Full results for @ARESpromotions Fight Night 8 at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center

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I covered Ares Promotion’s Fight Night 8 for the Knick Ledger tonight. The article should be posted tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s the results along with some quick thoughts.

I’d estimate attendance at about 800. Roughly the same amount as the KO at the TU last month, but with the Convention Center holding a maximum of about 1,500, the place looked and sounded packed. It’s also worth noting that the fans and the card as a whole were worlds better. The fans were far less inebriated and far more personally invested in the bouts, and were every bit as invested in fights with no local fighter representation (accounting for over half of them) as they were with the hometown boys. The show started at 6pm and ended at about 10:40pm, yet flew by due to so many KO finishes and entertaining fights all around.

There seriously wasn’t a single dud on the card. I don’t recall ever seeing a better top to bottom fight card in boxing, local or otherwise. That sounds like hyperbole, but realize that boxing on the national and international stage are singular showcases; you’re lucky if you get one fight on an undercard that’s even competitive. Local promotions, then, have more of an incentive to put on an all-around card, since a local star is only going to draw so much. Though I think this went above and beyond that. I’d love to pick Adam Neary’s brain on this, because I suspect he takes a slightly more MMA approach to his matchmaking, which is to provide a top to bottom card that draws rather than just one or two marquee names and the rest sort of haphazardly thrown together.

Anyway, on with the results.

 

FULL RESULTS

 

Welterweight bout scheduled for 4 Rounds:
Gabriel DuLuc (4-0-0, 1 KO) def. Calvin Pritchard (0-5-2) by Unanimous Decision
Judges Scorecards: Kintz – 40-36, Ackerman – 40-36, Schreck – 39-37
Thoughts:  I had it 40-36 for DuLuc. Prithcard was simply outgunned in this fight and seemed to be waiting for openings to land big shots, which unfortunately just didn’t have enough power behind them.

 

Light Welterweight bout scheduled for 4 Rounds:
Tre’Sean Wiggins (3-0-0, 3 KO) def. Dwayne Hall (2-2-0, 0 KO) via KO @ 0:28 of Round 2
Thoughts: This fight was all Tre’Sean and he looked awesome. He had Hall all but done in the first with a hard knockdown. Hall’s a tough kid. The KO that came in the second was almost a comically delayed reaction, as Hall actually stumbled two steps forward after the referee separated them from the corner then fell flat on his back. It was the closest thing I’ve seen to a Flair Flop in a real fight.

 

Welterweight bout scheduled for 4 Rounds:
Javier Baez (0-0-1) and Anthony Birmingham (0-1-1) fought to a majority draw
Judges Scorecards: Schreck – 40-36 Baez, Ackerman – 38-38, Lombardi – 38-38
Thoughts: I had it as a draw. It wasn’t a bad debut for Baez, who had a large and very vocal contingent in the audience, but he was really thrown off in the first two rounds by Birmingham’s reach and southpaw stance. He adjusted, but only enough to get a draw. My personal scorecard agreed with Ackerman and Lombardi.

 

Lightweight bout scheduled for 4 Rounds:
Zachary Smith (6-2-0, 1 KO) def. Ramon Santos (0-3-0) via KO @ 1:25 of Round 2
Thoughts: Santos won the first round, but expended way too much energy in doing so. Smith knew this and picked his spots well. Santos made the mistake of leaning too far in the clinch with Smith, who punished him with stunning uppercuts, which was the beginning of the end.

