Wednesday 24 December 2008

This one's for you Fran

Just a very quick post (after an absence of nearly 6 months – sincere apologies) to announce my fighter of the year. I know you’d be disappointed if I picked Manny Pacquiao (far too predictable) and astounded if I went for Joe Calzaghe - but no need to worry. I’m going for Bernard Hopkins. Besides giving Pavlik a complete boxing masterclass, he also knocked Calzaghe on his backside, and in my opinion won that fight. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, he hasn't actually lost a fight since Roy Jones (then at his very prime) beat him - and that was over 15 years ago. Even 'officially' he's only lost three extremely close (and very contentious) decisions in that period. Undoubtedly one of the most incredible boxers of this or any other era. And he's still producing fantastic performances at 43. ‘Nuff said.

Monday 30 June 2008

“42 years of hurt” (and counting)

Which of the following footballing nations is the odd-one out - Uruguay, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Holland, England, Germany or Spain? Well, following Spain’s deserved triumph at Euro 2008, England are now the only one of these ‘footballing giants’ never to have won a major tournament on foreign soil. In fact, when you examine England’s record, it’s pretty appalling. Aside from '66, they’ve never reached a World Cup final – and they’ve only made it to the semi’s once (1990). Their record in the European Championship (winners of which include Denmark and Greece) is even worse – never a finalist, and they’ve only reached the semis twice (including 1996 when they hosted the tournament). Which perhaps puts into perspective the recent claims made by Premier League Chairman, Sir David Richards, that the number of ‘foreigners’ in the English game has ‘hurt’ the national side. The reality is that, aside from when they’ve had the (considerable) advantage of hosting a tournament, England have rarely performed well – often not even qualifying for the finals. Perhaps, rather than worrying about foreign players (or foreign managers), these high ranking officials might be better served concentrating their efforts on trying to win the right to host one of these tournaments. History suggests that this might be England’s only chance of doing well.

Wednesday 25 June 2008

Joe Public

So Joe Calzaghe has suddenly ended his long relationship with promoter Frank Warren. Unfortunately, this suggests that he wants to make a fight with Roy Jones Jr. rather than face middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (which Warren was apparently pushing). Rather than reiterate my views, here is some reaction from posters on the ESPN boxing comment board:

"Calzaghe is a coward. He knows he has no shot vs a fighter as skilled as Pavlik. If he got dropped by a 40 year old Hopkins, then he has no shot vs Pavlik"

"Pavlik is the prime fighter that could really give Calzaghe fits"

"Calzaghe is all hype until he beats a respected young formidable beast"

See, it's not just me...

No Khan Do?

So the big question following his fight at the weekend – is Amir Khan chinny? The evidence so far would seem to suggest that he may well be. Perhaps even more worrying, he also appears to have the British fighter’s disease – a poor defence. One thing is certain – he’s nowhere near ready to face any of the big names in the lightweight division, e.g. Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Joel Casamayor. And, from the evidence so far, he might never be.

Monday 9 June 2008

Giving up the ghost

A quick reflection on the two big boxing stories this week. First, Floyd Mayweather’s retirement. I was actually glad to hear this news. As I’ve written previously, Floyd appeared to be ducking all genuine contenders (most significantly Miguel Cotto), and was seemingly content to fight people he’d already beaten convincingly in the past (i.e. De La Hoya and Hatton). Although he is, without question, one of the best fighters in the world at the moment, if he’s no longer prepared to take part in truly competitive contests, I’d rather he didn’t fight at all. Of course, his ‘retirement’ may not last forever – but hopefully, if he does return, it will be to face someone like Cotto, rather than simply another easy money making exercise. And fittingly, a day after one of the sport’s biggest stars walked away from the game, Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik confirmed, by destroying the vastly overmatched Gary Lockett, that he has the class to take over Mayweather’s ‘pound-for-pound champion’ mantle. A match up between Pavlik and Calzaghe would be tremendous – unfortunately, I have a feeling Calzaghe won’t take this fight (despite the fight he’d have a significant weight advantage, and would probably start as favourite). Let’s hope he proves me wrong.

