Luis Ramon Campas is well known to boxing fans, he was, at one point, a genuine world champion (IBF light middleweight champion 1997-1998)., he rubbed shoulders with some of the best fighters of the 1990's. In fact in a career that goes back to 1987 Campas has faced the following well known names: Felix "Tito" Trinidad, Raul "El Diamante" Marquez, Fernando "El Feroz" Vargas, Daniel Santos, Oscar "Golden Boy" De La Hoya and Daniel "El Pillin" Santos as well as a huge number of title challengers.
Campas however seems to be unhappy with his career and wants to achieve more than just rubbing shoulders with some of the best fighters of his era, he wants to have win #100. At the moment Campas' record stands at a rather amazing 99-16-1 (78). Sadly however his most recent fight as a loss, coming this morning at the hands of Mexican prospect Jorge Cota (11-0). Cota managed to score an 8th round TKO over the increasingly shop worn Campas who was stopped for just the 9th time in 116 fights.
Whilst Campas will likely fight on in search of win #100 the loss to Cota is the 4th loss in a little over 2 years for Campas who has gone 7-4-1 in a little over 2 years. Amazingly between 1987 and 1994 Campas started his career with 56 straight wins (prior to his first loss at the hands of Felix Trinidad). Whilst it took just 7 years to rack up 56 wins it has now taken Campas more than 17 years (and counting) to get the next 44 wins.
Sadly for Campas the reasons for continuing may not be win #100 but money, the tough man with fighting blood flowing through his veins has never managed to get the career defining paydays to match up with his who's who record. Whilst Campas was never going to be a brain surgeon or a scientist working at CERN over 100 fights will take their toll on someones motor ability and with the lack of big paydays he may find himself, like many faded stars, looking at the gutter through damaged eyes and slurring whatever words he wishes to say. I'd like to think someone will "offer" themself up to be #100 just to cross the milestone then someone in boxing needs to take him by the hand and offer him another role rather than let him continue to be a human punchbag. Hopefully someone out there manages to get Yori boy out before it's too late.
Sunday 20 November 2011
Wednesday 9 November 2011
CompuBox...the ones who can't count?
If you were one of the many, many people who watched HBO's card last Saturday night you'll have seen one of the best rounds of slugging this year as Alfredo "El Perro" Angulo and James "The Mandingo Warrior" Kirkland slugged it out, traded knockdowns and threw 177 punches...or did they?
The official Compubox figures had Angulo throwing 73 punches in the opening 3 minutes whilst they had Kirkland throwing 104. Having watched that opening round a number of times I'm still asking myself how they got to those numbers. Angulo, by my count went not only over 100 but nearly DOUBLE of the official numbers, and Kirkland, whilst throwing a lot himself, certainly DID NOT throw 30 more than Angulo (in fact, from just watching the fight and not counting I'd have said he actually threw less than Angulo).
Rob Day, friend of mine working for the Boxing Tribune, made a very similar point at the start of the year in his article "Compubox – Fact or Fiction?" Rob stated "it should always be remembered that the live figures aren’t completely accurate due to very likely human error". Problem is that human error is only part of the issue, lets be honest for a Compubox judge to miss around 50% of Angulo's punches is more than just human error, it's...somewhat disgraceful.
Dave Allen, another friend posted on a forum posted an excellent point explaining some of the issues with the system:
"Compubox is not 100% correct,it would be more reliable if you had four counters on each side of the ring.But also there are times when the referee would obstruct your view,so as far as i am concerned as long as it do not effect the decision carry on if thats what floats your boat.
I never take any notice of the punch stats,its what i see with my own eye's which makes up my mind who won the bout.Never had them when i first started my passion for the sport,standing out in the cold watching Tom Sawyers swing his bare fist." (Talking Boxing with Billy C)
And maybe Dave gets it spot on, the referee can get in the way, though their is so many other issues. Did you know CompuBox regards anything other than a jab as a "power punch"? Did you know that each fighter has 1 man counting "thrown and connected" on what is no more than a glorified amateur scoring system?
The well established Billy C (see the above link) actually got asked to stop talking the system when he was giving it a hard time on his radio show but sadly for CompuBox they seemed happier in saying "shut up we're right" rather than "we'll try to improve we see we have problems". Maybe this is the biggest issue, they don't want to improve, they have a cushty deal with HBO to provide "official figures" and lets be honest whilst HBO are paying them for a half assed job, why would they want to put money into creating an ACCURATE system? It seems obvious when Jim Lampley or Mex Kellerman state the CompuBox numbers as fact they they are happy with them being "official" which is just a giant shame.
Whilst it seems unlikely that CompuBox will take their head out of the sand it's be nice if more people did begin to question them.
The official Compubox figures had Angulo throwing 73 punches in the opening 3 minutes whilst they had Kirkland throwing 104. Having watched that opening round a number of times I'm still asking myself how they got to those numbers. Angulo, by my count went not only over 100 but nearly DOUBLE of the official numbers, and Kirkland, whilst throwing a lot himself, certainly DID NOT throw 30 more than Angulo (in fact, from just watching the fight and not counting I'd have said he actually threw less than Angulo).