 

Super Featherweight bout scheduled for 6 Rounds:
Jamell Tyson (3-5-1, 1 KO) def. Chazz McDowell (5-1-0, 1 KO) via Unanimous Decision
Judges Scorecards: Schreck – 57-56, Ackerman – 57-55, Lombardi – 57-55
Thoughts: It was easily Tyson’s fight, but my scorecard varied quite a bit from what the judges had. Tyson scored his first knockdown late in the first round, which should have given him a 10-8. McDowell fought back in the second and won that round in my eyes, but seemed unable to fully adjust to Tyson’s unorthodox stance. Tyson had him in trouble a few times in the fourth round. In the first minute of the fifth round I was convinced it was over, as Tyson had McDowell out on his feet. McDowell was so out of it that he went for a clinch and ended up almost landing a double-leg takedown. I kid you not. The ref, for whatever reason, didn’t stop it or count it as a knockdown. The craziest part, though, is that McDowell somehow came back from that and won that round, which was wild. With that 10-8 first round, my card read as 58-55 for Tyson, giving him a 10-8 first round as well as a 10-9 in the third, fourth, and sixth rounds. I gave McDowell the second and fourth rounds. I suspect Schreck gave the third round to McDowell also, which I could see because it was close. But I can’t quite figure out how Ackerman and Lombardi came to their scores. They obviously only gave three rounds to Tyson. But then, how did they score the remaining? Did they not score the first round a 10-8 and score the fifth round a 9-9 because of how much trouble Chazz was in? That’s the only way I can figure.

 

Middleweight bout scheduled for 6 Rounds:
Markus Williams (9-2-0, 1 KO) def. Stef Scott (8-3-0, 1 KO) via Unanimous Decision
Scorecards: Kintz – 59-55, Schreck – 60-54, Lombardi – 59-55
Thoughts: I had it 59-55. The 60-54 from Shreck I totally get, as Williams was losing the fourth but rallied hard late (though I and the other two judges thought too late). Either way, this was one of those fights that was a much, MUCH better fight than the scorecards indicated. Scott fought hard, but Williams just walked him down and had greater confidence in his cardio. He came out like a man on a mission and never let up.

 

Lightweight bout scheduled for 6 Rounds:
Chris Finley (4-4-0, 4 KO) def. Brian Miller (8-2-4, 3 KO) via KO @ 1:24 of Round 1
Thoughts: Miller’s known as a late starter. When I saw who he was fighting, I was shocked. All of Finley’s wins are by a knockout and every single one of his losses come against highly touted undefeated prospects. That’s a recipe for disaster for a late starter who takes at least three rounds to get going. I give Smith and his camp all the credit in the world for taking the fight, but Finley came out like a madman (as I expected) and literally didn’t let him get a single shot in.

 

Semi-main Event, Light Heavyweight bout scheduled for 6 Rounds:
Shawn Miller (7-1-1, 4 KO) def. James Denson (4-8-0, 2 KO) via KO @ 2:58 of Round 3
Thoughts: 

TROY WHAT?! Way to bring ‘em back, Shawn! (What do you want? I went to High School and train with the guy.)

 

Main Event, Middleweight bout scheduled for 8 Rounds:
Jose Medina (17-9-1, 7 KO) def. Mike Rayner (8-17-1, 5 KO) via Unanimous Decision
Judges Scorecards: Schreck – 80-71, Ackerman – 78-73, Lombardi – 79-72
Thoughts: Maybe it’s just me, but I had this going the other way, 76-75 for Rayner. Overall the judging was much, much better than any other local card I’ve attended, but I was still a bit surprised. Not that it went to Medina so much as it went so heavily to him (Schreck gave him every round). I gave the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds to Rayner; first, second, and seventh to Medina. Eighth round I scored for Rayner as well, but he was deducted a point by the referee for a low blow (he’d hit two others previously and had been warned). It’s hard for me to call this a robbery, though, because a few rounds were close enough to warrant it and the crowd didn’t seem to (vehemently) disagree with the decision or the scores.

 

OVERALL:  Great goddamn card. What else can I say?

Did Ben Henderson do enough to warrant the decision over Frankie Edgar? (and other UFC 144 reactions)

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If you missed UFC 143 live from Tokyo last Saturday…man. Man oh man.

