|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| HBO Boxing After Dark TV review featuring Paul Williams and one of the great fights of the year |
|
|
|
|
HBO Boxing After Dark Recap November 29, 2008 Citizens Bank Arena-Ontario, California 1. NABF/WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight (200+ pounds) Heavyweight 12-Round Championship Unification Match: Chris Arreola (25-0, 22 KO's, 254 pounds) (WBC Continental Americas) vs. Travis Walker (28-1-1, 22 KO's, 231 pounds) (NABF) Arreola won his title when it was vacant by defeating Thomas Hayes via knockout at 1:45 of round 3 on September 21, 2007 at the Doubletree Hotel in Ontario, California. The previous champion was Tony Thompson who vacated the belt to take a match that made him the mandatory contender to one of Wladimir Klitschko's heavyweight titles. Arreola is making his third defense of this championship. Walker won a newly created interim version of the NABF Heavyweight Championship via technical knockout over TJ Wilson (not the pro-wrestler) at 1:50 of round 2 on February 29, 2008 at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, California. The Houston, Texas resident's title was upgraded to a full championship when the previous champion, Hasim Rahman, passed on facing Walker for a higher paying match with James Toney. Walker is making his first defense of this championship. Arreola had a good amateur boxing career that culminated when he won the 2001 National Golden Gloves Championship at 178 pounds. The Riverside, California resident probably would have been a very good boxer at 175 pounds. However, since then his weight has ballooned out of control. This has caused people to question Arreola's commitment to boxing. Arreola's last match saw him show up the heaviest of his career at 258.5 pounds. That is 80.5 pounds more then he weighed when he won his amateur championship. That was up 19.5 pounds over his match 3 months earlier. On September 25, 2008, Arreola faced an over-matched last minute replacement in Israel Garcia and won via technical knockout at 1:11 of round 3 at the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, California. After the match, Arreola gave a fair appraisal of his performance as a D+/C- showing in the ring that night. Arreola knew he should have knocked out Garcia earlier. Arreola said he was going back to the gym the week after the match. He showed up to training camp for the match with Garcia at around 280 pounds. Arreola's performance in the ring was a solid a D+/C-. However, the bigger issue coming out of the match was that Arreola's performance in the gym was a solid F-. A full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/11/29/recap-of-chris-arreola-vs-israel-garcia.html Arreola is unranked by The Ring magazine, and the number 28 ranked heavyweight in the world by boxrec.com. Walker had a short, but solid amateur boxing career that was highlighted when he won the 2003 National Golden Gloves Super Heavyweight (200+ pounds) Championship. The Houstonian has made his record by defeating a mix of inexperienced and poor competition. The boxer with the most wins and a winning record that Walker has faced was the 17-12-1, Ralph West. West was coming in having lost 5 of his last 6 matches all by knockout in under 7 minutes and never should have been sanctioned. Walker knocked out West at 2:17 of round 2 on December 6, 2007 at the Ameristar Casino in Saint Charles, Missouri. Walker's last match was a non-title match with Wallace McDaniel on September 4, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Houston, Texas. Walker stopped the 8-19-1 McDaniel via technical knockout at 27 seconds of round 1. McDaniel weighed in at 288 pounds for that match. Therefore, Walker has experience fighting obese heavyweights. Walker is unranked by The Ring, and the number 49 ranked heavyweight in the world by boxrec.com. At 27-years-old, Arreola is 2 years younger then the 29-year-old Walker. Walker has the height advantage standing 6' 4.5" tall, while Arreola stands a generous 6' 3" tall. Arreola has the reach advantage with a 25.5" arm length measured from the armpit to the end of the fist, compared to the 24.5" arm length of Walker. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, neither boxers weight should have changed much since the official weigh-ins. Therefore, Arreola will be the much heavier competitor in the ring. Walker appears to be in great shape and is competing at the lowest weight of his professional career. That indicates he may be looking to make this a test of stamina. Both boxers will employ the orthodox stance. California's modified version of the unified rules of boxing are in effect for this event. The home areas of the judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are not announced. The referee is Jack Reiss. Harold Lederman will be keeping unofficial score of this event for HBO. Walker dominates Arreola to take round 1, 10-9. Whenever, Walker lands a clean punch to the soft midsection of the local boxer, the crowd gasps. Lederman scores round 1 for Walker, 10-9. According to CompuBox, Walker threw 106 punches in round 1. That number is over double what the average heavyweight throws in a round. The record for punches thrown in a round by a heavyweight is 122, and if Arreola