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Boxing: Middleweights
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★ Boxing: Middleweights

100) Rodrigo Valdez Points 15: UK/US Fight Commentary TV -

 

v Rodrigo Valdez 30 July 1977 WBA WBC Middleweight Monte Carlo Monaco [r1] … One of the finest middleweights of all time … He [Valdez] has to come under that long jab of Monzon … Good left there to the jaw of the challenger … a right to the body … [r2] … Good right hand by Valdez … Oh a right hand! [Valdez] … Another good right hand … [r3] … Very cool [Monzon] … Good right by Valdez … The champion flares back … [r4] … Good left hook [Monzon] under the chin … Valdez pressuring … gets inside … [r5] … Repeated jabs … Perfect conditioning [Monzon] … Vicious left … [r6 missing] … [r7] … Oh that overhead right [Valdez] … There’s that [Monzon] jab piston-like … right uppercut … [r8] … Good right [Valdez] … [r9] … Left and a right [Monzon] … [r10] … Pace being picked up … A boxing master … jab him again, right hand … another right hand, another one … tremendous … [r11 missing] … [r12] … Valdez is very far behind … much slower round … [r13] … Good action from Rodrigo Valdez … [r14] … Loading up to catch Rodrigo Valdez … Scores with a good right [Monzon] … [r15] … Monzon who has skillfully outmanouevred Rodrigo Valdez … an easy and sure victory.  UK/US fight co-commentary

 

 

[8.7] STANLEY KETCHEL 64-53(48)-5-5-1: International Boxing Hall of Fame online – Cox’s Corner online -

 

Stanley Ketchel is considered by some to be the greatest middleweight of all time.  A natural fighter who was never formally trained, Ketchel propelled himself to fame and the middleweight championship in just six years.  Sadly, his career ended when he was murdered at age 24.  Ketchel’s life often resembled a torrid movie script.   Orphaned at fourteen, he ran away from his adoptive home and lived as a hobo, traveling through the Canadian and American West.  In Butte, Montana, he worked as a bouncer and also took on all comers in fights at a local theatre.  He fought his first recorded professional bout – a one-round knockout – in 1903. 

 

Ketchel lost only twice in his first 42 matches, all fought in Montana.  In 1907, he went to California, where he won matches with several well-respected fighters, and by 1908, he had achieved national prominence.  His twentieth-round knockout of Jack (Twin) Sullivan earned him the vacant world middleweight title.  In his first three months as champion, Ketchel decisioned Billy Papke, and knocked out Hugo Kelly and Joe Thomas.  In the rematch with Papke, the challenger punched Ketchel in the head as the fighters were meeting in the center of the ring to shake hands.  The referee merely chided Papke, and the fight commenced.  Still dazed by the illegal punch, Ketchel never seized control of the fight and was knocked out in the twelfth round.  Six weeks later, Ketchel fought Papke with a savage fury and knocked him out in the eleventh, becoming the first middleweight champion to regain a lost title. 

 

In 1909, Ketchel fought some of the most memorable battles of his career.  In a no-decision bout against light heavyweight champion Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, Ketchel absorbed a solid beating for six rounds, but came back to knock O’Brien down four times in the ninth and tenth rounds.  The fight would have been a knockout if O’Brien hadn't been saved by the bell.  In their rematch, Ketchel demolished OBrien in three rounds.  International Boxing Hall of Fame online article

 

 

Stanley Ketchel (World Middleweight Champion 1908-1910), born Stanislaus Kiecel on a farm near Grand Rapids, Michigan was one of the strongest and hardest hitting middleweights of all time.  Having no amateur fights Ketchel was a street fighter who, on his own from the age of 14, learned to survive with his fists in the tough hobo and mining camps of the west.  He eventually settled in Montana.  At 17 he came across a boxing booth at a fair and decided to try his luck when the ‘barker’ tossed him a pair of gloves with the invitation to stay three rounds for a dollar.  The teenage Ketchel knocked out the star of the show with one punch, pocketed the coin and decided that fighting was the easiest way to make a living.  He landed a job in Butte’s Casino Theatre taking on all comers for $20 a week.  ‘I hit them so hard they use to fall over the footlights and land in people’s laps,’ he recalled.  It has been estimated that Ketchel fought in as many as 250 unsanctioned bouts before turning professional.  His official record is 52-4-4-(4 ND), 49 knockouts, 19 of those knockouts came in 3 rounds or less.

 

Stylistically Ketchel fought somewhat like a swarmer, but he hit like a slugger.  His fury of attack kept his opponents so busy they had little time to think of anything but defense.  Although Ketchel had no formal training he certainly had experience as a fighter.  His style was crude, but the qualities that he possessed natural strength, boundless stamina, a strong chin, and a quick and pulverizing punch that earned him the moniker of The Michigan Assassin made him a great fighter.

