Hello family, welcome back to another heartwarming, cinnamon and brown sugar spiced edition of the Sunday Brunch – the highest rated weekly pugilistic paper amongst both migrant Chinese railroad workers and wealthy Triad gangsters. This week, we’re taking our usual boxing coverage and kicking it in the chest, then we’re going to post it all over social media for ‘likes’ and shares. With that being said, I gave you your instructions in the dressing room, what I say you must obey – Cuidate, escucha me, toca los manos y buena suerte…Let’s get it on!
It’s no wonder that Nottingham’s Carl “The Cobra” Froch has the most fetching lass in all of the shire. Froch has what the British call bollocks, the Spanish have a word for it as well, cojones. In the United States we refer to this intangible quality colloquially as balls.
Herein lies the immediate problem with The Cobra. Perhaps he was overlooking his challenger, George “Saint” Groves who was fighting out of Hammersmith, West London. After all, while Groves was undefeated ahead of Saturday’s contest, he hadn’t fought near the level of opposition that Froch had and was 11 years his junior.
Groves did a fantastic job of overwhelming the much too comfortable Cobra for many of the rounds, including scoring big splashdown over the hometown favorite in the very first frame. The referee, Howard Foster now infamously intervened the moment that Froch started landing meaningful leather in the ninth, thereby destroying any chance Groves could mount for a late stoppage and, conversely, any possibility that The Cobra could stage a dramatic, come-from-behind KO ala the 2009 Jermaine Taylor fight.
The Brits have a word for how Carl Froch was fighting for much of the melee – Shite. What can be taken from this is that there will most certainly be a rematch, a fight that will likely be at a different venue, will feature a different referee and new judges. George Saint Groves deserves a second go at the WBA and IBF world titles and may claim them yet. Either way, his stock rose in defeat and perhaps Carl Froch’s dipped just a hair.
Early Sunday morning, in Macau, China, Manny Pacquiao took his considerable skillset and punished the challenging Oxnard bull, Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios for all 12 of the scheduled rounds. An appreciative crowd cheered at every connect the Pac Man would unleash. Brandon Rios’ adamantium beard would prove to be his biggest asset as he would use it to deflect and effectively block all of Pacquiao’s incoming punches.
I’m not entirely positive why Pacquaio’s trainer, Freddie Roach didn’t instruct his charge to attack the soft abdomen of Rios. He must not have played Mike Tyson’s Punch Out in the 80s. When you hit him in the stomach, his pants drop and his mouth opens…there’s your opening, but I digress.
Manny Pacquiao darted in and out, side to side – everything looked sharp, solid and in place for the Pac Man. Everything except his lauded power. Some have suggested that Pacquiao’s power has faded somewhat and his speed and reflexes remain. Often times in boxing clichés, they say that power is the last thing to go on an aging fighter. It remains to be seen what Manny’s speed will look like against a fighter who can do more than remain stationary and destroy boxing gloves with his face.
Leading up to this bout and directly after it at the post-fight press conference, Floyd Mayweather’s name had been dropped quite a few times. Not only by immortal promoter Bob “Rosy Cheeks” Arum (who coincidentally mentions Mayweather’s name as a potential opponent for Manny before all of the Filipino’s fights), but by trainer Freddie Roach, by Manny himself and by a host of nosy reporters. I contend, as I have for some time now, that we shall witness the two most special fighters of this era meet inside of the squared circle – Marquess of Queensberry rules.
Here’s what I noticed this week:
- I wonder how good Brandon Rios’ ‘boxing orgasm’ was after that beat down; bloody I gather…
- Zou Shiming made 500,000 (!) dollars (US dollars!) for his third professional fight…which was on a PPV! You know, Shiming looked miles better than he did in his last match. The path to championship gold grows ever shorter for the “Fists of Gold”.
- Larry Merchant gets to speak ten times more on the Top Rank broadcast than he used to over at HBO – which is to say about four or five sentences throughout the entire program.
- Is Macau (and perhaps other big venues in Asia) the future of professional tax-free boxing as we know it?
- Will Brandon Rios and “Mile High” Mike Avocado have a third go at one another? These two are greater than the sum of their parts; make it happen, Bob.
- Is it just me or did Carl Froch sound like a complete dick head after his win? It was almost like he was overly defending himself and the victory while simultaneously being condescending to the crowd.
- Those judges’ scores were atrocious in the Froch fight as well. It was to be expected, though.
- Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao September 2014. Mayweather wins by heated split decision and then retires one fight early from his Showtime deal. You heard it here first ladies and gentlemen – The Sunday Brunch; eat it.
Thanks for joining us again this week team, another crush of randomly assembled catch phrases, boxing idioms and Filipino colloquialisms is in our immediate future. We’ll see you next Sunday when we’ll be discussing why fantasy football is the same thing as Dungeons & Dragons. We will also be touching on the topic of whether or not ketchup is a suitable condiment for a hotdog in New York City. People want to know if Rachael Cordingley has any porno videos online, and we’re here to tell you she DOES and only we know where it is. Join us next week, santé.
Por favor, please send all hate mail to JESSEBOXINGTRIBUNE@GMAIL.COM. We appreciate most holiday pies and Photoshopped pictures of Bob Arum disguised as a Christmas reindeer. Your responses will likely be posted for all to gawk at so have your snappy answers to stupid questions concise, humorous and possibly fictitious.
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