Hey, Dawson has the pin-hat guy in his corner! He must have hand problems -- considering his all-star clientele, whatshisname's services presumably don't come cheap.
Dawson never took his eyes off Johnson during the referee's instruction rundown.
Man, Johnson moves like a fighter half his age. It's not effective, but it looks nice.
Dawson has an ad for "Condom Depot" on the ass of his trunks. Really? No one in his entourage floated the idea that's not a message a macho young black guy may want to send out to the world?
ROUND TWO
Nice flurry near the end. Dawson's looking better in this fight. Well, more that Johnson looks like he triple in age during the first round break.
ROUND THREE
It seems that Dawson's trying to steal rounds [well, more like make sure rounds are definitely his] by pulling a Sugar Ray Leonard and flurry the crap out of Johnson at the 10-second warning, no matter if anything lands.
ROUND FOUR
Good grief, Johnson just threw two identical jabs that didn't come close to touching Dawson. The first one didn't land, why would the second?
ROUND FIVE
During the break: I see Glen Johnson or his corner quitting after Round Seven. Even his trainer agrees that he hasn't taken any of the rounds.
Well, it's woken the old man up a bit, so hurray.
ROUND SIX
Well, if Dawson succumbs to the Siren Song in his head that compels him to hop on his bicycle and backpedal after doing just enough work that he kinda sorta should win a round, this may be a longer night than I foresaw in R5.
ROUND EIGHT
I like that Lamphley and Kellerman mentioned that Dawson has talked about dropping down to super-middleweight because there are a number of big fights to be had there. Awwwwwwwkward.
Johnson looks old, even for an old boxer. But once again, Dawson is taking his test as a pass/fail. It's nice that he's not a careerist quitter like so many of his generation, but I don't see ever getting excited about a fighter who strives for good-enough-to-win.
ROUND TEN
The only time Dawson throws anything of substance is when Johnson has lumbered close enough to be hit and thrown a punch slow enough for Dawson to safely multi-counter him.
ROUND ELEVEN
Lamphley and Kellerman are trying to make a case that Dawson's the best fighter in the LW division. I would prefer that they cite him as the least-bad boxer there. Good grief, they've spent the entire round trying to sell Dawson as The Man. The crowd disagrees, guys. Holy shit, do they disagree.
FINAL ROUND
Johnson should have retired four rounds ago. He's not getting beat up, of course, but what a drag. At least there were a few flashes of an exciting boxing match that could have been. That both men spent the last ten seconds of the fight weaving and feinting at each other [?!??] is probably a good metaphor for the light heavyweights.
DECISION
Dawson, duh. It's funny how Johnson always expects to win on the cards every time. Thirteenth time's the charm?
Let's all hold hands and pray that Dawson never ever signs another contract for a fight that includes a rematch clause.
2 comments:
Jesus, your remark about the David Haye v. Primo Carnera fight seems ridiculously prescient. I've only seen stills on the Sky Sports round-up show I watch (for the footy); Great Britain being an island and all, Haye is bruiting comparison to Muhammad Ali, even though what he did was win a majority decision against an older gentleman with Abraham Lincoln disease. But then Haye did name his son Cassius. Cassius Haye. I kind of have to appreciate that.
Another thing I've learned from watching Sky Sports? There is a Premier League...of snooker.
Anyway, the fight had to have been more exciting than Chelsea v. Man United yesterday. As an Arsenal backer I was hoping for a goalless draw, though I guess it's always good to see Man U lose. You take what you can.
I understand your dissatisfaction with MMA. The fights I've seen always seem to end with a back-tatted Krav Maga practitioner locked in a love grip with some guy who looks like the wrestling coach at my high school. It's like watching a nature film of a snake swallowing a mouse.
Splitting your blog out by post topic might not be a bad idea. Of course I read everything, but by the time I feel like commenting, the relevant post has usually dropped off the main page.
For instance, I was wanting to say that I also watched "Old Joy" at around the same time as I watched "The Blue Max," which is strange I guess only if you also have an affection for both WWI aviation movies and subtle-sweet little films about loss and change. Or did you just remember ads for the movie from mid-60s DC back issues? "The Blue Max," I mean.
Keep on, Mr. George
hi mitchell,
Thanks for the kind words. As deeply annoying as I find David Haye, he's no idiot; he saw how Chagaev and Holyfeld beat Valuev and did the same, only moreso. Apparently Haye actually wobbled the big guy in the 12th, which makes you wonder what would have happened if he stayed still long enough to put some power into his shots -- but I'll settle for a heavyweight who doesn't consider counter-punching as difficult a concept to grasp as string-theory. He's still not worthy enough to follow Lennox Lewis down a hallway, much less follow Ali into a hall of fame, but he's still young. If he can make a not-shitfully-boring fight with John Ruiz and then clean out the B-level talent in the division that have high-enough Q levels to headline a few HBO CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING shows [Arreola, Eddie Chambers, maybe Sam Peters, Adamek and whatever Eastern-Euro guy Teddy Atlas is now training] to improve both his popularity in the US and his skills at HW, then he could have a shot at beating the K-brothers.
Snooker is pool but the table doesn't have pockets, right? Those Brits are crazy.
I just rewatched the Fedor fight, but I still can't decide if he comes off like a serial killer who does business-network administration for a living, or the [I think] Donald Ritchie definition of the cinematic samurai ideal, where a man stands surrounded by heavily-armed enemies in a burning building that's sure to collapse at any moment, and yet he's the person in the least amount of peril. Of course, Fedor could also just be the latest in a long line of overhyped MMA fighters. They do love having the latest and greatest model of badass supermen every year.
There definitely is a sexual subtext to MMA. I don't know how many people it affects, but I'm sure there's a great research paper to be written about it. I do know that seeing women punch each other in the face and roll around choking each other is much more palatable, and I'd like to think everyone agrees.
As for THE BLUE MAX; I am a kitten-soft touch for WWI movies, and aviation ones in particular. [I adore FLYBOYS, and don't care who knows it.] I'm also quite interested in director John Guillermin's work, maybe more accurately the trajectory of his career. Unless they placed the ads in just the war titles, THE BLUE MAX is one odd movie to advertise in DC comic books.
The movies in my sidebar are almost entirely ones I see on cable, logged after I watch them. I'm thinking about posting a periodical DVD alert for the stuff I plan to watch, since I've been getting a surprising amount of feedback about the movie sidebar.
I'm working on scripting for a site where my blogs will be separated by subject but can joined together for readers who want it all on one page. I wish I had five interests that were strong enough to justify five blogs -- then I could color-code the individual pages red/blue/green/yellow/black and make the combined page look like Voltron. ["And I'll form the head!"] This is reason #145 for why I must die alone.
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