does not begin to show some defensive skills that record may fall. A straight right hand to the face drops Arreola to a knee with 2:33 to go in round 2. Arreola easily answers the count and is allowed to continue with 2:20 to go in the round. It appears to have been a flash knockdown and Arreola appears fine when the action resume. With 1:26 to go in round 2, the referee calls time to have Walker's mouthpiece put back in place. At the time of the interruption Arreola is bleeding from what appears to be a cut on his nose. It was probably caused by an unintentional clash of heads. With 59 seconds to go in round 2, Walker is hurt and goes down to the canvas. The Houstonian may not beat the count. Walker successfully answers the count and is allowed to continue with 45 seconds to go in the round. However, Walker is looking bad when the action resumes and Arreola may finish him. A left hand that was largely a push sends a badly hurt Walker down again with 27 seconds to go still in round 2. The referee allows Walker to continue with 13 seconds to go in the round. However, he looks very bad. The 3 knockdown rule is not in effect and a boxer cannot be saved by the bell in California. Arreola takes the best heavyweight round of the year, 10-8. From when there was 1 minute left in round 2 through the 1 minute intermission between rounds the fans have been going crazy. With 2:48 to go in round 3, a left hook leaves Walker sitting in a corner. The moment Walker went down, the referee waved off the match. The winner via technical knockout is Arreola in probably the most entertaining heavyweight match of the year or possibly last couple years. Walker is upset about the stoppage, but there was no question the referee had to stop the match there. The referee did a good job. The crowd in the building is screaming themselves horse at this outcome. It will be tough for the main event to follow this. The official outcome from the legendary Michael Buffer is that: at 13 seconds of round 3 the winner by knockout (that may be changed to technical knockout), now unified NABF and WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight Champion, and still undefeated, Chris "The Nightmare" Arreola. The win moves Arreola to 26-0 with now 23 wins coming by way of knockout. The final punchstat numbers have Arreola landing 44 of the 81 total punches he threw, for an astounding 54% total connect percentage. Arreola landed 36 of the 55 power punches he threw, for a devastating 65% power connect percentage. Walker landed 43 of the 190 total punches he threw, for a 23% total connect percentage. The Houstonian landed 33 of the 105 power punches he threw, for a 31% power connect percentage. Arreola was very entertaining in his post match interview, but the quotes were not family friendly. The double champion explained that he was knocked down, because he just got caught by a strong guy. Arreola said that he was passive in the first round to evaluate Walker's power and the type of punches he threw. Next time Arreola might want to try doing that on a video tape. Arreola said he wants to face a Klitschko brother. He said he is concerned about his weight. The Riverside resident said he will be back in the gym on Monday to get in better shape. Arreola was fun to watch in this match. That should not be confused with him being good in this match. He is still in terrible shape and his defense is awful. Arreola said he was going to be in the gym the week after his last match and lost a total of 4.5 pounds in the 2 months. He hits very hard and has a lot of talent. Unfortunately, Arreola appears to have little discipline or true dedication to the sport of boxing. Arreola is probably the best heavyweight from the United States, but that is mostly by default. Until, he actually realizes the need to be an athlete and not a skilled guy who muddles through by hitting very hard it is tough to tell what Arreola's potential is. Right now, Arreola could best be described as a poor man's Samuel Peter. This match obligates Arreola to face Alexander Povetkin next with the winner getting a shot a heavyweight belt that is currently being held by Wladimir Klitschko. This match was supposed to make Arreola the immediate number 1 contender to Klitschko with Povetkin using his sanctioning body mandated title shot on December 13. However, Povetkin got hurt running and had to pull out of that match. Therefore, Hasim Rahman is being used as the mandatory title defense in place of Povetkin. That means the winner of Arreola-Povetkin will not be guaranteed a title shot until December 2010. Look for Arreola to go to Germany to face Povetkin on HBO in the April-June window of 2009. Walker was better then expected in this match and put on an entertaining performance. However, in the end Walker did what he was expected to do, lose by knockout. He has good power, but a suspect chin. Walker is marketable as being one of the top heavyweights from the United States. However, that again speaks more to the state of the division in this country then about Walker's greatness. This match was enjoyable to watch. That will make it easy for Walker to go back to facing mid-level opponents on ShoBox, and they can talk about how he nearly beat the great Arreola. 