MAYWEATHER IS NOT IMPRESSED WITH LOMACHENKO WIN, MCGREGOR REFUSES PACQUIAO FIGHT
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 19 Dec 2017
The former pound for pound king, Floyd Mayweather Jr., was not very impressed with Vasyl Lomachenko's domination and stoppage of Guillermo Rigondeaux, which took place last Saturday night at The Theater in New York's Madison Square Garden. Mayweather felt that Rigondeaux was way too small and size difference was so huge and telling when they climbed in the ring to face each other.
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Mayweather also does not believe Rigondeaux had a legit hand injury. "I never fought a guy that was that small. He was smaller than that. Honestly, they didn't look like they belonged in the ring together," Mayweather told Fighthype.com. "I don't think Rigondeaux had a hand problem. Rigondeaux should just take that as a learning experience. A guy that big, I could see the difference when they got into the ring. A small good fighter will never beat a big good fighter. It'll never happen."
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Mayweather did a similar act in 2009, when he fought and dominated Juan Manuel Marquez, who leaped from lightweight to welterweight, a twelve-pound increase for the bout. Because Marquez had never fought above 135 lbs and had fought at 130 lbs as recently as March 2008, while Mayweather had campaigned at 147 lbs since 2005, the fight had a catchweight of 144 lbs to take care of the size difference between the two fighters. Mayweather won by unanimous decision at scores of 120?107, 119?108, 118?109.
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Mayweather believes the fight was a complete mismatch and very few would argue his opinion. The lackluster action plus Rigondeaux's refusal to throw any punches, made the fight very boring. "It really was no damage done to neither side. Real stiff, robotic fight. Nobody really landed like no killer, solid shots," Mayweather said of the supposed clash of two time Olympic gold medalists.
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UFC champion Conor McGregor refused an offer from Manny Pacquiao for a boxing match, saying he wants his next fight to be in his primary sport of mixed martial arts. He was asked by TMZ if he will fight again in the ring after being stopped by Floyd Mayweather in August, McGregor answered: ?We?ll see what happens. ... I think a true fight is what I want to do next.?
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Asked about what he meant by a ?true fight,? McGregor confirmed he was indeed referring to an MMA bout. Pacquiao stated earlier this month that preliminary talks had begun on a boxing match between his camp and McGregor's handlers. Pacquiao's comments made boxing headlines worldwide, making experts believe that the fighting senator, like Mayweather, is after a "money" fight.
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Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, has showed very little interest in the fight but he's willing to make it happen if that's the match that Manny wants. A McGregor-Pacquiao boxing match would be hard to realize because Arum has some exchanges of harsh words with UFC President Dana White many times in the last few years. White even vowed not to transact business agreements with Arum. Ask if he would engage in another combat sport, like the pro wrestling of WWE, McGregor answered that he?s not interested in such a pseudo-competition.
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Billy Joe Saunders taught David Lemieux some neat boxing lessons Saturday night. The tough British southpaw toyed with the hard-hitting Canadian, pummelled him and easily won a 12-round unanimous decision to retain his WBO middleweight title in Laval, Quebec. The unbeaten Saunders used a lot of jabs to bloody Lemieux?s nose and damage the challenger?s face, and fought excellent defense to prevent his dangerous opponent from hitting him.
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?I knew what sort of fighter David Lemieux is and I know what sort of coach he?s got,? Saunders told HBO after the fight. ?I knew what he was coming for. I look easy to hit, I look easy to hurt, I look easy to put down, I look like I?m running out of gas. But you can?t hit me. If David landed four shots on me the whole fight, and he?s a world champion, been in with the best."
Saunders? jab made the difference in his offensive attacks in the one-sided middleweight title fight. According to CompuBox, Saunders landed 103 of 279 jabs, a great difference of 101 more than what Lemieux connected (12 of 120). In totality, CompuBox recorded 165 of 430 punches for Saunders (38.4 %) and 67 of 356 for Lemieux (18.8 %).
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Lemieux pointed to an injury to his left hand during his post-fight interview. ?I wasn?t at my best,? Lemieux said. ?Hats off to Billy Joe, but as of the second round, my left hand, I couldn?t use it the way I wanted to. And he was on the run, so I had a little bit of difficulties throwing my shots. So I gotta say it wasn?t my best night.?
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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