Monday 19 May 2008

The Penney Drops

When I started this blog, I decided that I wouldn’t write about Darlo – a bit too close to the bone. However, our third play-off disappointment in the past twelve years deserves a mention, if only to give me some closure. To be honest, I’d rather lose in a semi-final than a final, and I’m not confident that we are good enough to beat Stockport. Although, obviously, the best team doesn’t always win at Wembley – as witnessed in 2000, when we played Peterborough off the pitch (we were also the better team in the 1996 final). Ironically, the semi-final was a mirror of our whole season - getting in a great position and then blowing (bottling?) it. When Penney took Keltie off at the end of normal time, I had a feeling that would come back to bite us – penalties seemed on the cards, so why substitue a player who had converted one so convincingly during the game? That decision certainly didn’t do anything to alter my opinion of Penney - I still remain unconvinced by him. Hopefully, I’m wrong, and we’ll storm the division next season – but please, no more play-offs.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Change the Rules (No. 2) – The Play-offs

Despite the fact that Darlo may actually benefit this season, I still don’t like the way the play-offs are structured. It’s not that I have a problem with the notion of play-offs per se – on the contrary, I believe that increasing the number of teams who still have ‘something to play for’ towards the end of the regular season is a great idea. I just think it’s wrong that, at the end of a 46 game schedule, league position effectively counts for nothing. Surely teams that just miss out on automatic promotion (and, as we’ve seen in the past, sometimes finish nine or more points ahead of those other teams who make the play-offs) should get some kind of reward for their season-long performance? So, let’s do away with the level playing ground afforded by two-legged semi-finals, and instead have a one-off game, with the team that finished highest having the home advantage. Clubs that finished below them would still have the opportunity to get that final promotion spot - but they would be required to win ‘on the road’ in order to do so. And as for staging the finals at Wembley – complete nonsense. That privilege should go to the finalist who finished highest in the league table. Play-offs are a good idea – but they should not be allowed to over-ride the fact that consistency over a gruelling season is what matters most.

Friday 9 May 2008

Wanted: Golden Days not Golden Boys

I think we may look back on 2007 as a brief golden era for boxing. There were some really good match-ups: Mayeather v De La Hoya, Hopkins v Wright, Taylor v Pavlik, Pacquiao v Barrera, Diaz v Diaz, Cotto v Mosley, Calzaghe v Kessler, Hatton v Mayweather. Sadly, from the looks of it, 2008 has reverted to the norm – either good fighters matched against vastly inferior ones (e.g. De La Hoya v Forbes, Hatton v Lazcano, Forrest v Mora, etc.) or fights featuring boxers who are past it. In January we had Jones v Trinidad, a fight which took place at least 5 years too late. We’re also seeing Joe Calzaghe choose to fight guys who are way past their peak (first Hopkins and next, by all accounts, Jones). But, without doubt, the biggest tragedy is that Floyd Mayweather, the undisputed pound for pound champion is ducking legitimate contenders, most notably Miguel Cotto. Instead, he’s going to fight ‘Golden Boy’ Oscar De La Hoya – who he already beat convincingly last year (the judge who scored it for De La Hoya was an idiot) - and then, I kid you not, have a rematch with Ricky Hatton! Yes, that’s the same Ricky Hatton he pummelled for 10 rounds before knocking him out. And of course, the heavyweight division still remains a complete joke. Unfortunately, it appears that the new dawn of quality fighters matched up in quality fights, which 2007 seemed to herald, was just an illusion.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Getting the point – 38 not 40

I’m sick of hearing pundits talk about 40 points as being the ‘safety mark’ necessary for teams to avoid relegation from the Premier League. Over the past few years, as the teams at the top have become stronger and stronger, we have repeatedly seen that less than 40 has been sufficient. In fact, in eight out of the last ten seasons, 38 points has meant survival – and in five of those, only 34 or 35 points have been required. Last season, Sheffield United were relegated on 38 points – but only on account of their -23 goal difference; Wigan also had 38 points, but survived. In other words, in nine out of the last ten years, a team could theoretically have failed to score a single goal all season, and still survived. 38 0-0 draws would have been sufficient – which I think says a lot about the detrimental effect the creation of the Premiership has had on the overall strength of the division.

Wednesday 30 April 2008

Bring on the Scousers?

For only the second time in my life, I think I might actually want those Lucky Scousers to win a game tonight (the previous occasion was a league fixture against the Geordies - the one team I dislike more – when there was an outside chance that they might actually win something for once in their miserable existence). The chance to see Man United beat (hopefully thump) them in the final, thereby shutting their fans up for ever, is just too good an opportunity to miss. Of course the nightmare scenario, where the Scousers have yet another of their lucky European nights, is simply too awful to contemplate. But this is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sort out the ultimate bragging rights, finally and for ever. So, as much as it pains me to admit it, I think I’ll be hoping that Chelsea slip up tonight. Well, perhaps...

