Boxing Recap/HBO Highlights

(The sexy oven-mitt thumbnail will make sense later on, I promise.)

But for now.

If you are one of a handful of Stoolies in the mood for a boxing blog late on a Sunday night… Well then…

No surprises in last night’s Main Event on ESPN… Lomachenko scored a unanimous decision over José Pedraza to add another lightweight belt.  Vasyl controlled the pace of the whole fight even though Pedraza’s range and ability to switch from Southpaw to orthodox was effective enough to cut off the outside angles Loma would traditionally take advantage of.  Lomachenko was still extremely accurate with his power punches and put together 2 knockdowns in the 11th that sealed the deal on an impressive but otherwise uneventful, 1-sided bout.

Robbie had blogged this clip late last night of the vicious knockout Teofilmo Lopez provided in the 1st round of the undercard’s opening fight, which wound up being the highlight of the evening.

Lopez inexplicably donned a Kyler Murray jersey after recording the knockout even though Teofimo has many openly gay friends and Murray maliciously sent out a homophobic tweet when he was 14 years old.

I have Lomachenko coming onto Barstool Breakfast Tuesday morning with Willie and me, and I am hoping to get some indication of the timeframe for his next opponent and the potential bout later in ’19 vs Mikey Garcia to become undisputed lightweight champ… Garcia is scheduled to fight Errol Spence Jr in mid-March.

I was going to comment on Jim Lampley’s commentary following his coverage of the final night of boxing for HBO, but, to be honest, his tear-filled sign-off was somewhat predictable.  He is an emotional guy that has been doing this at a high level for a very long time and hopefully, he gets back to the apron with another station (SHOWTIME‘s crew is just awful) or some streaming service.

I don’t know why I feel this needs mentioning again, but I am going to do it anyway because it fascinates me… Jim Lampley was married to Bree Walker from 1990-1999.

Bree has a first name that sounds like a soft French cheese and 2 rare genetic conditions.  The first of said conditions is called ectrodactyly which resulted in her missing fingers and toes.  The other was syndactyly which caused the remaining digits to be randomly fused together… So she essentially had lobster claws for her hands and feet.

When I told you guys about this relationship in a blog earlier this year, I believe I profoundly compared a handjob from Bree to jerking off whilst wearing an oven mitt, and I stand by that comparison still to this day.

Back to Saturday’s boxing finale for HBO… I will put this youtube clip out now, on a Sunday night, because there’s no way you make it through all 21 minutes while you’re at work…

For me, watching Lampley choke back tears was secondary to the sobering montage HBO put together of the HUNDREDS of iconic fights they have aired over the past 45 years, unfortunately culminating in an uneventful final card Saturday night that couldn’t compete with ESPN‘s coverage of Loma and company.

If you do watch this whole thing, here’s 4 little gems to look out for:

At 14:34 you see Juan Manuel Marquez drink his own urine.

At 17:05 you hear Aaron Pryor’s trainer, Panama Lewis, calling for “the other bottle”… The water bottle he mixed with stimulants… Right before Pryor left the corner all hopped-up and knocked out Alexis Argüello in the 14th round of a scheduled 15 in 1982.

At 20:42 you see the mouse over Hasim Rahman left eye after Hollyfield nearly headbutted him to death in 2002.

Immediately followed by footage of the torn left ear of Stephen Smith when he fought Francisco Vargas 1 year ago today.

That was the look back… Now looking forward- December has been a big month for boxing, and it continues to roll on with Canelo stepping up a weight class to fight heavy underdog Rocky Fielding this Saturday in MSG for the WBA regular super-middleweight title.  Then, on 12/22, heavyweights Dereck Chisora and Dillian Whyte square off at the O2 Arena in the UK to decide who will fight Anthony Joshua in April.

Have a good week everyone, and take a report.

-Large