Monday, November 22, 2010

Sergio Martinez vs Paul Williams II 2010 KO of the Year! Pacquiao Next?

Bum Fights are Bad for Boxing: Audley chooses wrong sport. No Place for Slacker Sissies.

Audley Harrison sweating over purse while boxing bosses investigate David Haye fight

The British Boxing Board of Control have stopped Audley Harrison receiving his full purse for his failed
world heavyweight challenge while they carry out a full investigation into a contest labelled a farce by disgruntled viewers.

A week on from the all-British world title fight which ended in controversy, Harrison and WBA heavyweight champion David Haye could yet be called before the board to explain themselves for their part in the night of shame.

Haye is One Champion who is in the sights of another:

who is about 50 pounds heavier, taller and more experienced. And has a brother who also wants to destroy David Haye:

Boxing Surprises

Check out the look on Paul Williams' face after he has been knocked out. It is the very definition of being in La La Land!

Sergio Martinez was a good enough athlete in his native Argentina that he played competitive soccer and tennis, and even became an accomplished cyclist.

He didn't turn to boxing until he was 20, ancient for a sport that rewards youth and wearies quickly of aging stars. He stepped into the ring for the first time 15 years ago for the same reason as thousands before him: to escape from the drugs and violence that ruled the streets of his hometown of Quilmes, in the province of Buenos Aires.

"You cannot dream to be in my place today," Martinez said in the early hours Sunday morning, after the shock of his incredible knockout victory over Paul Williams had worn off.

"I'm very happy, and I'm very happy with myself, with all my life," he said humbly. "This is a very happy day, everybody knows what I'm coming from."

His emphatic defense of his middleweight title at Boardwalk Hall is almost certain to be the Knockout of the Year, if not the decade. Yet he earned a little more than $1 million for the fight, far less than Williams, even though it was Martinez who was defending his title.

The second-class status that Martinez has been burdened with for far too long was also evident in the moments before the fight, when he was moved to the blue corner that had been reserved for the challenger all night. It forced him to pass through the Williams camp occupying the opposite corner and across the ring to reach his own team before introductions.

Martinez promoter Lou DiBella bristled at the slight, but told a few reporters seated ringside that the corner wouldn't matter when Martinez put Williams flat on his back.

Martinez was quicker to the punch in the opening round and hurt Williams against the ropes midway through it, but it was early in the second that the drama happened. Williams was setting up for a hook when Martinez literally beat him to the punch, catching him flush on the chin and sending him to the canvas - face first - for a brutally efficient knockout.

"He kept saying it wouldn't go seven rounds," DiBella said. "He told me he'd catch him with one of those punches. He must have said it a 1,000 times. You know me, I worried like a maniac and he was calming me down. He said, 'Don't worry, because I'm knocking him out."'

Afterward, Martinez's trainer Gabriel Sarmiento said he awoke in the middle of the night thinking of a mistake that he had noticed Williams making, in which he seemed to lunge forward on his lead leg after throwing a jab. Sarmiento knew that Martinez would be able to connect when Williams was vulnerable, and even predicted a second-round knockout.

"I knew if Paul made those same mistakes again, Sergio would take advantage of them and he did," Sarmiento said, displaying a piece of hotel stationary on which he wrote his prediction.

The fight was a rematch of one of last year's epic matchups, when two of the best boxers in the world traded first-round knockdowns before spending the next 11 rounds punishing each other.

Martinez also took the fight on short notice, though, filling in for Pavlik so that he would finally get an opportunity on the sport's grandest stage. This time, he too had more time to prepare - more time to spar against a fellow left-hander, more time to bulk up to middleweight, and more time to uncover Williams' fateful flaw.

"It was very simple. I'm a boxer without excuses," Martinez said. "I said that in the final press conference, I was tired of the excuses from Paul Williams, and I did my job."

Martinez said he wants to fight three or four more times before calling it a career, just a few more big paydays before retirement.

Terry Norris was a great amateur and professional fighter who was unheralded considering his many talents and accomplishments as a Boxer.

February 5, 1991
A Champion Who's Fighting Obscurity

By MICHAEL MARTINEZ, Special to The New York Times

CAMPO, Calif.- Within the walls of the two-story barn -- seemingly lost in the mountains near the Cleveland National Forest -- the World Boxing Council's superwelterweight champion, Terry Norris, has been preparing for the fight of his life for more than three months. It is not a fight he takes lightly, since a victory will surely springboard Norris from obscurity to stardom.

So he wakes every morning and runs, lifts weights, spars, trains and then sleeps again, knowing that he will gain instant celebrity if he steps into the Garden ring on Saturday and beats his opponent, Sugar Ray Leonard, the aging but capable former champion.

The task is an interesting one for the 23-year-old Norris, who grew up idolizing Leonard, now 34 and somehow still fighting. When Norris speaks of Leonard, his remarks are a blend of admiration and tough talk. He was 9 years old when Leonard won an Olympic gold medal, but so many years have passed that Norris now believes his time has arrived.

What Norris does not have is the marquee attraction and the respect he believes he will receive by beating Leonard. Although he has been W.B.C. champion since a first-round knockout of John (the Beast) Mugabi last March, he remains, for the most part, an unknown to all but the most ardent followers of boxing. He retained his title last July with a 12-round victory over Rene Jacquot of France and is 26-3 with 14 knockouts.

Norris has trained and lived the last five years at the ranch owned by his manager, Joe Sayatovich, who converted a portion of his 30-acre property into a training facility called First Fighter Squadron.

Sayatovich's ranch is a haven for a half dozen young boxers, including Norris, who followed his older brother, Orlin Norris Jr., to the facility and never left.

Norris, though, retains a large measure of respect for his opponent, the result of having watched Leonard since his youth and having dreamed about the fight, literally, since it became a reality.

Norris was 9 when he fell in love with boxing, but he said his path was derailed for several years in high school in Lubbock, Tex., where he was born and raised. He was an exceptional baseball player and batted .417, attracting a number of college scholarship offers. But a brawl, which he said was triggered by a racial epithet, caused him to lose interest quickly.

Even when he is not in training for a bout, he comes to the big yellow barn six days a week to work out.
"He's sacrificed more than anybody else we've had up here," Sanchez said. "It's like he says, 'I can enjoy things afterward.' "

By his own admission, Norris frequently pushes himself too much. In preparation for Leonard, he is sparring 12 rounds every other day and lifting weights, something considered a taboo in the fight game.

"I have a tendency to work myself too much," he conceded. "I don't see myself that way, but they do. I am a workaholic, and they have to slow me down, but that's typical of me. I look at all my opponents as great fighters, and I always want to be at my best for them. I don't want to have an excuse."

"Beating Leonard, you don't have any idea what it would mean to me," he said. "My title is at stake, but the respect from everybody in the whole world is at stake, too. That's what I want -- the respect -- so that when I walk outside, people will know who I am, not see me as just a shadow.

"Right now, nobody knows me, but I'm the champion. I'm Terry Norris. After this fight, it'll change."

Terry Norris won his fight with Sugar Ray and eventually lost his Boxing License because he developed a distinct slur in his speech which indicated brain damage had started to show up. He had many fights but the blame for the damage was his work ethic in the gym. He sparred too violentlyt and that was his undoing. Contrast that with a fighter like Roberto Duran who was disciplined about only fighting hard in an actual contest and never in training. He had many hard fights but did not allow himself to get hurt in the gym. Tommy Hearnes was another 'gym rat' and had many of his hardest fights in the Kronk Gym. He shows signs of slurred speech, too.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Muhammad Ali - The Greatest

Thursday, November 11, 2010