Essential The Official Boxing Random Thoughts Thread...All boxing heads ENTER.
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jr wants a lot of things except to work and train hard...
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i really liked this article for some reason
Holyfield-Tyson I: 20 Years in the Blink of an Eye
By Cliff Rold
“Get in here. Tyson is getting his ass kicked!”
When a friend shows up at the door just as the bell rings to end the sixth, the urgency of not missing the replay of the knockdown is palpable.
As this is being written, we’re still a couple hours shy of exactly twenty years to the minute that the heavyweight title fight most had given up on finally got underway. There are moments in time that always feel like yesterday. For fight fans, Holyfield-Tyson is one of them.
But it wasn’t yesterday.
Twenty years is a long time indeed.
When they fought the first time, a Clinton was winning a Presidential election; a season of television took about nine months to watch and commercials weren’t optional; and comic book movies were a year away from the verge of extinction thanks to Batman and Robin.
Times change.
Times have certainly changed for boxing.
Holyfield-Tyson was the defining heavyweight rivalry of arguably the second greatest heavyweight era. Just a year ago, it was the subject of a masterfully done 30 for 30 documentary. No, it wasn’t the best rivalry. That honor was reserved for Holyfield’s trilogy with Riddikk Bowe.
It also didn’t produce the best single heavyweight fight of the decade. That honor also went to Holyfield and Bowe in their first tilt…unless one wants to make a case for Michael Moorer-Bert Cooper.
That’s a fair case too.
When Holyfield and Tyson stepped in the ring the first time, most thought it was a foregone conclusion. Holyfield opened as a lopsided underdog with some fearing for his health. There were plenty of outlets expecting Tyson to maul him in the first a la Michael Spinks.
Even with all that, in the heart of football season, there was no question what the biggest sporting event of the day was.
If there is one way to mark the passage of time for the sweet science in the US, it is the way a big fight is covered.
Fans got a taste of the good old days last year. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao may not have delivered a classic in the ring, but the way it was covered delivered in spades. Daily fight week updates on ESPN, talk shows on location in Las Vegas, and wall to wall fight night coverage that included the post fight presser made boxing the major league of sports again for a night.
It used to be like that more often in the 1990s. Holyfield and Tyson was, in newspaper parlance, the top of the fold. It wasn’t alone though. Prior to his rubber match with Bowe, ESPN dedicated two hours to replaying their first two fights while both men looked on and then provided comment.
The sports move to premium cable was almost complete even then. Big fights, and fights that weren’t big at all, were already a fixture on pay-per-view. The net effect of it all on the sport hadn’t fully taken hold yet. Boxing, while declined in viewership and popularity, was still a steady if not constant fixture in the mainstream of sports.
Tyson fights were the biggest lure for fight fans then but they weren’t the only lure. One thing that stood out for Mayweather and Pacquiao was that, at their peak of attention, they were boxing’s sole true superstars for a few years.
They were the lone bridge to the news of sports.
Everything else was relegated strictly to the news of boxing.
When Holyfield-Tyson I took place, there was more star power to go around. Just months before, for negative reasons, Bowe’s first fight with Andrew Golota was global news. Julio Cesar Chavez-Pernell Whitaker was a Sports Illustrated cover story just a few years prior. Oscar De La Hoya’s gold medal mattered.
Boxing had foreign attractions and markets, big time in the United Kingdom, but the stadium show culture that hit during the Klitschko years in continental Europe was only laying its foundation. Hardcore fight fans interested in lighter divisions outside the US had to find someone to buy or trade VHS cassettes with. Mostly, it came down to reading about them in the results section of Ring Magazine and taking their word for it in the occasional feature.
It might feel like yesterday but twenty years has proven to be an eternity in boxing. This Saturday, one of the best heavyweights in the world (Luis Ortiz) will fight on an afternoon throwaway hour on HBO. The heavyweight division in general still pulls above the fold headlines; it just doesn’t do it in the US. Fans that want to see just about any other fight in the world can do so within a day on YouTube.
Even in this new reality, memories of a night like Holyfield-Tyson I make it all sort of melt together. What was, and what is, feel like they aren’t as far apart as they are.
And right now we’re a few minutes closer to the opening bell.
that's a pretty good fight right there, better than the main event if we taking competitive wise.
As soon as Angel started talking about Crawfords fukked up braids and him being the runner up, you know that cut deep into Crawfords feelings.They say Angel crazy N a dope head
But He jus dragged Crawford N em into promo for them for their fight on Sat...
Got Crawford to feel a way Nfor his choice of Molina as a opp
All this while still hyping up the Thurman fight in March
Playing right into Angel's hand.
Ward isnt elite in anything he does; he's a weight cutter so he's a great holder; lets see how that plays out at 175 he already has looked like shyt at that weight vs trash cans, he beats Kovalev then I start thinking of these scenarios, until then
But Ward hasn't lost a round since he moved up from 168, he's literally won all the rounds he's fought, stopped one of the guys and had a KD in his first full fight at 175
Look ya'll, it's Mr. Softie and Kovalev newest "Bottom B!tch"
Ayo @Newzz @krackdagawd who's bytch this is?!?!?!?!
Axum Ezana
Driving in the fast lane
open for the uppercut (his only kd came from one)...even @krackdagawd said that or sumtin like it...lol
Angel went all over the place in that vid. I still don't know what he was talking about with the "fukking ya girlfriends sister's best friend" thing.Go from talking bout God N the Lord to calling errybody fukking idiots in 5 secs flat 
That random unnecessary shot at Hank Lundy tho
And Hank Lundy's c00ning ass deserves all the shots anyone can take at his p*ssy ass after posting a video bragging about voting for Donald Trump and "fukk anybody who got something to say about it" then p*ssying out and deleting the fukking video.
krackdagawd
Inspire.
the way he uses high guard on the inside which can leave him oppen to uppercuts thats how Boone dropped him and Bika/Froch caught him with a few good shots as well.. ....Kov doesn't have a good uppercut though this would be more of a problem against ggg to be honest.
Axum Ezana
Driving in the fast lane
Angel went all over the place in that vid. I still don't know what he was talking about with the "fukking ya girlfriends sister's best friend" thing.
And Hank Lundy's c00ning ass deserves all the shots anyone can take at his p*ssy ass after posting a video bragging about voting for Donald Trump and "fukk anybody who got something to say about it" then p*ssying out and deleting the fukking video.
im glad craw whooped him and another c00n in diaz almost got it to.
Crawford the c00n killer.....might have to add that.
Axum Ezana
Driving in the fast lane
ChocolateGiddyUp
Superstar
Angel went all over the place in that vid. I still don't know what he was talking about with the "fukking ya girlfriends sister's best friend" thing.
And Hank Lundy's c00ning ass deserves all the shots anyone can take at his p*ssy ass after posting a video bragging about voting for Donald Trump and "fukk anybody who got something to say about it" then p*ssying out and deleting the fukking video.
Theres one from the same day where he's talking bout cutting weight N dehydration... He ended up talking about dolphins
