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I SHOULDA KNOWN
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I SHOULDA KNOWN
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First hint was the boxing pre-emptied by a friggin' high school football game ... I mean, here we are on a one nite World Series break, and our once favorite club fite pit stop turns trivia and earns second billing to a kiddie feetsball game.
So shame on me for hanging tough ... and having the staying power severely tested ... was like watching a satire skit on boxing where everything goes haywire - not the fighters who gave it there all - was the window dressing that surrounded the affair.
First was veteran referee Eddie Cotton ... only seconds into the opening bout and he's showing the entire country that he was the man in charge of the ring action ... maybe it was the medication ... could have popped the wrong pills while lost in the wilds of Pocono mountainsville.
Bad nite doesn't come close ... big Eddie was all over jr. welters Demetrius Hopkins and Roberto Ortega like a chain store dick onto a couple kid shoplifters - never once let the fighters work on the inside.
Was clear to all but the bumbling Cotton that when two relative novices get it on ... with one a southpaw ... it is rarely, if ever, a smooth as silk affair - but there was the large intimidator hovering over the 140 pounders while shouting ongoing threats from bell to bell.
Was round five that Hopkins had enuf ... backs a stinging jab with a sizzling right hand on the button ... scary for a short while with his victim lying face down on the canvas - enters the books as KO at 2:11 mark.
Last noche's FNF card came via good ol' Pocono honeymoon country ... this one held at near-in Bushkill, PA ... located somewhere along Rte. 80 West after once crossing the GW - and I shoulda known better.
Next up a fill-in lightweight affair between Felix Lora and Antonio Espinosa ... ready or not we get another righty-lefty thing ... worse yet, it's both fighters pro debut - want more? ... enter third clown in the ring one Gary Rosato.
First the fite ... goes the entire four candles ... a sloppy, anxious affair with both doing their best - and Rosato, in an Eddie Cotton wannabe power position, quickly makes his ugly presence known while deducting a point for Lora low blow in opening candle ... repeat deduction in final stanza ensures unanimous decision for Espinosa - see later post scripts for more on this Rosato fraud.
Finally, near bewitching hour and the main event ... a good one on paper and in ring action as well ... cruiserweights Kelvin "Koncrete" Davis vs Louis "The Lion" Azille in 12-round IBF title eliminator - and a dandy affair.
And there he is ... not Cotton ... Rosato in encore ref assignment - but somehow for some unexplained reason the guy works a whole different set of rules - suddenly a Mr. in your face arbitrator is avoiding the fighters like the plague.
And the bout goes to the judges following 12 very interesting and entertaining candles ... Azille by far the better technician ... not much clout but very accurate with the stick, pop, combo routine ... Davis went the left-hooker route and scored a knockdown late in opening candle with a honey on the money hook to disrupt an Azille combo.
My unofficial had Azille earning the "W" ... Davis may have caught the eye with them whistling misses for the most part but the more accurate Azille had himself a banner nite in the skills department.
And then the scoring ... "We now go to the scorecards ... we have a split decision" ... no sooner hear that and I get one of them flashbacks of the 1950s Carbo era - and sure enuf it's 116-111 twice for Davis and 114-113 for Azille.
And so what we got was a pre-Halloween boxing horror show courtesy of brutal refereeing coupled with two blind hacks overruling one accident that got it right - and did I leave something out?
Si, I surely did - referee Gary Rosato - works the debuting 4-round prelim much like a raving lunatic ... nonstop interference with gatlin' gun verbal idiocy - then he's MIA when the main event big guys are doing battle.
Post Scripts: Word to Harold's favorite daughter Julie ... review that today revisionist book of scoring ... ring generalship & effective aggressiveness ... and then replay the fight tape. Azille was clearly the one with ring generalship (better boxing mechanics) and other than the closing seconds of opening candle with the knockdown Davis was painfully short in the effective aggressor role.
Maxie Boy - Brian baby studio frauds: Getting tougher and tougher to take these two ... sort of like a today Abbot-Costello routine ... but worse yet they talk in tongue ... simultaneously yet. And them letters to Maxie gotta go ... the kid has gone completely berserk with it ... Jones over Louis? Do us a favor Max and begin wearing the 16 oz. mittens to bed before you hurt yourself.
Semper fi,
GEL
10-24-2003