2. Interim-WBO Junior Middleweight (154 pounds) 12-Round Championship match: Paul Williams (35-1, 26 KO's, 153.5 pounds) vs. Verno Phillips (42-10-1, 1 NC, 21 KO's, 154 pounds) This title is being created in this match. The full WBO Champion at 154 pounds is Sergiy Dzinziruk. Williams is a giant that is hoping to compete simultaneously and win titles in every weight class from 147 pounds to 168 pounds. He is listed at 6' 1.5" tall, but is probably closer to 6' 3" tall. Williams has an 82" wingspan, which is longer then almost every heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. It makes him a match-up nightmare for potential opponents. Williams was forced to vacate his 147-pound title to take this match. He wanted to defend that belt on this show, however none of the top boxers in the division would face him. Williams is arguably the best 147-pounder in the world. Antonio Margarito is ranked number 1 in the division by The Ring, but Williams holds an unavenged victory over the boxer from Tijuana, Mexico. That gives Williams a rightful claim to being the true king of the 147-pound division. Margarito was offered the guaranteed largest purse of his career to face Williams, but wanted no part of the tall southpaw. Therefore, Williams decided to go after a belt at 154 pounds, because no top boxer would face him at 147 pounds. Williams is not expected to hold this belt very long. The top match-ups for him are at 147 pounds and Williams has been pushing for a match with the top ranked 160-pounder in the world, Kelly Pavlik. In that match, Williams would be the substantially larger boxer. Williams would also be the larger boxer in a match for Joe Calzaghe's championship at 175 pounds. In fact, Williams would have a reach advantage on both of the 6' 7" tall Klitschko brothers, who are ruling the heavyweight division by using their long arms to keep opponents out of punching range with their jab. Williams' last match was a technical knockout victory at 1:47 of round 1 over Andy Kolle on September 25, 2008 at the Soboba Casino. Williams who has historically shown little punching power dropped Kolle with a hard right-left combo and the Minnesotan was unable to beat the referee's count. That made 2 straight round 1 knockouts for Williams. Prior to that, Williams' last round 1 knockout came against Javier Valadez on September 23, 2004 at the San Jose Arena (HP Pavilion) in San Jose, California. Valadez was coming in having only won 2 of his last 12 matches with 7 losses via knockout. Williams had historically been a boxer who set CompuBox records with his work rate and scored knockouts through an accumulation of punches. If this giant has truly developed punching power he may be the scariest boxer in the business. The full recap of Williams last match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/11/30/recap-of-paul-williams-vs-andy-kolle.html Williams is The Ring's number 2 contender to their vacant championship at 147 pounds. The Ring had ranked Williams as the number 10 boxer in the world, pound-for-pound, the last few weeks after Cristian Mijares dropped out of the rankings when he was knocked out by Vic Darchinyan. However, this week Williams was replaced at that spot by Ricky Hatton, who re-entered the rankings at number 10 following his knockout victory over Paulie Malignaggi last weekend. Phillips is an established veteran boxer that has faced many of the top 154-pound boxers in his career. He has at 3 different times held a belt in he 154-pound division, dating back to October 30, 1993 when he defeated Lupe Aquino by technical knockout at 56 seconds of round 7 at America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. The Denver, Colorado resident had to vacate his freshly won title at 154 pounds to take this higher paying match, where he is supposed to play the part of stepping stone for Williams. In his last match, Phillips took the IBF Championship at 154 pounds from Cory Spinks in a controversial 12-round split decision on March 27, 2008 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Phillips is The Ring's number 2 contender to their vacant championship at 154 pounds. At 27-years-old, Williams is 12 years younger then Phillips who is turning 39-years-old today. Williams has the height reportedly standing 6' 1.5" tall, while Phillips stands 5' 7" tall. The Augusta, Georgia resident has the reach advantage with a 25.5" arm length, compared to the 22" arm length of Phillips. Neither boxers unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, the gargantuan Williams should be the heavier boxer in the ring. Phillips will employ the orthodox stance and Williams will box out of the southpaw stance. Williams is the heavy betting favorite going into this match, and the tale of the tape shows why. Two of the official judges keeping score of this match from ringside are from California and the other is from Nevada. The referee is Jon Schorle. When they take their stances to start the match, the top of Phillips' head only comes up to Williams shoulder. There is an accidental clash of heads with a little over 1 minute to go in round 1 and someone is bleeding. The blood is coming from around Williams' right eye. It is a bad cut over the corner of the eye and could be a problem for the boxer in the match. Phillips landed the cleaner punches to take round 1, 