Last night was a mixture of thrilling action, head-scratching moments, and unintentional comedy that only boxing can provide.
Haye-Maccarinelli: Great, explosive performance by Haye. The ref didn't do a great job there, but I do think the stoppage was legit. Maccarinelli was stumbling all over like a drunk and was badly hurt. If the fight continues, Maccarinelli probably lasts about another 5 seconds until Haye would have annihilated him with another huge right hand.
Maccarinelli made the mistake that a lot of fighters make, especially when they get knocked down early in fights, in that he was so intent on proving that he wasn't hurt, that he jumped right up instead of taking a few seconds on the canvas to regain some of his equilibrium. It's the same thing Zab Judah did against Kostya Tszyu. A smart veteran fighter will sit up for 4 or 5 seconds, look at the ref's count, and stand up at 7 or 8.
Regarding UK refs... is there some type of minimum age limit to be a ref in the UK? It seems like everytime I watch a fight over there, the ref always looks old enough to have served in the War of 1812.
Also, did anyone catch the music they were playing in the arena prior to the fight? First they played Who Let the Dogs Out, then they went really bizarre and played that 500 miles song by
these guys. If ever there was a song that I didn't associate with a boxing match....
Anyway, Haye is probably moving to heavyweight now, and while I'm not sure how effective he'll be, I do know that I'm very interested to find out. Everyone's been clamoring for an American heavyweight to burst onto the scene, but maybe an English-speaking fighter from the UK with an outgoing personality is the next best thing.
Diaz-Campbell: Phenomenal fight. As Gene noted above, the ref in this fight made the UK ref look like a combo of Mills Lane, Arthur Mercante, and Joe Cortez. Every single round started 10-15 seconds late because there was one guy in Diaz's corner who would take 100 years to step out thru the damn ropes. And every round, the ref wouldn't reprimand him or yell at him, he would just stand there and watch him!!
Now 99% of the time, that would be the dumbest thing a ref could do all night, but this guy outdid himself by calling time in the middle of a round and letting Diaz's cutman work on the cut! Just when you think you've seen everything.... Lederman almost went into cardiac arrest when he saw that.
Diaz is a short fighter with short arms and limited punching power. Those guys always have a shelf life, I just didn't think Campbell would be the guy to expose him. How much of a mess is the lightweight division right now? Several months ago, it looked like Diaz and Casamayor were headed for a showdown. Now Casamayor looks like a corpse and Diaz just got the crap kicked out of him by a 36 year old. Several months ago in this thread, I said that I thought Pacquiao was in for a rude awakening if he moved up to lightweight, now it looks like everything is lining up for him to win belts.
Peter-Maskaev: Not much to add on this one, except that Peter did what he needed to do and what we wanted him to do... win in definitive fashion and establish himself as the clear #1 contender. He did that. It was very impressive (as the HBO guys correctly noted) that when Peter got Maskaev hurt, he didn't go wild and start winging punches, he took his time and clinically finished him. I think the two fights with Toney may be the best thing that ever happened to Peter. If you spend 24 rounds in the ring with James Toney, you're getting a PHD in the art of the sweet science. I think Peter learned a lot in those fights.
Now, onto by far the most important topic of the night.... the Mexican Michael Buffer. My favorite aspects of his performance:
1. Did you notice the shirt he was wearing? It looked like a hotel uniform. Gave me the impression that they didn't have anyone to fill the role of announcer, so they just grabbed one of the local bellboys last minute and threw him in the ring.
2. Loved how for the Diaz-Campbell fight intros, he didn't recite their record, hometown... anything. He just said "in the blue corner.." paused for about 20 interminable seconds, then said.... "Nate Campbell!!"
You could tell the HBO guys were dying to make fun of him on-air, but instead they held it in and just repeated over and over that he was "inexperienced." It's nights like this where I miss Merchant, because there's no way he would've made it thru the whole night without making some type of sarcastic comment.
Two final notes:
1. I still have no idea what Sam Peter said in any of his answers during the postfight interview, and I'm usually very good at deciphering the indecipherable (for example, I understand everything Floyd Mayweather Sr. says). HBO might want to spend a couple hundred bucks and hire an interpreter for his next fight.
2. For the first time, I thought the Lampley/Max/Steward booth worked well together, and I thought Max made a lot of good points.
Wow, that's a long post.