Sure, Shields and Akiyama was a disappointing affair, mostly due to Jake’s stubborn refusal to work on his boxing (and that’s coming from a guy who’s actually one of his frequent defenders), but the rest of the card was top to bottom excitement and intrigue. Even Bader’s dismantling of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was interesting, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, chief among them the fact that the Japanese fans were booing Rampage by the third round. For those of us that have some working knowledge of the history of MMA in Japan and the behavior and tone of Japanese fans at live fights, that was a surreal moment.

Most of the post-fight talk, though, focused on the five round decision that made former WEC champion and standout Benson Henderson the new UFC Lightweight Champion.

After the fight a lot of fighters and pundits took to twitter to say they thought Edgar had won the fight. They had an ally in UFC President Dana White, who said as much during his post-event interview with Ariel Helwani.

But did he? I’m not so sure.

I went into the fight legitimately torn because I genuinely like and admire both fighters. But I found myself cheering for Edgar as soon as they came nose to nose and the size discrepancy between the two fully sunk in. Henderson, even with a very strict diet and training regiment to ensure a proper weight cut that doesn’t sacrifice endurance, is on the (much) larger end of 155 and wouldn’t look out of place at Welterweight (he would, in fact, be as big or bigger than all but the most freakishly large Thiago Alves types). Edgar, on the other hand, is like BJ Penn at 170, in that he’s fighting a full weight class above where he probably should be, and word has it he cuts little to no weight and could easily make Featherweight if he chose to.

This made sitting and watching objectively to be an exercise in will and determination. How could I not watch what Edgar was doing to survive the onslaught of a much, much larger opponent, particularly since I’ve expressed in this space before how underappreciated he is? Edgar was, as he has been for some time now, exemplary of all things that make MMA truly great: courageous, masterful, and technically marvelous.  That he kept his cool and fought for three rounds with a closed eye and a broken nose from a spot-on upkick from Henderson made his performance all the more memorable and admirable.

Unfortunately, I felt he was still (narrowly) outstruck by Henderson in all but two rounds. At the end of the fight, I had it scored for Henderson by a score of 48-47. Two of the three judges agreed with me, with the third giving it 49-46 for Henderson. An incorrect judgement in my opinion, but not an absurd one given what we saw from both men. Fight Metric, a valuable if still flawed resource (through no fault of their own since it’s impossible to compute intangibles like aggression and Octagon control), broke it down along the same lines as that lone judge.

It wasn’t a robbery, and I’m glad to see that nobody’s claiming as such. I don’t even know if it was close enough, on paper, to warrant an immediate rematch. I do however think that it’s only fair that the UFC take the size discrepancy and heart Edgar showed into account when considering who Henderson’s next opponent should be. Everyone’s eager to see Henderson try to avenge his WEC Lightweight Championship loss to Anthony Pettis based solely on the famous “Showtime” kick moment from the final round of that fight. Yet I’m hesitant to say that Pettis deserves it over any other contender in the bottlenecked division. The head kick knockout of Joe Lauzon earlier in the evening was impressive, but injuries and circumstances have kept Lauzon in the very bottom rung of the top ten. That makes Pettis’s last three fights a knockout win over a perennial gatekeeper, a very close split decision win over Jeremy Stephens, and a decisive loss to Clay Guida. If we’re going to look at it objectively, that’s not a contender’s resume.

Time and fan reaction will tell if we see Henderson/Edgar II or Henderson/Pettis II. Both sentimentally and objectively, I’m pulling for the former, but I wouldn’t be terribly disappointed if we get the latter instead.