Tuesday 29 April 2008

Change the Rules! (No.1 in a regular series)

Having watched the Hopkins v Calzaghe fight again at the weekend, I was once again struck by the number of problems with the current scoring system:
1/ Judges are wrongly being discouraged from scoring rounds even. Many of the rounds in the Hopkins v Calzaghe fight were very difficult to call for either fighter, but the judges apparently felt obliged to score rounds 10-9, rather than 10-10.
2/ Why they use a “10-point must” system - where at least one of the boxers is awarded the maximum 10 points in each round - is beyond me (to give an extreme example, a round where both boxers stare at each other and don’t throw any punches must, presumably, be scored 10-10). This system tends to penalise fighters like Hopkins, who usually have a number of ‘big’ rounds in each fight, and rewards ‘plodders’ like Calzaghe. In their first fight, Hopkins dominated Taylor in a couple of rounds and had him in real trouble, yet, since there were no knockdowns, these were only scored 10-9 – the same score as those rounds which Taylor just edged. And why the heck should fighters be awarded the maximum score for a dull round? It makes no sense. I would advocate a system where each fighter is awarded between 0 and 5 points for each round. A fairly dull round could be scored, say, 2-1, a cracking round 5-5. If one fighter dominates in a particular round, that might be scored, say, 5-1.
3/ Judges (and the majority of people who watch boxing contests) don’t seem to understand that four areas of performance are being assessed - clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defence. Many observers gave Calzaghe the fight because he was continually going forward. However, if you move toward your opponent but can't land clean shots – as Calzaghe did for much of the fight - you don't have effective aggressiveness. Hopkins, as usual, excelled in the area of defence – but two of the three judges clearly didn’t reward him for the number of times he made Calzaghe miss. Boxing authorities either need to change the rules of scoring, or make sure the judges apply them correctly. But of course, boxing being boxing, neither of these things is going to happen.

Thursday 24 April 2008

Have Man Utd blown it?

If Barcelona knock United out next week, it will be easy to look at the 2nd minute of the first leg as the turning point. But although Ronaldo's penalty miss was pretty unforgivable, given how important an away goal would have been, I wonder if tactically Ferguson got it wrong. In the 70s and 80s, 0-0 away from home in the first leg of a European tie was a great result - you'd then be confident of going back to your fortress and wrapping up the tie. Nowadays, I'm not so sure that it is such a good result. I think away goals have become far more important these days, and United may rue not having been a bit more adventurous at Camp Nou, especially with Puyol missing (did they have any shots on target?).

Now United have to win at Old Trafford, and should Barca take the lead, or even if United are ahead by a goal with 20 or so minutes to go, things could become very precarious. I actually make Barca slight favourites now - I can see Messi continuing to cause United problems, whilst Henry (should he play) certainly won't need any motivation to try and silence the Theatre of Dreams. It's about time Ronaldo had a big game when it really matters - if he doesn't, I suspect it could well become 'squeaky bum' time on Tuesday night.

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Calzaghe v Hopkins - Reflections

Before the fight, my head said Calzaghe by decision, but my heart said that Hopkins, being such a legend, might be able to produce one final quality performance. And I also put £10 on a draw at odds of 18/1. So in some ways, I'd say I was right on all accounts!

But why is it that Hopkins never gets awarded close decisions? This felt like a repeat of the Taylor fights. In fact you could argue that Hopkins hasn't really lost a fight since Jones beat him in 1993 - some record. To fight that well at 43 is a great achievement - he ran out of gas towards the end, which was to be expected, and I suppose that ultimately cost him the decision (although the judge who gave it 9 rounds to Calzaghe, 3 to Hopkins, is a disgrace). The bottom line on the judging is: do you prefer quality or quantity? Did Calzaghe ever hurt, or even really trouble, Bernard? I don't think so (he was unmarked at the end of the fight), whereas Bernard clearly had Calzaghe in trouble in the early rounds.

I'm certainly still not convinced by Calzaghe - he doesn't punch hard, rarely hurts opponents, and is basically a pretty dull fighter. Okay, 22 world title wins at super middle - but who did he beat? And now he's moved to light heavy, at a time when there are no young dangerous guys to fight (Hopkins, Jones, Tarver and Johnson are all well past their best). I think Pavlik would beat him, even though he'd have to move up in weight. But I suspect Calzaghe will take the Roy Jones fight, which is a joke - Jones is shot. Calzaghe's got a great record based on a phenomenal work rate, a decent chin - and not having fought any great fighters at their prime. Had he fought Hopkins 2/3 years ago, Hopkins wins - no doubt about it. 5/6 years ago, when he was in his prime, Hopkins knocks him out. Same goes for Jones too. If Calzaghe fights Pavlik (or even a decent light heavy still in his prime, such as Chad Dawson) and wins, then I'll accept that he's a great fighter. If he just fights Jones and then retires, I'm not buying it. Very good - yes; great - no.