Rob Day, friend of mine working for the Boxing Tribune, made a very similar point at the start of the year in his article "Compubox – Fact or Fiction?" Rob stated "it should always be remembered that the live figures aren’t completely accurate due to very likely human error". Problem is that human error is only part of the issue, lets be honest for a Compubox judge to miss around 50% of Angulo's punches is more than just human error, it's...somewhat disgraceful.
Dave Allen, another friend posted on a forum posted an excellent point explaining some of the issues with the system:
"Compubox is not 100% correct,it would be more reliable if you had four counters on each side of the ring.But also there are times when the referee would obstruct your view,so as far as i am concerned as long as it do not effect the decision carry on if thats what floats your boat.
I never take any notice of the punch stats,its what i see with my own eye's which makes up my mind who won the bout.Never had them when i first started my passion for the sport,standing out in the cold watching Tom Sawyers swing his bare fist." (Talking Boxing with Billy C)
And maybe Dave gets it spot on, the referee can get in the way, though their is so many other issues. Did you know CompuBox regards anything other than a jab as a "power punch"? Did you know that each fighter has 1 man counting "thrown and connected" on what is no more than a glorified amateur scoring system?
The well established Billy C (see the above link) actually got asked to stop talking the system when he was giving it a hard time on his radio show but sadly for CompuBox they seemed happier in saying "shut up we're right" rather than "we'll try to improve we see we have problems". Maybe this is the biggest issue, they don't want to improve, they have a cushty deal with HBO to provide "official figures" and lets be honest whilst HBO are paying them for a half assed job, why would they want to put money into creating an ACCURATE system? It seems obvious when Jim Lampley or Mex Kellerman state the CompuBox numbers as fact they they are happy with them being "official" which is just a giant shame.
Whilst it seems unlikely that CompuBox will take their head out of the sand it's be nice if more people did begin to question them.
Friday 4 November 2011
James Toney is looking fa....bulous
So we are literally just a few hours from James Toney v Denis Lebedev (the show starts on Boxnation on Sky Channel 456, from 3PM which is currently being shown for FREE!) and when this fight was first mooted few really expected Toney to ever get near the 200lbs Cruiserweight limit. A number of forum users openly stated that for Toney to make the weight he'd have to lose a limb or get some liposuction. Toney's weight has always been an issue but some how he has sorted himself out...for at least this fight.
Aged 43 Toney has lost 38lbs since he faced Randy Couture back in his UFC debut (August 28th 2010) though more impressively Toney has come in at his lowest weight since 2003 when he faced Vassiliy Jirov in an IBF Cruiserweight fight. The Jirov fight was a classic with combined punch stats of over 1800 punches thrown with Toney landing 380 of his 811 punches (an amazing 47% connect rate). Since then however Toney's size has increased significantly, most obviously in his last fight when he came to the ring weighing 257lbs against Damon Reed back in February of this year.
Toney looked not only trim at the weigh in but looked healthy as well as slim. The loss of 58 lbs in 9 months seems to have been from a dedicated effort and the veteran of 84 fights seems to be taking his 85th incredibly seriously. Whilst I wouldn't declare Toney to be the fighter he once was, this is no longer looking like the 1 sided beat down it originally appeared. Amazingly it is just over 20 years since Toney last fought outside of his native USA and that was in Monaco against Francesco Dell'Aquila, a fight Toney won by 4th round TKO, he'll certainly be trying to make it 2-0 for his career outside of the US.
Lebedev meanwhile looked like his usual self, weighing in at a very average (for him) weight of 197.5 lbs. I'd expect the Russian to win though it now appears that this could be a more interesting fight than any of us expected.
Aged 43 Toney has lost 38lbs since he faced Randy Couture back in his UFC debut (August 28th 2010) though more impressively Toney has come in at his lowest weight since 2003 when he faced Vassiliy Jirov in an IBF Cruiserweight fight. The Jirov fight was a classic with combined punch stats of over 1800 punches thrown with Toney landing 380 of his 811 punches (an amazing 47% connect rate). Since then however Toney's size has increased significantly, most obviously in his last fight when he came to the ring weighing 257lbs against Damon Reed back in February of this year.
Toney looked not only trim at the weigh in but looked healthy as well as slim. The loss of 58 lbs in 9 months seems to have been from a dedicated effort and the veteran of 84 fights seems to be taking his 85th incredibly seriously. Whilst I wouldn't declare Toney to be the fighter he once was, this is no longer looking like the 1 sided beat down it originally appeared. Amazingly it is just over 20 years since Toney last fought outside of his native USA and that was in Monaco against Francesco Dell'Aquila, a fight Toney won by 4th round TKO, he'll certainly be trying to make it 2-0 for his career outside of the US.
Lebedev meanwhile looked like his usual self, weighing in at a very average (for him) weight of 197.5 lbs. I'd expect the Russian to win though it now appears that this could be a more interesting fight than any of us expected.
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