Luke Irwin: I successfully badgered fellow boxing fan Nolan Howell into watching tonight’s HBO card. It started rather…erhm…slowly, but hot damn did it pick up.
The first fight of the night was rising junior middleweight prospect Willie Nelson, trained by former Kelly Pavlik mentor Jack Loew taking on Luciano Cuello, who had a nice record with his only losses to Canelo and Chavez Jr.
Nelson is a 6’3″ junior middleweight, drawing the obvious comparisons to Paul Williams, with one notable exception. Paul knows how to fucking box at range. Nelson showed flashes of that (with Loew’s rather “colorful” instruction), but Cuello rocked him on several occasions. Nelson cruised in the middle rounds when he was controlling distance, but Cuello poured it on late and hurt him many times.
My scorecard had it 97-94 Nelson and the UD went just about the same way.
Your thoughts on our opening contest, Nolan?
Nolan Howell: I think Willie Nelson is not as elite as his singing counterpart. Really though, I’m never too impressed by tall guys who like to go forehead-to-forehead with smaller guys and wing punches. For Nelson, his defense isn’t that great on the inside and it showed with Cuello uppercutting his chin to kingdom come. He does remind me of Paul Williams, but Williams when he was fighting dumb, such as the Erislandy Lara fight and the borefest against Nobuhiro Ishida.
Really, this is probably Willie Nelson’s ceiling. Opening or maybe co-maining the HBO After Dark cards, maybe sneaking his way onto PPV cards, and headlining things like ShoBox. I was not impressed at all by Nelson. He’s still a work in progress, sure, but having trouble with a guy who pretty much soley has wins over Latin club fighters that just made his American debut is not promising in the least.
Luke Irwin:
Speaking of extremely tall boxers, the co-main was Thomas Oosthuizen, an undefeated 6’4″ super middleweight taking on 5’11” Brandon Gonzales. Pure and simple, this was to be a showcase fight for Oosthuizen. Not only had Gonzales never fought anybody on the level of Oosthuizen, he had never even been in a ten-round fight.
Then they touched gloves, and hoooo boy. Gonzales just proceeded to MOP the floor with Oosthuizen. Oos…listen, I’m just calling him TO for the sake of everyone’s sanity, TO kept circling, throwing three punches, landing a single jab to Gonzales’s arm out of the three, Gonzales would land two shots on TO, TO would circle and the process kept repeating itself over and over and over again.
After five rounds, I had it 50-46 Gonzales and I was being generous with a 10-10 in there. Then, the fact that Gonzales had never been in a fight this big, on this big of a stage, in a fight this long started to take his toll and TO started to creep back. He eased into his game and started to land, but it turned out to be too little, too late and Gonzales showed enough heart in the final round to end up at a majority draw, which he was (and should be) very happy about.
A draw was the right call. TO didn’t deserve a win after getting pasted early, and Gonzales didn’t deserve it for blowing an enormous lead. Gonzales is now on the map and a viable fighter at 168. Scorecards were 98-92 Gonzales, 96-94 TO, and 95-95. My card was 97-96 Gonzales.
Nolan Howell:
This was another one I had one eye on, the other doing something more important. Oosthuizen did nothing impressive and looked like a guy who will be styled on. Again, if you’re tall, you can at least learn SOMETHING regarding distance. When a shorter guy is popping you with whatever he wants and you aren’t making him run into a telephone pole of a jab, you’re doing something wrong. I agree with your assessment that this fight was just sort of embarrassing for both parties.
Looking at the BoxRec rankings at super middleweight, it is scary to believe that Oosthuizen is one of the top fighters there. His record is good, but looking at it, the guy could get beat by anyone with a name. The likes of Kessler, Froch, Abraham, or Dirrell would probably take home wins against him. Keep him on the slow building road, pump up his record, and then let him get starched by one of those guys to let him know that he has a lot of work to do. This could be just a shit the bed moment that might ultimately be a rarity, but not a good outing to show to first-time viewers like myself.
Luke Irwin: And finally, we came to our MAAAAIIINNNN EVEEENNNTTT OOOOFFF THE EV (whoops, wrong Buffer, my apologies).
Gennady Golovkin, the man I’ve been begging people to see all week, took on tough Irishman Matthew Macklin. When you were considering whether or not to watch this card tonight, I told you that you owed it to yourself to watch Golovkin, especially for free while you still can.
The man is TNT. He’s not a big middleweight whatsoever. Macklin looked a full weight class bigger than him easily and Sergio Martinez probably stands over him, but his technique and power is unreal at his size. He would open up Macklin with his crisp technique, then land HARD shots that would hurt him. Most fighters would have been down much earlier, but Macklin made it to the third (not an easy task for someone with THIRTEEN STRAIGHT KNOCKOUTS), before GGG unleashed one of the best body-shot KOs I’ve ever seen in my life. A nasty upper-hook combo right under Macklin’s right elbow, in which Golovkin’s size-deficiency came in handy, and down went Macklin hard.
If you were watching at a crowded, noisy bar, or from a distance, semi-paying attention, you would have thought it was a low blow based on how violently Macklin reacted. He was trying to catch his breath, trying to scream in pain, and trying to stand at once and it was nasty. Macklin couldn’t answer the (admittedly rather fast, but it wouldn’t have mattered) ten-count, and quiet, unassuming, destructive GGG keeps on his eventual path towards Sergio Martinez in a fight that might put me in a coma from glee the second it’s announced.
Nolan Howell: There’s nothing quite like Gennady Golovkin. In boxing, there is usually the two camps: “brawler” or “boxer.” Strict adherence to technique is usually seen as “boring” to many. For Golovkin, he is such a unique fighter to watch because he blends the two. He messes you up with perfect technique, then when you show some blood or wobbly legs, he comes at you like a bat out of hell with some primal killer instinct.
What stood out to me is Golovkin’s angling. At times, he seemed to carry his hands low, but he counteracted this by being able to place Macklin anywhere he wanted with sharp angling. Golovkin knew where to be every second of that fight to land the perfect blow. That is what really impressed me.
What’s even more impressive is his crushing power while maintaining perfect technique. I credit his ability to be pinpoint in both striking and standing as the source of this power. Add a whole lot of power in his hands and you have a scary guy to deal with. Golovkin comes forward and steps exactly where he wants to be, then pops you with hands of stone. Matthew Macklin is a tough dude, but his liver took some abuse that would make Lindsay Lohan blush with a lead left hook.
Golovkin doesn’t really have a lot of name potential opponents that are recognizable to me. I know Peter Quillin, but he seems a bit overhyped. I’d maybe like to see a fight with Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. if a Sergio Martinez fight can’t play out. However, if the latter does get made, something tells me that Father Time has stopped lending sand to the hourglass of Martinez. He has had some lackluster performances, including having some trouble with Macklin. Even in superb victory, he has had trouble (right, JC Jr.?). Golovkin is a bad man and you might not wanna put your money on the other side of him in any fight in the near future.
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