OTHER UFC 144 REACTIONS:

  • As mentioned before, that head kick KO from Anthony Pettis was mighty impressive. But did it show old form or simply solidify what I and many others have felt, which is that while showing flashes of brilliance he’s still an uneven fighter?
  • Ben Fowlkes said Quinton Jackson “didn’t look awful” in his bout at UFC 144, but I have to respectfully disagree. I went so far as to joke that it was really inspiring to see James Toney take a fight against Ryan Bader on suchshort notice. Obviously an exaggeration for comedic effect, but Jackson physically didn’t look good and didn’t fare much better between the bell, either. Injuries happen, but this is the first time in his career Jackson’s ever come in over weight (he weighed in at 211 and had to forfeit twenty percent of his purse to Bader).
  • Akiyama lost again, and there was talk after the show of reevaluating his position and future with the company. But I was actually encouraged by seeing him hold his own (even if it wasn’t the most exciting affair) against a guy I still consider to be the #4 welterweight in the world. I think he did enough against a high level of competition to warrant another chance to prove himself at Welterweight.
  • What’s the bigger comeback: Tim Boetsch‘s third round knockout after two rounds of being dominated in every manner possible by Yushin Okami, or Mark Hunt‘s improbable career resurgence that came only because he was literally owed fights by Zuffa after their purchase of Pride? Okay, it’s obviously Hunt, but Boetsch’s sure was fun to watch. I mean, those uppercuts! Wow.

@BenFowlkesMMA on why people count out Frankie Edgar despite his dominance

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Ben Fowlkes has a profile of UFC Lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, who defends his belt this Saturday in Japan against Ben Henderson, over at MMA Fighting.com. The focus is on how everybody seems to underestimate him.

According to the oddsmakers, that was true until very recently. The first time Edgar fought B.J. Penn for the UFC lightweight title, Penn was a 7-1 favorite. Even after Edgar beat him via decision to claim the belt, Penn was still somewhere in the neighborhood of a 3-1 favorite in the immediate rematch. Edgar won that fight too, this time even more convincingly than the first, but he was still a slight underdog when he defended the belt against Gray Maynard some four months later.

It wasn’t until the third fight with Maynard, which Edgar would go on to win via knockout, that he finally entered a title fight as the (slight) favorite. Even now, coming off arguably the biggest and most decisive win of his career, he’s just barely a favorite — currently hovering at -130, according to most oddsmakers — to beat Ben Henderson in Tokyo at UFC 144.

I’ve always been an Edgar fanboy and thought he was a lot better than people thought. Now here we are how many years later and somehow, despite having the most impressive resume of any Lightweight ever sans BJ Penn (who he beat twice), the guy is still somehow underrated and unsung.

I think it’s a combination of the fact that, as Edgar himself points out, he’s undersized for his weight class. Like his former nemesis BJ Penn at Welterweight, he walks around at or below the weight limit for his class. Unlike Penn, however, he has found more success in utilizing his speed and technique to overwhelm larger opponents while matching their strength. Like I’ve said before, it gets harder and perhaps more detrimental to cut weight as you progress to lower weight classes.

There’s also his proclivity for decisions, which draws the ire of many fans. It’ll take more than one stoppage to win them over.

But I don’t think too many people put that much thought into Edgar, because he doesn’t distract (or attract) them with boorish behavior, smack talk, an ego, or a manufactured personality. Which is a real shame.

Gamboa vs. Rios for…what weight class is this at again?

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Yuriorkis Gamboa is jumping weight from Featherweight to Lightweight to meet former champion Brandon Rios, who had to vacate his title during his last outing after failing to make weight after three attempts and despite talk that he would be making a permanent move to Super Lightweight.

From Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports:

Gamboa, 30, will be jumping two weight classes to meet Rios, who had been expected to jump from lightweight to super lightweight after his last fight. Rios, 25, lost his WBA title on the scales on Dec. 2 in New York when he failed to make the 135-pound limit for a Dec. 3 title defense against John Murray.

His weight-cut problems were documented in the debut of a new feature done by HBO Sports that aired first on Feb. 4, “2 Days: Portrait of a Fighter.” HBO had behind-the-scenes footage of Rios’ struggles to attempt to make the weight, which he ultimately failed to do three times. The fight went on, with Rios (29-0-1, 22 KOs) winning by 11th-round stoppage, though he had to surrender his belt because he did not make weight.

