings about fighter's entertainment levels and conduct outside of the ring to alter their views, often letting rationality leave them at such moments. However regardelss of how you make your p4p ranking it is still valid due the subjective nature of such a list and that is what makes these imaginary ratings and recognitions so great.

Now, boring introduction aside, I fancied making a British top five pound for pound list and here it is. Please post your own, or any quibbles you may have with mine.

Number 1- David Haye

I really wasn't sure about putting Haye at number one but really that was more to do with the fact that I don't like him than that he doesn't deserve it. Firstly he won the WBA and WBC cruiserweight titles from Mormeck who was ranked as the number one cruiserweight in the world by the Ring Magazine at the time via a 7th round TKO. Then he went on to unify against Maccarinelli by knocking him out in the second. After this he beat Barret and looked less than fantastic doing it, and won a heavyweight title from Valuev. I firmly believe that his best accomplishments are at cruiserweight but also see him as relatively very skilled and possibly promising in the division of giants.

Number 2- Carl Froch

Carl has good wins over Pascal and Taylor and a highly questionable win over Andre Dirrell. He is also slow and sloppy but it's hard for me to ignore big wins over talented fighters so it's only fair that he gets the number two slot. He has good power and a tough chin, plus he has massive heart and impressive will. Good for him!

Number 3- Ricky Hatton

He's done big things in the past, becoming the undisputed Junior Welterweight champion and his only two losses coming against p4p champions of the world. It was hard for me not to put him higher as he has arguably achieved more in his career than Froch or Haye however I am punishing inactivity here. Hatton hasn't fought in nearly a year whereas Froch is in the super six and Haye had a couple of heavyweight fights and has a fight with Ruiz lined up.

Number 4- Amir Khan

He is extremely talented and is improving in leaps and bounds under the tutelage of Freddie Roach. He has captured a title and embarrassed a frankly unworthy challenger. His boxing is great, his speed fantastic, his chin astoundingly bad. Right now he is a good bit below the three above him but a good chunk above those beneath him and I think it'll be staying that way for a while.

Number 5-  Ryan Rhodes

Rhodes partook in an excellent fight with Jamie Moore for a European title and is perhaps the tenth best light middleweight in the world.

FanPost frontpaged by SC

I recently had a very enjoyable conversation on this site about what tactics we thought Mayweather should/is likely to use against Pacquiao. After mulling this over quite a lot I came to a far more challenging question; how should Pacquiao approach Mayweather. Getting past Mayweather's stellar defense is a very difficult thing for any fighter to do and I don't think even the great Pacquiao offense can do it enough but if you were Freddie Roach, and you had to think up the game plan for beating Floyd, what would you do?

Working out a full game plan is certainly beyond me but I have had some thoughts.

Footwork

To plod against Mayweather is to lose to Mayweather. If Pacquiao doesn't use good footwork then Mayweather will be able to set the distance exactly how he wants, enabling him to hit, tie up or run away whenever he likes and as much as he likes. Pacquiao needs to keep his feet fast at all times if he wants to get close to Mayweather and land some shots.

Outwork Him

As far as I can tell the best way to come close to beating Mayweather is to be seen to be outworking him by a significant amount. It almost worked for Castillo and part of what made De La Hoya succesful in the early part of his fight with Mayweather was that he was doing more and had Floyd on the ropes. Manny needs to be throwing big amounts of punches at the right moments to look more impressive and more dangerous than his opponent.

Floyd Will Not Knock Him Out

I would bet my farm and granny on this. Unless Pacquiao gets stupidly reckless and undisciplined, and gets caught by a perfect punch he isn't going down. His chin is great at 147 and Mayweather doesn't hit as hard as Cotto.

Body

Floyd's going to go there, so should Manny. It's uncommon for Floyd to get hit much at all and even less common for him to take a great deal of body shots. Pacquiao is no soft hitter and if he can get to Floyd effectively I reckon the body is the best place to aim those punches. This is simply because it will obvously tire Mayweather and face him with an adversity which he hasn't experienced for a long time, if ever.

These really are just some points which I think Pacquiao would do well to pay at least a little attention to but I'm no more than a guy on the internet so, what do I know?

What I'm most interested in are your ideas for how Pacman can overcome one of the greatest defensive fighters of all time. Let's hear them.

 

Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Scoring a fight seems far from a pefect system. It appears that everyone has a different opinion of how it should be done, how to view certain events and what deserves the most praise. I thought it would be interesting to post a question which I have been mulling over and see what the BLHers think.

 

Very simply it is this. If a boxer stands still and blocks ten punches without throwing anything back and then lands one clean punch right after his opponent's flurry does he deserve to get more credit?

It's very unlikely that he would be looked on favourably by the judges but I beleive the judging criteria rewards clean and effective punching which the boxer landing only one punch has more of. This is just a casual question but I'm interested to read people's opinions on it.

I did not enjoy David Haye's fight with Nikolai Valuev. Many things about it annoyed me; the incredibly biased commentary from sky sports, the fact that the fight lacked action and excitement, the perception amongst casual British fans that Haye was some sort of masterfully talented heavyweight messiah. He made the headlines all throughout Britain. BBC radio 4 described his performance as excellent, the tabloids are still running articles about how superb he is, even the front page of Yahoo displayed Haye holding his new belt along with the byline: Haye puts on tactical masterclass. It's quite understandable that this would really get on the nerves of a hardcore boxing fan like myself and so many of the users of this site.

 

After the fight I was pretty keen to decry Haye's ability and performance and may have been overly critical. After watching the fight again I noticed a few things to compliment him on. His movement was great, sure he was against a guy who is very slow but that movement was still undeniably quick. It would make him hard to hit against many other heavyweight. His power is phenomenal. There is simply no getting around this, he rocked an opponent with an incredible chin and did it without even hitting him that much. His footwork looked much better and against a guy with bad footwork that can make a big difference, especially for setting those power shots he so loves. Many heavyweights have bad footwork.

Basically I see a real future for Haye. I don't  think he'll ever beat a Klitschko but I reckon his attempt will be entertaining. And if that attempt never comes, Haye against Adamek, Arreola, Chambers or even Dawson is still easily amongst the most exciting fights in the division. I think that I was so annoyed by the coverage of the fight in the popular media that I have been unreasonably harsh about Haye and I dare to say many other hard core fans are the same, at least to some extent.

Somebody sent quite a fun little game to the mailbag at the Ring Magazine this week and I thought I would post it here to see what people's responses were. The format is very simple. From the field of current boxers who would you most like to:

1. Have a discussion with about the current economic crisis?
2. Punch in the face?
3. Give a hug to?
4. Have a boxing lesson from?
5. Match them up with any other boxer of your choice?
6. Advise to stop boxing?
7. Invite to a dinner party?
8. Work out with?
9. Get drunk with?
10. Work their corner?

(Editor's Note: I used that photo, because when else could I ever use that photo?)