Anyone still awake for Rigondeaux vs Donaire?

First topic message reminder :

Where are you all?

Please don't tell me i'm the only 606'er up.....

Strongback wrote:

milkyboy wrote:

You can appreciate skill and technique without wanting to choke the chicken over a fight that has so little action.

Didn't stop you flogging the bishop when Leonard ran around the ring against Duran.

... That was completely different

milkyboy wrote:I don't know the reason for his defection, tophat, i'm sure he was a hero in cuba, but it 's a communist country. I doubt he escaped with a swag bag that was overflowing. Maybe he wanted to try life in the 'west', maybe he wanted to show the world he could deliver as a pro. Maybe he just wanted money.

I think as fans, we always like to think that pro's are after the glory. It's going to change fighter to fighter, but I imagine for most its balancing their dream with economic reality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying money isn't an issue/concern. I'm sure he defected as much for it as a genuine desire to test himself in the pros.

My point was that he could still earn a crazy amount of money, compared to what he came from, by fighting fights like last night and going down as a great. Rather than earning even more money as a crowd pleasing gung-ho fighter. Whilst the difference between, say, $2m and $5m is larger, the difference between $0 and $2m is greater in relative terms.

Retire a rich legend, or a super-rich footnote......

Understood your point fella. Unfortunately, such is the financially driven nature of this sport, its the who needs him club thing. He may struggle to get those other defining fights whilst being high risk low reward himself. Hope that's not the case... He does after all hold 2 belts and a win over a top p4p guy... So maybe he's beyond that.

I read somewhere that the average Cuban International boxer earns $35 a week. Contrast that to the $700,000 he earned for the last fight then you can see why he defected. Still a tough decision for him, exiled permanently from the country of your birth, never to see many family/friends again, at least for the forseeable future. Unless you win that lottery they have, a la Abril, then you're stuck in a catch 22 situation.

6oldenbhoy wrote:I read somewhere that the average Cuban International boxer earns $35 a week. Contrast that to the $700,000 he earned for the last fight then you can see why he defected. Still a tough decision for him, exiled permanently from the country of your birth, never to see many family/friends again, at least for the forseeable future. Unless you win that lottery they have, a la Abril, then you're stuck in a catch 22 situation.

I know you watch alot of the AMs 6oldenboy, did Rigondeaux surprise you this weekend with the ease he handled Donaire, a top 5 P4P fighter. Any others prospects coming through that could make the transition Rigondeaux has and pick up a World title quickly?

I thought Rigo would outbox him, but ultimately get caught. I was more surprised at Donaire's performance, he was just bereft of ideas. I rated him very highly, still do, but the way Rigo's movement bamboozled him was astonishing.

Lomachenko is the obvious one, if he comes in at SFW, I could see him picking up a title quickly. Gamboa would be a stern test, but with the doping scandal he's embroiled in, he maynt fight again.

If Uysk turned pro as a Cruiser then I wouldn't back against him winning a title even earlier than Rigondeaux. He is mightily talented and the division is hardly stacked.

Robiesy Ramirez, the Olympic Flyweight champion, looks exceptional. He recently stepped up to Bantam at the Cuban National trials and defeated the reigning World Champion. He's still.only 20/21 so he may need a few pro fights to adapt. Roniel Iglesias Sotolongo is another who possibly could.

There is talk of Cuba entering next season's WSB so that would give a decent indication to how they would fare in the Pro's.

How about that Chinese lad that pro-debut'd in China the other week?

Roach seems to think he'll be a world champ in Fenech-esque time.

Also, re Lomachenko, he said on Ringside a couple of weeks back that he'd turn pro after WSB - so it's definitely his intention. Cannot wait!

Nah, I don't think Zou has what it takes. At London he was very fortunate to win Gold. He struggled with the pace over three rounds. In his Semi vs Barnes, he was punched all over the ring in the final three minutes. Contrast that to Beijing four years previous where Barnes struggled to put a glove on him.

His final vs the Thai, I thought he lost it by a fairly wide margin. As bad a decision I can remember at the Games.

He doesn't have any power. He is 32, so not much time on his side. Unless there is a seriously weak Champion at the weight then I doubt he will be. Roach and Arum are saying stuff like that to exploit the Chinese market. Zou is a superstar in China, they will keep feeding him hand picked opponents before finally engineering him a title shot. All the while, 300m will tune in.

