Sweet Science
First things first, Nikolai Valuev is a joke, a circus act, a sideshow barker's wet dream, he will never beat a true heavyweight champion, the man cannot throw a true punch, move laterally, or throw in combination. He incessantly throws arm punches, he doesn't seem to have the ability to throw a punch with conviction, or the ability to turn his hips through and throw a punch with his full force, nor can he seem to turn a punch over, these are the things you are taught to do before you even get into a ring, and he cannot do them. He uses his extreme size to overpower smaller weaker opponents, guys like Monte Barrett, who weighed in at 233 pounds, yet was out weighed by 105 lbs, Valuev outweighed his opponent by the average weight of a 10 year old. Sure that works on fringe contenders like the Barrett's of the world, but what happens when the "Russian Freak" has to face a real heavyweight champion, someone like Wladimir Klitschko, who at 6 foot 6 inches, and 240 pounds, is just six inches shorter and weights just 90 pounds less then Valuev. Yeah, that is still a very large disparity in height and weight, the difference is Klitschko can fight, he moves laterally, works behind a huge jab, and knows how to throw a true punch.
Don King knows a spectacle when he sees one, and Valuev is just that, a spectacle, who as long as he is able to stop guys with little or no chance of winning is going to continue to make King lots of money, but as soon as Valuev is forced to face one of the other three recognized heavyweight titlists he will be exposed for what he is, a very large human, with extremely limited boxing skills.
Secondly, I truly am a Diego Corrales fan, I love his heart, his desire, his ability to entertain, what happened last Friday when he couldn't make weight doesn't change my feelings for him in anyway. For those who don't know, or care, Corrales could not make the weight of 135 pounds for his title defense against Joel Casamayor, so in essence Corrales lost on the scales, he lost his world title and to a degree some of his reputation. After some negotiating with the Casamayor camp, they agreed to fight at the 147 pound weight limit, and according to the rules Casamayor was the only one who could walk out of the ring a champion, which was what happened, some fighter's just have another fighter's number. We have seen it before, most recently with Vernon Forrest and Shane Mosley, Ricardo Mayorga and Vernon Forrest, Antonio Tarver and Roy Jones Jr., there are just some fighters who you are not going to beat, and Casamayor is that to Diego Corrales. Corrales spoke of retiring after this lose, I hope he doesn't, but like they say, "if you're talking about it, you already have done it", good luck Chico in whatever you decide.
Well looks like this is a "rebuilding" year for my Buccaneers, starting out 0 and 4 does that to a team, kind of like in golf, when you bogey your first six holes and declare the rest of the round a practice round. One good thing to come out of this all is I think we have found our quarterback, Bruce Gradkowski looked poised and unfazed by his first NFL start ever, considering his last start was for Toledo of Ohio as a senior quarterback
just eight months ago.
Good and Bad
Tigers - Good
Yankees - Not so much
This Saturday we have dueling fight shows on HBO and Showtime. Showtime has the rubber-match between lightweights (130 lbs.) Diego "Chico" Corrales and Joel "El Cepillo" Casamayor, their first two fights were all action affairs with each taking a win. I expect nothing less of this, Corrales and Casamayor do not like each other, hate is not to strong a word for the feelings these two have for each other, Casamayor in general hates everyone anyway, so it's no surprise he hates Corrales, why shouldn't he, Diego "Chico" Corrales from Sacramento, Ca. is everyone's favorite type of fighter, a true warrior willing to go toe to toe with anyone anywhere, even after doing two years for spousal abuse everyone still loves him, because Diego Corrales is truly a nice guy, he made a mistake as a kid and he has been forgiven. Casamayor on the other hand seems to just be a whining prick, he likes no one and no one likes him, he tells his sad story of fleeing Cuba after he was given the gift of a bicycle from Castro for winning the 1992 Gold Medal. Anyway, their first fight ended in a 6th stoppage for Casamayor who had Corrales down twice before the doctors stopped it due to cuts Corrales had sustained throughout the fight, the rematch ended in a split decision for Corrales, who again was down in the tenth before pulling out the slim victory. Though Casamayor is a very slick boxer, he tends to stay on the inside and slug when he really has no need to, he did it in the previous two fights with Corrales, as well as with JL Castillo and Popo Freitas, Casamayor has the pop to trade with Corrales, but I think he is better off trying to out box the bigger stronger fighter, but pride or plain meaness won't allow for that, I see Corrales ending this with a big left hook, Corrales by KO in the 9th round.
On the supposed "Home Of Boxing" HBO, the circus coming to town in the form of 7 foot 325 lbs "Russian Giant" Nikolai Valuev versus Monte "Two Gunz" Barrett, good name Barrett, 'cause that's what it is going to take for you to even come close to winning this fight - TWO GUNS, two very big guns. Now, America finally gets to see if the latest Don King discovery can fight, we have seen fighters this size before, and mostly they are freak shows, all size no talent, but we'll see if Valuev can throw more than one punch at a time and if he can move with any kind of grace or fluidity, if he can, he might be dangerous to anyone in the heavyweight division, anyone that is, not named Wladimir Klitschko. If Valuev proves he can fight and can KO a true heavyweight contender than I fear Klitschko will be the only one who will be able to stop him, Klitschko has the size at 6'6" and skill to beat anyone in the glamour division right now, including Valuev.
Well, Sunday is just around the corner and my Buccaneers are staring down the barrel of 0 & 4, this is not good, but maybe all is not lost. With Chris Simms out for probably the season and maybe forever as a Buccaneer, we get to see the future in Bruce Gradkowski, a sixth round pick from Toledo, he looked good in the preseason, but that was against teams number 2 and mostly number 3 defenses, luckily we are facing New Orleans, who after that Monday night against Atlanta have come back down to earth and are as mediocre as always. Hopefully "Chuckie" Gruden has come up with a plan to win, word is he is not scaling back the playbook which is good, give Gradkowski the tools