10-9. A close up shot of Williams in the corner shows that the cut over his eye is wide and the blood is dripping into his eye. It is unlikely his corner will be able to get the cut to stop bleeding during this match. That means Williams is going to have impaired vision for the rest of the match. Lederman scores round 1 for the more aggressive Williams, 10-9. Williams wins a close round 2, 10-9. Lederman scores round 2 for Williams, 10-9. Williams is battering Phillips in round 3 with continual punches to the body. However, Williams is constantly stopping to wipe the blood away from his eye, because that cut is getting worse. The referee has taken several close looks at the cut this round and with 31 seconds to go in round 3 calls timeout for the doctor to examine the cut. This does not look good for Williams. The doctor says it is fine. The match does not go to the scorecards when it has it to be stopped due to a cut caused by an accidental foul until after 4 rounds. Williams may not be able to hold out that long. The southpaw easily wins round 3, 10-9, and is ahead on my scorecard after 3 rounds. 29-28. Williams takes round 3 on the Lederman scorecard, 10-9, and leads on his scorecard after 3 rounds, 30-27. With 22 seconds to go in round 4, Phillips throws a wild right hook that misses and sends himself spinning to the mat. The referee rules it an obvious slip and the action is resumed with 18 seconds to go in the round. Williams wins round 4 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. The match has now made it enough rounds where it would go to the scorecards if it had to be stopped on the cut. Williams wins round 5, 10-9. The southpaw is continuing to show his new-found punching power in this match. Williams takes round 5 on Lederman's scorecard, 10-9. The southpaw wins round 6 in dominating fashion, 10-9. After 6 rounds, Williams leads on my scorecard, 59-55. Lederman scores round 6 for Williams, 10-9, and has the Augusta resident ahead on his scorecard after 6 rounds, 60-54. With 2:22 to go in round 7, Williams falls awkwardly to the mat. It appears like his left foot lost traction causing the boxer to go down. Phillips who dove in at Williams when he saw the boxer's leg give, tripped over the fallen Williams and went sprawling on the mat. Both falls are correctly ruled slips. The action resumes with 2:14 to go in the round. Phillips is fine following his trip to the mat. Williams is not limping when he gets up, despite the way his leg went out from under him. The southpaw takes round 7 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. Phillips looks exhausted at this point from the relentless body punching of Williams. It is getting to the point that Phillips corner may want to think about stopping the match. Williams wins round 8, 10-9. The cut above Williams' right eye has not stopped bleeding since round 1. Phillips hair is now dyed red from the blood dripping down from the cut onto the top of the shorter boxer's head. However, Williams has not let the cut effect him since round 3. The doctor has stopped this match in the corner due to an accumulation of punches. It was a good stoppage. It is the first knockout loss for Phillips, since his fifth pro match on July 30, 1988. The HBO commentators say this is during the George H. W. Bush presidency. That is incorrect. That stoppage occurred in the waning days of the Reagan administration. Williams had just finished first grade and had yet to start second grade. The official outcome from Michael Buffer is that: at 3:00 of round 8 the referee has called a stop to this match on the advice of the doctor making the winner by technical knockout and new interim-WBO Junior Middleweight Champion of the World, Paul "The Punisher" Williams. The win moves Williams to 36-1 with now 27 wins coming by way of knockout. The final punchstat numbers show Williams domination. Williams landed 227 of the 682 total punches he threw, for a 33% total connect percentage. The new champion landed 210 of the 489 power punches he threw for a very good 43% power connect percentage. Phillips landed 91 of the 396 total punches he threw, for a 23% total connect percentage. The Denver resident landed 88 off the 366 power punches he threw, for a 24% power connect percentage. Williams said in his post match interview that he did not want to call out anyone in particular, because he has been calling out a lot of boxers for years. When asked if he could be at 147 pounds for a match with Margarito. Williams smiled and said he would have no problem making 147 pounds if Margarito signed the contract. That brought cheers from the audience. The new champion is a terrifying match up problem for any potential opponent. Williams continues to improve with every match. In the match with Quintana, Williams added the element of power punching to his repertoire. Now he has added the ability to throw vicious body shots to his game. There are no obvious next opponents for Williams, because all of the big names that it would make sense for Williams to face want no part of him. It is doubtful Williams would go to Germany to unify his title with the full WBO title held by Dzinziruk. If that match were to happen in the United States there is a good chance it would be Williams next match. Williams appears to be good