300m

TopHat24/7 wrote:300m

Aye, you heard the man. Apparently Zou's debut the other day attracted the biggest ever TV audience for boxing thanks to his star status in China. I haven't seen it, but apparently he didn't look particularly good and, like 6oldenbhoy, I wasn't massively impressed with him in London despite his huge reputation.

That's what, 25% of the population?!?! Amazing stuff. Even a top HW prospect here only gets about 7.5% (when on terrestrial).

It's a massive untapped market. I imagine Arum thinks he can turn Macao into the Vegas of the far east. With Zou he has the man everyone wants to see. If he can get more top chinese fighters in his stable and use Zou's pulling power to make stars of them, then he could have a monopoly on the market. The problem is, I can't think of any Chinese amateur that truly stands out. No point in having that market if you have no one to showcase.

Yeh, plus the Chinese seem easily indoctrinated and go nuts for anything half decent in Red. Just look at their distinctively average 110m hurdles champ who was a national hero.

Didn't Pacquiao say he would never fight in the US again??

Maybe there will be a September card with Pac headling, Zou on the undercard.

Would be mental over there if that happened

I don't think anyone knows exactly how the Chinese view boxing. Zou is a national hero because he was a trail blazer, first boxing medal at the Olympics for China, first Amateur World Champion, Gold medal winner on home soil etc. How do they view others?

The WBC are trying to exploit the market as well with Xiong Zhao Zhong their minimum weight champion, but I have no idea how well he is received in China. Would Pacquiao make a difference to viewing figures if Zou was already on the card?

After a solid 2008 Olympics where they topped the boxing Medal table, they produced one male medallist at the 2012 games. Instead of improving, they seemed to have regressed. They haven't pushed on, which they should, considering their population.

I think I have been a bit harsh on Rigo's performance, although I still think that the rounds he ran circles around the ring were absolutely awful, he did what he had to do because of the fighter in front of him.

Rigo's movement was mezmoring at times in that fight and he reduced Donaire to following him around the ring a lot of the time. I think that he would look better against an opponent less dangerous than Donaire. If he had chosen to engage like we wanted then he would have likely been knocked out.

I have had time to reflect on the fight, as well as watching pre fight and post fight interviews from Rigo himself and he did exactly what he said he would.

In parts it was a fight for the purists and I really enjoyed it, but some rounds were absolutely terrible.

I want to say again, well done Rigo, on a fantastic performance!

I think he could of knocked Donaire out if he had of pull the pedal to the medal.

At the start Donaire threw a cluster of hard shots and Rigo came straight back and caught Donaire just as bad and put a stop to him trying to brawl. Think Donaire maybe thought it wasn't going to work going toe to toe with this guy, hence hardly throwing a punch.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I think he could of knocked Donaire out if he had of pull the pedal to the medal.

Got a frustrating taster of that in the 12th round! Rigo on the offense and Donaire retreating as annoyingly good watching, wish it had happened earlier!

6oldenbhoy wrote:I don't think anyone knows exactly how the Chinese view boxing. Zou is a national hero because he was a trail blazer, first boxing medal at the Olympics for China, first Amateur World Champion, Gold medal winner on home soil etc. How do they view others?

The WBC are trying to exploit the market as well with Xiong Zhao Zhong their minimum weight champion, but I have no idea how well he is received in China. Would Pacquiao make a difference to viewing figures if Zou was already on the card?

After a solid 2008 Olympics where they topped the boxing Medal table, they produced one male medallist at the 2012 games. Instead of improving, they seemed to have regressed. They haven't pushed on, which they should, considering their population.

if snooker is any conparison, when they had success many more followed. snooker became something taught in schools and talent emerged very very quickly. if you have a population of over a billion then the talent pool is massive.

TopHat24/7 wrote:

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:I think he could of knocked Donaire out if he had of pull the pedal to the medal.

Got a frustrating taster of that in the 12th round! Rigo on the offense and Donaire retreating as annoyingly good watching, wish it had happened earlier!

I think that was because of the eye damage, his left hand certainly packed a wallop though. We saw what happened when Rigo got careless, he got dropped.

He boxed the perfect fight.