Only in boxing…

Guys, that number was accurate because the Times Union Center said so!

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I was made privy to an article in which Tim Wilkin of the Times Union, without naming myself or this site (probably because I got Tim’s name wrong – whoops!), responded to my criticism of him reporting the 3,527 number as the actual number of people in the crowd for KO at the TU rather than tickets sold:

A couple days later, I heard of a blog post (not on the Times Union website) that said there was no way that there were 3,527 people in the arena. Really?

Yes, Tim. Really.

In case you need a refresher, I presented my case for why 3,527 was a preposterous figure:

My initial and continued estimate of 700 to 800 people at this event on Saturday is, I’m being told by others who were there, me being kind and bad at estimating crowd size. Which, by my own admission, I am. Others have said maybe 1200 or so, which I’d accept. But given how many sections were all but completely empty and all of the empty space on the floor, that number reported by Wilkin is literally impossible.

Tim, who either didn’t read the post or wanted to intentionally misrepresent my statements, said that I was claiming 700. Which I wasn’t, I said 700-800 but admitted that I was bad at estimating crowd sizes in that range and could be as high as 1200. From his article:

I have been at enough events in the arena — from basketball to hockey to, now boxing — to give an accurate head count. And, this was not my head count. This came right from the top, from arena general manager Bob Belber.

Yeah, Tim, but see, that’s the problem – you said there were 3,527 people in the arena. From your initial filing:

The fights will be back at the TU Center on April 28. A six-bout card was held at the Arena Saturday night and 3,527 people showed up.

I’m sure Tim and others will claim I’m arguing semantics and nit-picking, but I’m not. There is a BIG difference between telling people what the reported attendance was (“an announced attendance of 3,527″) and telling them straight out that “3,527 people showed up.” GM Bob Belber, who you quoted, himself acknowledged as much every so slyly.

But first:

Belber was a little ticked to hear that there were people who questioned the announced attendance. He said he does remember a night where there was a crowd of about 700 (maybe less) at a Devils hockey game on a snowy night.

Just one night? To quote myself in my initial reply to that reported attendance, c’mon now. Bob, if you’re reading this, I apologize if you’re offended that myself and several others in attendance at the event deigned to make our own judgment and exercised some skepticism towards the figure you provided. Unfortunately, sometimes people are going to make observations and say them out loud and they might not run hand in hand with what you’d like other people to hear. There’s no reason, though, to be “ticked off” that someone would dare do something like exercise some common sense. Life’s too short for all that. Besides, this is a non-issue. Most people will believe you over me anyway, one because you’re the GM of the Times Union Center and they don’t realize it’s your job to do this sort of thing, two because I’m just a dude with a blog, and three because not enough people showed up to the goddamn thing to say either way how many people they think were there.

Besides, even you said:

“Sure, some were comps, and there were probably some people who didn’t show up.”

I think a lot didn’t. I won’t go into it again, but I refer you back to what I initially posted. The floor was MAYBE three-quarters filled, sides in front of and behind press row maybe half, to the left and right were barren. The upper sections were completely blocked off. If that’s 3,257 people, then wow, we must’ve been in Dallas Stadium and not realized it!

This part did make me chuckle.

“What would we have to benefit?” Belber said when asked about inflating the number. “People can say whatever they want, everyone has a right to their opinion.”

I was there. That count was accurate. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Firstly: what would the General Manager of the Times Union Center have to benefit by perpetuating the number of tickets sold combined with number of tickets given away as comps or circulated through the area as an attendance figure rather than actual physical asses in the seats, just like every other arena and promotion across the country does?  SERIOUSLY? It’s his job! We’re not gonna touch that? Okay then.

Ah well. Appeal to authority rules all, I guess. The good news is Star Boxing will be back in April and the attendance will be even better because they’ll have learned so much from this first show about crowd expectations (as distasteful as they may be to some), have more fighters on the card, get better publicity, and have Evander Holyfield in attendance. Which, if the crowd last Saturday was 3,527, should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 screaming fans.