and too scary for his own financial good. Next January would mark Phillips 22nd year as professional boxer. That may be too long in the ring. Phillips is still competitive at a high level. However, he was not competitive with Williams. After this it is unlikely he will have any drawing power. Rather then hang on too long and join a long list of boxers that did not know when to step away, it may be time for Phillips to call it a career. He can main event ESPN cards for several more years, but his career deserves a better ending then that of a boxer that is holding on for 1 more title shot. The opening heavyweight match may have been the most entertaining heavyweight matches shown on television in the United States in a couple years. That does not mean it was a quality match. However, it was an exciting enjoyable match to watch. The main event was a completely one-sided match that became repetitive with Williams pinning Phillips against the ropes and then throwing combinations that were rarely answered. The first match is something people should go out of their way to see. The main event involved a very good boxer getting better. However, it was not a great match to watch on its own. Making it a marginal watch. News and Notes: The latest edition of De La Hoya/Pacquiao 24/7 aired last Sunday and it was very good. At this point De La Hoya is largely conceding his match next week will not be his last if he wins. ESPN's Dan Rafael went as far as to say that if De La Hoya wins next Saturday that a match between De La Hoya and Hatton on the weekend of Cinco de Mayo in 2009 is a mortal lock. However, the highlight of the 24/7 episode though was probably the all star sparring session of Manny Pacquiao. On the first 24/7, De La Hoya sparred with Shane Mosley. On the second 24/7, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. proved he had famous friends, too by sparring with Carlos Baldomir. The third 24/7 is best forgotten. This time Pacquiao sparred with 2000 Olympic silver medalist Amir Kahn. The match between Margarito and Mosley is now official for January 24 on HBO. Last week Margarito had refused the match with a 50-50 split of the revenue and a guaranteed $2 million downside. However, this week HBO agreed to give Margarito an undisclosed sum to accept the match under the previous conditions. Margarito is still expected to make less for that match then he was offered to face Paul Williams. Regardless of the outcome, Margarito will have a rematch with Cotto in the summer on HBO PPV. The deal has been finalized for Vic Darchinyan to face Jorge Arce on February 7 at the Toyota Center in Anaheim, California. The match will be carried on Showtime. The card may also include the Showtime debut of Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. However, that has not been finalized. Winky Wright's scheduled return to the ring headlining a December 4 card on Versus is off. Wright injured his left wrist sparring. It is now unclear when Wright will return to the ring. He has been inactive since losing to Bernard Hopkins in July of 2007. Finally, here is a great article on Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3729473 Tyson will be making his return to video games next year in Fight Night Round 4, which is currently slated for release in May 2009. It will be Tyson's first appearance in a video game since he was convicted of rape. The next recap will come out December 7 covering the previous night's HBO PPV featuring Manny Pacquiao vs. Oscar De La Hoya. Dave Meltzer will be keeping a live scorecard of the main event on f4wonline.com. Also, the written review of SmackDown! vs. Raw 2009 for the XBOX 360 should be available for members only this week on f4wonline.com. Sincerely, Jereme Warneck number1contender.net Boxing and Video Game Correspondent for f4wonline.com Hidden Valley Lake, CA I can be reached for feedback and comments at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or as JeremeW on XBOX Live. I read everything.
|
||
Send us a news tip: newstips@wrestlingobserver.com
Note to webmasters/reporters: When recapping news from this site or from our newsletters, please include a link to www.wrestlingobserver.com
For the most in-depth and detailed news and analysis on pro-wrestling and MMA, always turn to Wrestlingobserver.com/Figure Four Weekly Online, the #1 website of its kind on the Internet. Members receive online access to both the Wrestling Observer and Figure Four Weekly newsletters and growing archives, Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer three times per week, the popular Bryan and Vinny Show twice per week, additional radio shows including Figure Four Daily with Alvarez, Mike Coughlin's Five Star Radio, the Dr. Keith Lipinski Show, The Adam and Mike Big Audio Nightmare, Tough Talk and the Karl Stern Wrestling History Show, the infamous BOARD, and more! Members also have full access to the thousands of hours of audio in our radio show archives which date back to 2005. For your convenience, we offer secure online payments using your VISA, Mastercard, American Express, Discover card or PayPal account. Don't miss out on the fun, sign up now! Don't miss out on the fun, sign up now!
Want full access? QUICK AND EASY $9.99 SIGNUP!
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
|
|