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Williams-Martinez battle exceeds expectations

December 7, 2009 02:30 PM | Posted by   Chris Iorfida  

What makes a great fight?

In my mind, a healthy dose of much of the following: Knockdowns, surprises, suspense, changes in momentum, fighters changing styles and a good mix of great technical skill and all-out sloppy action.

The middleweight clash on Saturday in Atlantic City between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez had all of it.

Both were knocked down in the first round, and each took turns gaining control of the bout. Each tried boxing and brawling, depending on what was working for them and how tired they were.

The early knockdowns were eye-opening - both men have shown good chins in the past - and surprise also came in the fact that while boxing observers welcomed the matchup, the expectations weren't for a sensational fight.

It was suspenseful, with moments for each fighter where they looked susceptible to being knocked down again. But they summoned yet more courage and energy, shaking off several blows that would have felled most others, and the result hung in the balance until the end.

Had Lynne Carter not scored the final round for Williams, it would have been a draw. Personally, I agreed with judge Julie Lederman, giving Martinez (a fighter whose style I previously haven't cottoned to) the last three rounds.

That put him ahead on my card, but I can't argue with either man winning by a round or two.

Round 5 was the rare occasion where I gave an even round not because it has hard to say who did enough to merit the round, which happens often in boxing, but rather because both guys fought terrifically and deserved it. To cause a two-point swing on the cards by almost arbitrarily picking one over the other was unfair, I felt.

None of the official judges went that route, because even rounds are generally frowned upon, but the two judges actually watching the fight split their verdict on this round.

Of course there often has to be a bad guy in boxing and on this night one Pierre Benoist scored the bout 119-109 for Williams. He never gave Martinez a round after the second.

Veteran judge Chuck Giampa, writing for the Ring Magazine website, was incredulous over the scorecard. Longtime fight fans will know that Giampa has handed in some dubious cards in his dozens of big fights, but nothing that even remotely compared to this.

There aren't any easy answers to this issue. If you went the old amateur sports route and had five judges and threw away the cards at each extreme, it would eliminate wacky scorecards but it would also increase the likelihood of draws. It would also just likely mean more cronyism within state athletic commissions of handpicked appointees with little affinity for boxing, which is part of the reason there is this problem.

I can divine by some research done on Sunday by longtime fight figure Mike Marley that Benoist is in his 70s. Going over a list of his previous assignments courtesy of boxrec.com, he doesn't appear to have ever have judged a fight of this calibre and was working his second consecutive fight of the night, having been ringside for the Cris Arreola undercard win.

Earlier this year, veteran judge Gale Van Hoy scored a pick'em fight between Juan Diaz and Paulie Malignaggi 118-110, or 10-2 in rounds, for Diaz. His card is part of the reason those two will fight in a rematch in 12 days away from Texas, where Diaz and Van Hoy both reside.

We've also seen big fights in Las Vegas where the average of the three judges was about 68 (though admittedly Nevada seems to finally be improving a bit on this score).

It might sound like ageism to the unitiated, but longtime fight fans know the score. It's a responsibility, particularly for an action-packed fight, in which a lot of information must be processed in a very short time. With so much talk in the sport about how a fighter can "turn old overnight", it's about time a few judges were given the golden watch.

Fighter of the Blog

Lucian Bute raised his stock considerably with his fourth-round knockout of Librado Andrade in a rematch on Nov. 28 in Quebec City. It looked like Bute was going to be in for a tough night - his eye was swelling rapidly - but he showed his heart and his versatility by dropping Andrade to the head and to the body,

Honourable mention goes to Aussie Danny Green who spared us all a 17-years-in-the-making rematch between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones by blasting out Jones in one round. Hopkins and Jones may indeed one day fight again, and I can't guarantee I won't watch, but Green ensured it won't take up prime television real estate better suited for fighters in their prime.

Jones, the best fighter in the game 10 years ago, needs to be retired for his own safety.

Speaking of pound-for-pound lists, I'm not as big on compiling them as others because I think too often there are overreactions to a particular fight result, but after the weekend, my top 10 would include Williams, Martinez, Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquaio, Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Vitali Klitschko, Chad Dawson and Arthur Abraham. Just bubbling under would be fighters like Andre Ward, Bute, Wladimir Klitschko, Tim Bradley, Fernando Montiel and Tomasz Adamek.

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