 

In and out of the ring, Shannon Miller willing to give it all

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From Michael Rivest:

It made noise a year ago, no doubt about it. But not enough, if you ask me. Troy heavyweight Shannon Miller (17-5, 9 KOs ), husband and father of two young children, and a local star already cemented in people’s minds as a tough dude with nothing to prove and everything to live for, decided to risk that life by donating half of his liver to save his Uncle Ray.

Despite Miller’s heroism, Uncle Ray died last Thursday. The cancer had spread to his lungs. “I only wish I could have done more,” said Miller.

More? More than give away a piece of your body? “Well, what if I had moved on it sooner, maybe the cancer wouldn’t have spread,”  he said.

read more over at the Troy Record

My condolences to Shannon, Shawn, and the entire Miller family. Both Miller brothers will compete at the March 10th Ares Promotions fight card at the Egg.

Video of controversial finish to KO at the TU main event between Joe Hanks and Rafael Pedro

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From the Times Union’s Sports Desk:

Skip ahead to 0:46 so you can catch the AMAZING transition effect~!

On the replay, it looks like it was Hanks landing a hard and straight left to Pedro’s shoulder that dislocated it. I remember that punch and I thought Hanks had completely whiffed on it, but it looks like it hit flush on the ball of the shoulder. Which, well, that’ll do it.

Don’t believe the Times Union’s attendance for Saturday’s KO at the TU

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Call me old-fashioned, but if you’re a reporter that’s given a preposterous attendance figure for an event that you attended in person and covered for a major newspaper, it’s your duty and responsibility to at the very least express some skepticism. Like say, if an event held in the Times Union Center only had at best 700 or 800 fans present, don’t report that 3,527 people showed up.

I was at the same press table as Tim. I don’t know him enough to even say “he’s a nice guy, but…” so this isn’t anything personal. But there is absolutely no way in Hell there were a thousand people at that event, let alone that number he reported. That was the number, I assume, given to him by the promoter. That same promoter also claimed at the weigh-in that 6,000 tickets had been or would be sold.

Let’s look at the “center stage” layout that was used for boxing:

In the layout shown above, which is the layout used for professional wrestling and boxing, the maximum capacity is anywhere from 14,000 to 17,000.

First, take out the entire second tier. It was completely blacked off. Also, all those floor seats? They only laid out sections 1-8, and probably about three-quarters (being generous) of what’s shown there.

So already, knocking out those seats, we’re already at a maximum capacity was probably at or around 8,000. Meaning if that figure Wilkinson reported was accurate, it’d mean the arena was half full. But it wasn’t even close.

Let’s break it down further.

First tier: let’s say sections 101 to 110 were right behind press row (it was either them or sections 116 to 124). Those sections were littered with fans here and there, but were probably about 40% filled (again I’m being very generous). Opposite press row, sections 116 to 124, were about the same if not less. Sections 109 to 115 and sections 125 to 130 were more or less empty. On the left side almost literally; on the right side I would be very kind in saying there were forty people at most.

Then there’s the floor. Section two had six people in it. Sections 3 and 6-8 only had the first six or seven rows filled. I only passed Section 4 once and it was completely out of my line of sight, but when I did cross it, it had maybe a few dozen spectators seated at about the scheduled bell time of 7:30pm.

Taking all of that into account, there is absolutely no way in Hell there were 3,527 people at the arena that night. I wish there were, trust me. I think at the next event in April (it’s been announced as official), with more local talent and the presence of Evander Holyfield, they might meet that. But they did not on Saturday.

My initial and continued estimate of 700 to 800 people at this event on Saturday is, I’m being told by others who were there, me being kind and bad at estimating crowd size. Which, by my own admission, I am. Others have said maybe 1200 or so, which I’d accept. But given how many sections were all but completely empty and all of the empty space on the floor, that number reported by Wilkin is literally impossible.

