I love this sport...

...I honestly do, I mean that. Whether we're talking about the good times, the bad times, the happy times or the sad times I love this great sport of ours. It's the truest sport. No fighter can lie for long in this sport and get away with it. Sadly though fighters can lie and get lucky a time or two.

Whilst Felix Sturm won what I felt was a close decision against Matthew Macklin (in what was genuinely a fantastic fight full of action) in a fight that could genuinely have gone either way, neither fighter lied. They both put it on the line in a fantastic fight. Tonight though one man lied and got very lucky. Devon Alexander "The lucky" was out landed, out punched, out thrown and dropped against exciting Argentine Lucas Matthyse. I had the fight clearly to Matthyse, so did many others on Fightjudge and a number of forums, even the commentators seemed to have felt Matthyse had won the fight. Odd I actually believe all 3 judges must have felt Matthyse won, yet 2 of the 3 judges scored the fight to Alexander. Was it the crowd who swayed their views? Was it the fact that Don King was in charge of the event? Was it that St Charles, where the fight was held, was just down the road from St Louis, the home town of Alexander? Was it because Alexander is an American?

I'm not sure what it was but seriously, Alexander did not deserve to win that fight. Even the most blinkered of fans cannot possibly have seen the fight being a win for Alexander. Sadly as much as I love boxing, I hate the garbage that comes with it. These sorts of decisions aren't just bad, they sickening. It's no wonder our great sport is falling further and further into the depths of "nobody cares". No one will be brought into our great sport watching decisions like I saw in St Charles tonight. In fact people like myself may even turn away from the sport, it's disgusting things like this that will see people walk away for good.

The crowds in the US have been dropping and the reason isn't that the US have no good fighters, instead it's because we know that the sport is somewhat fishy. Fighters like Tavoris Cloud (who was on the same card), Andre Ward, Steve Cunningham, Timothy Bradley and Brandon Rios are all very talented US fighters and if they are marketed well the people will come, they do not need their names tarnishing with the despicable decisions we've seen.

Argentina...the new hot bed?

It's amazing to think that of all the countries in the world Argentina is one of the dominant forces in world boxing. The country is current tied in 4th place for most amount of "champions" (they have 5 titles, the same as Germany and UK). The current champions are:
Sergio Martinez (Ring Middleweight)
Marcos Maidana (WBA "interim" Light Welterweight)
Jonathan Barros (WBA Featherweight)
Omar Andres Narvaez (WBO Super Flyweight)
Juan Carlos Reveco (WBA "interim" Flyweight)

Last night Reveco added his name to this list by defeating Jean Piero Perez with a vicious body shot (the write up of the fight can be read here) and tonight we will see Narvaez facing off against the pretty unknown William Urina. In all honesty a loss for Narvaez is almost unthinkable (he's a huge 1/33 favourite) though it's the 3rd fight for Narvaez this year showing that the veteran is staying active and keeping the ring rust off.

The future is a good one though at the moment Argentina seem to be one of the rising forces in the sport ob Boxing.