 

Nat Fleischer wrote that Ketchel was, ‘One of the greatest fighters of my time.  All stone and ice concentration when he entered the ring.  The moment he entered his eyes were the eyes of a killer.  Ketchel scorned the word retreat.  A demon of the roped square he made his opponents think that all the furies in Hades had been turned loose on them.  He got his punches away from all angles.  If he missed with one hand, he would nail him with the other.  He was game as a bulldog and tough as a bronco’.  Cox’s Corner online article

 

 

[8.7] BERNARD HOPKINS 67-55(32)-8-2-2 [Light-Heavyweight & Middleweight]: Ring Magazine online - Daily Telegraph

 

It’s 10 years today since Bernard Hopkins and Joe Calzaghe faced off in an eagerly anticipated light heavyweight showdown.

 

Both men had the longest championship tenures in their respective lower weight classes.  Hopkins reigned at middleweight for 10 years and three months, which yielded a division record 20 title defenses; while Calzaghe was champion for 10 years and 11 months years at super middleweight and made 21 title defenses.

 

Hopkins, who was the unified and undisputed middleweight champ, had lost his 160-pound titles in controversial fashion to Jermain Taylor in July 2005.  In a gutsy move for a man who had turned 40, Hopkins skipped the 168-pound division and impressively bested Antonio Tarver for The Ring 175-pound title in June 2006 and defended it against Winky Wright the following summer.

 

In November 2007, Calzaghe had edged Mikkel Kessler in a super middleweight unification bout and felt he needed a new challenge.  The Welsh star vacated his 168-pound titles and ventured into the light heavyweight realm.

 

A month later, Calzaghe traveled to Las Vegas to support good friend Ricky Hatton who was facing Floyd Mayweather junior.  Whilst there he sought out a meeting that turned into a now-infamous confrontation with Hopkins in the media room.

 

Both men exchanged words before Hopkins said, I’ll never lose to a white boy.

 

It was a comment that both men felt went a long way to securing the fight.

 

I thought was great because at the end of the day he made the fight happen, Calzaghe told RingTV.com.  ‘I wasn’t offended by it.  White, black, blue, green, a fighter’s a fighter.  Bernard can be controversial, we saw what happened with him and Felix Trinidad when he stepped on the Puerto Rican flag.

 

Nothing would surprise me with Bernard.  As soon as he said it, I knew the fight was done.

 

Hopkins agrees with his rival.

 

I would say that it was 75 per cent made, Hopkins said.  ‘They saw two guys wanting to fight.

 

It wasn’t a joke, it was how I felt.  That was my mindset at that time, I had to be that villain, I had to be that guy that had a chip on his shoulder.  I had to represent how I felt I had to represent.

 

It wasn’t planned, with me things happen based on how things are going.  I’m 90-percent calculated but sometimes you’ve got to see how you’re treated for me to respond. I had to take the bull by the horns early.

 

The deal was quickly struck to fight on 19 April 2008 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.  The host casino, Planet Hollywood, dubbed the fight Battle of the Planet.

 

Hopkins decamped from his home on the East Coast to Los Angeles and worked with the expert trio Freddie Roach, Naazim Richardson and John David Jackson at the Wild Card Boxing Club, as well as with famed fitness guru Mackie Shilstone.

 

While Calzaghe in typical fashion prepared at home out of Newbridge, South Wales, under his father, Enzo’s tutelage.

 

That’s the only fight I wanted to get up for in the morning, Calzaghe said.  ‘To be a two-weight world champion – I know it’s not for a (sanctioning organization) belt but The Ring magazine (title) it’s the No 1 and I had the super middleweight Ring magazine belt, so I wanted the light heavyweight title and he was the main man at the time so it was great.

 

I trained hard for the fight, you train hard for every fight but fight someone like Hopkins and you train a bit harder.  I didn’t spar a lot for the Hopkins fight because I was injured in the Kessler fight, he banged me in the ribs and I couldn’t shake it.  I always had left hand trouble.   That was on my mind but I was 100 percent confident I could win the fight.  That’s what champions do, go into the other guy’s backyard so to speak.

 

Calzaghe arrived two weeks ahead of the fight and decided against staying on the strip among the hustle and bustle, instead electing to rent a villa half an hour from the strip.

 

Meanwhile, Hopkins elected to stay at the MGM Grand Hotel Casino.

 

Backstage ahead of the weigh-in both camps crossed each other’s paths.

 

Both men vividly remember the encounter.

 

Hopkins looked at Calzaghe and said, ‘I’m gonna bust them ribs to which the Welshman retorted, Listen old man, look at them, you’re older than me, I’m gonna bust them ribs.

 

It was quite funny because Bernard likes his mind games and he was saying things and I smiled back.  He couldn’t intimidate me, said Calzaghe.

 

I’ve got to give him credit, he challenged back, recollected Hopkins.  He’s a little smart ass but he had that dry, subtle type of way because he didn’t say it loud, he said it in a mild tone but he said it like he meant it.

 

Both men scaled 173 pounds a short while later when they weighed in.

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