Of course Star Boxing and the Times Union center is going to fudge their numbers. That’s what promoters do. I have no doubt that there were more than three thousand tickets floating around the area, given to businesses, etcetera. For the first boxing event in fifteen years and in a market like ours, you’d be stupid not to paper the Hell out of the show. It’s also not a disastrous result given the reasons I already cited and the need for Star Boxing to gradually build their brand and get fans acquainted with their fighters. As anyone from Ares Promotions to WWE will tell you, building a market for personality-driven combat sports and/or sports entertainment, it’s not a sprint.

But that’s where reporters are supposed to come in. Just because a promoter or venue reports an attendance figure doesn’t mean you can’t, as a reporter, use simple observational techniques and common sense to express skepticism as to its accuracy. In fact, I feel that it’s really your obligation to, and that Wilkin didn’t I can only attribute to him either being very distracted that evening or lazy.

Not happy with decision wins in boxing and MMA? Go start a fight in a bar.

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I didn’t watch a single minute of the Super Bowl and, for the most part, stayed off Twitter and Facebook all night. It’s not because I hate football. Sure, I do take issue with those who call MMA barbaric and dangerous while gathering every Sunday to watch the NFL concussion-fest that takes a heavy physical toll on its participants, whose average life expectancy is anywhere from 53 to 59 years old(!), but I enjoy the occasional game as much as any other red-blooded American male. I may have my issues with the sport, but I don’t have an aggressive dislike for it.

The reason I didn’t watch the Super Bowl is because after the KO at the TU and UFC 143 on Saturday night, I had my fill of shitty sports fans for the weekend.

I covered Star Boxing’s KO at the TU on Saturday nightfor the Knick Ledger and already documented the bad behavior by members of the crowd on this space. After the fights in Albany, I was able to catch the main event of UFC 143. What I saw was Carlos Condit executing a technically and intellectually flawless game plan against a very dangerous and heavily favored Nick Diaz to win the Interim UFC Welterweight Championship. He used the cage and Nick Diaz’s flat-footed striking style to his advantage, negating his reach with exceptional footwork and maneuverability while frequently moving back in to engage and out-strike his opponent in all but one round. After five rounds, Condit was given the Unanimous Decision win. Nick Diaz was not happy. In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, he complained that Condit ran away from him the entire fight and said he didn’t sign up to chase guys that wouldn’t fight him. He then claimed, right on the spot, that he was quitting the sport over the decision.

His temper tantrum, fueled by frustration and mental illness, shoveled coal into the boisterous fire of abhorrent sports fans online. Like Diaz, they were vocal and angry, providing nothing except insults and vulgar language to back up their ridiculous claim that Condit “ran away” from Nick Diaz or somehow didn’t earn a win.

Needless to say, I agreed with the decision. Rather than recount the reasons why, I’ll just send you over to Ben Fowlkes at MMAFighting, who already laid it out plainly yet eloquently. In short, Nick Diaz was out-fought, out-smarted, and as was evidenced by his face after the fight, beat the Hell up by his opponent.

It was a great night to be a combat sports fan, and a frustrating one if you weren’t. I put the emphasis on sport because I don’t think the latter care much about the sport aspect of it, nor will they ever. You can’t call yourself a fan of boxing or MMA and still support the reaction seen and heard on Saturday night. That’s not criticism, it’s bloodlust.

If you still insist on it, all I can say is that this just isn’t the sport for you. If you’re one of those people that was  unhappy with Carlos Condit’s flawless performance and/or the fantastic 10-round battle between Sahib Usarov and Yan Barthelemy at the Times Union Center, I can only suggest you go find something else that’s more your speed and fitting to your tastes. Maybe dog fighting or old VHS copies of Faces of Death. Or, better yet, go start a fight in a bar. There’s no better view of the action, and it’s sure to be violent and end quickly.

