ANOTHER ROBBERY!
by Rich DiBona
Chris Byrd retained his IBF heavyweight title tonight despite being thoroughly outboxed by Fres Oquendo. Boxing-Central gave Byrd only 4 of the rounds. Yet, the judges amazingly
saw it 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111 for Byrd. The fight was broadcast on HBO. The opener was a replay of last week’s highly disputed decision between Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley.
The fight was just as slow and boring as should have been expected. The surprise was that Oquendo was the cause of it. They begun the fight by doing more staring at each other than actual boxing. Byrd was more active and won the first round. A few rounds later he realized he was in trouble. Oquendo was edging him out and taking the rounds. He was not landing big shots. He was just landing more little ones.
Byrd became visibly frustrated with Oquendo’s style. He expressed this to his corner between the rounds. Oquendo looked to be getting tired and resorted to clinching around the middle of the fight. He also added headlocks to his arsenal. Oquendo would commonly land a couple punches and grab onto Byrd. Oquendo further frustrated him with rabbit punches. The ref was not getting involved and Byrd had no answers.
Boxing-Central saw Oquendo take all but one round between the 2nd and the 10th. Byrd needed a knockout and he knew it. He all of a sudden be came the hunter. He chased down Oquendo and looked for the one big shot to end it. Oquendo would land the occasional punch to put a halt to Byrd’s plan.
Byrd could not put Oquendo down and he knew he had lost. His hopes were further dashed when he heard it was a unanimous decision. The scores sounded right at 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111. Then the words “and still champion” were spoken. Judges Don Ackerman, Steve Epstein and John Lawson must have been asleep during the fight. That is the only explanation that makes sense.
Due to the recent poor decision, this will be compared to De La Hoya vs. Mosley. There is no comparison. This was on the level of Lennox Lewis vs. Evander Holyfield. This decision was far worse than last week. John Lawson gave Byrd the fight 9 rounds to 3. It is just unbelievable.
After the fight, Byrd said, “It could have gone either way.” Oquendo simply did not seem to care. He was just happy to be there. Instead of questioning the decision, the first thing he did was thank his promoter, Don King. King also just happens to be Chris Byrd’s promoter. In fact the IBF championship is the one which King purchased. He literally paid Lennox Lewis to drop the belt so that his two fighters would fight for the vacant title.
Mike Tyson o walce z zawodnikami K1:
"To może być dobre, ale według reguł boksu markiza Queensberry'ego. Nie chcę odbierać kopnięć w głowę"
Anonim
Krzysztof Piekarz