Leave the sport to real sports fans.

KO at the TU

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KO at the TU highlights local boxing talent – me for the Knick Ledger

Joe Hanks defends title, wins by TKO – Mike Rivest for the Troy Record

My other, non-professional thoughts:

It was actually a really entertaining night. The crowd wasn’t nearly what promoters were hoping it would be, but I think that anything running at the Times Union Center is better than what they’ve been putting on the last few years. It’s a great venue for boxing and a larger crowd would have shown that. I think, given time and the proper star power behind it, boxing at the Times Union Center could really take off.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: some of the fans that were there kind of sucked.

Saturday was my first experience sitting in press row for a fight card. The hard part wasn’t not cheering, it was having to keep my mouth shut while a group of drunken slobs behind me literally screamed racial slurs, cursed up a storm, and made homophobic comments during the semi-main event. All this with children within earshot.

The worst part is that they loudly identified themselves as employees of Professional Fire Restoration Services, a major sponsor of the event. They screamed the owner’s name every time his commercial came up on the screen, then later in the evening while screaming “hit him with the dirty bomb,” “your boyfriend called and wants to know how the fight’s going,” and “let’s go Punjab” at Russian fighter Sahib Usarov, they joked that they were “gonna get fired” by their employer, Daniel “DJ” Johnson. They also, among other things, identified a black fighter as “50 Cent.” At one point during intermission, a few of us left press row and returned to find the top of what looked like a milkshake thrown from their area onto our table. It was really disgusting and unfortunate and, unfortunately, marred some really excellent contests for the people around them.

It just sucks that the crowd, at a disappointing 600 to 800 (if that), was overshadowed and perhaps unfairly represented by what was a very minor but very vocal contingent of drunk, racist, homophobic clowns.

Other than that? Good night of fights. Other thoughts:

  • Kevin Rooney looked great. There was a strange moment in the post-fight interview, however, when his father and trainer announced with a straight face that he wanted to get his son to fight four times a month. I asked around after he said that and apparently he’s serious about that, which is borderline insanity and wouldn’t fly with any state athletic commission.
  • On the same topic, the reaction Rooney, Jr. got underscores the importance of booking local talent in a market like this. The Albany area unfortunately isn’t big enough to warrant sports for the sake of sports. Also, boxing is a personality driven business. To get people into the house, they need to have some investment. The most sure-fire way to get that is with local brand name fighters. As charismatic as headliner Joe Hanks is, the crowd didn’t care nearly as much for him as it did the local boys on the undercard.
  • The judging was consistent, which is refreshing given how wild it can be (see, MMA fans? It ain’t just us). The only score that struck me as a bit wonky was in the semi-main where one judge scored it 98-91 for Usarov. There’s no way Barthelemy lost that many rounds; in fact, it was close enough where I actually had it scored 96-93 for Barthelemy, but it was so close and I was distracted enough by the shenanigans behind me that I couldn’t fault them for going the other way.
  • The Escalera/Brooks fight probably should have been stopped sooner than it was. Realistically, Brooks was out of the running as soon as the second round started. He showed a lot of heart and an iron chin, but that really could have been ended a round sooner. It’s one of the things I point to when boxing fans view MMA as barbaric: if this had been, say, an MMA bout, it would have been stopped the first time Brooks went down. Which is why, among other reasons, I think MMA is actually the safer sport of the two. It’s a different context, of course, but food for thought in the discussion of long-term damage to combat sports practitioners.
  • As mentioned in the article at the Knick Ledger, Ray J was in the house. Swear to God. I immediately thought of my buddy Brian, as we use “oh for the love of Ray J” as a means of conveying exasperation.
  • Usarov/Barthelemy, despite the fans’ apprehension towards it, was a really great and evenly matched bout. More on their reaction later, because it ties into another rant I have to reaction of Nick Diaz’s loss last night to Carlos Condit at UFC 143 and the expectations fans have of combat sports.
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