THE MONSTER!
He would fight Luis Nery for his first super bantamweight title defense in May and was knocked down for the first time ever in his professional career. He got right up and proceeded to dismantle Nery- knocking him down twice and then knocking him out with a beautiful uppercut in the 6th round, increasing his historical KO percentage and showing that he can come back from adversity.
In September, there was another title defense against TJ Doheny, who was dropped with a body shot in Round 7. There was supposed to be another fight on December 24th against mandatory challenger, Sam Goodman, but it had to be postponed until January because Goodman cut his eye in sparring.
Inoue is, in my mind, the best pound-for-pound fighter in 2023 and again in 2024. No one in his weight divisions even comes close. He is the best combination puncher I have ever seen, he wins all of his fights by knockout, and he fights every few months. He doesn't talk smack, there is no drama with him, but he is super fun to watch in the ring. This is a once-in-a-generation type of talent here. The only reason he is not an international superstar is that he only fights in Japan and at the lighter weight classes. He could probably move up to featherweight and dominate there but there aren't any big names in that weight class currently to really elevate his status. The only way to cement his legacy as one of the greatest boxers of all time, would probably be to move past featherweight, to lightweight, and challenge some of the big names there (of which there are plenty, right now). That is a big jump in weight percentage and I can't really see him doing that in the near future. He's 5'5 with a relatively small frame. Nonetheless, he is the best in my view and have loved watching his multiple championship run.
THE INSANE ROLLERCOASTER RIDE THAT WAS HANEY VS. GARCIA
Haney was the undisputed lightweight champ and moved up to super lightweight and won another belt. Ryan Garcia was erratic and wild but also deadly with incredible speed and power. I thought Haney would make the fight boring, like he usually does, not taking any chances and keeping control. But it ended up being a lot of fun and one of the most exciting fights of the year. Garcia rocked Haney early and it looked like we could have a first round knockout. But Haney recovered and started to control things. Then Garcia got him again in Round 7 (which was one of the more chaotic rounds I have ever seen) knocking Haney down for the first time in his career and then seemingly knocking him down 2 more times though the referee called them slips. The ref also took away a point from Garcia for punching on the breakup, which is strange to do without warning. Garcia inexplicably started doing a bad shoulder roll defense and turned his back to Haney over and over again. It wasn't smart but it also didn't seem to matter as Garcia would continue to seize moment and went on to knock Haney down 2 more times, going on to win a majority decision.
Everyone was immediately excited for the rematch and both fighters said there would be one. Except then Garcia would test positive for a banned substance, ostarine, and was stripped of the victory and Haney would sue Garcia for fraud and battery (can't remember a boxer ever suing their opponent for battery). Garcia was thereafter expelled from the WBA for some racial slurs he made in a live social media broadcast, and he was later arrested for felony vandalism at a Beverly Hills hotel, earning him a 1-year suspension. People had initially said that Garcia was a crazy like a fox for all of his antics before the fight and coming in overweight, like it was a way to psych out Haney, but it seems like he was just plain crazy. Devin Haney has said that he is not interested in a rematch right now for those reasons but nothing would really surprise me at this point.
USYK VS. FURY I
From the opening bell, it kind of felt like something you would see in a movie. Tyson Fury tried to stay on the outside and use his jab but Usyk used his speed and skill to get inside and land some good shots while Fury got right into showboating. A couple rounds in, it looked like Fury might have figured out his distance and his timing, keeping Usyk away and landing some big shots of his own. At this point, I thought there was no way that Usyk could win the fight. Boxing is very much a rhythm sport. Once somebody starts to get the timing down and momentum on their side, it can be hard to change unless you've got a big punch that can change everything on a dime, which Usyk did not seem to have. And when you combine Fury's height and reach advantage, it just seemed like too big of a mountain to climb.
By Round 6, it looked like Fury had Usyk hurt and might actually finish the fight. But then Usyk started to change his strategy. Instead of moving his head to try and get in range to throw punches, he stood more still and waited for Fury to strike first, moving and countering. After getting in some good counterpunches, Usyk got aggressive again and started to pressure Fury. Then in Round 9, Usyk finally did something a lot of people didn't think he could do and hurt Tyson Fury with a big overhand. He started to tee off and Tyson Fury stumbled around the ring, bouncing off the ropes like no one I have ever seen before. I think if you saw this scene in a movie, you might even think it looked fake. Fury ended up being saved by the bell and making it to Round 10.
For a lot of boxers, the fight would have been pretty much over after that but Fury's regenerative powers are amazing and seemed like he was able to clear his head and while he didn't win the next couple of rounds, he survived and got himself back into the fight. The decision went to Usyk and it seemed like a pretty obvious one but in the post-fight interview, Fury was very vocal in his disagreement. The fight was booked with an instant rematch clause so we knew we'd get to see Part 2, hopefully later this year!
OLYMPIC CONTROVERSY!
Both fighters have competed in female divisions previously and trying to get the details on exactly why the IBA banned them is difficult. They claimed that the athletes had XY chromosomes based on a DNA test, as well as elevated levels of testosterone. These tests and the IBA's integrity have been called into question, however. There was also plenty of misinformation out there claiming that these athletes were transgender, which is seemingly not the case and again, both have competed as women for many years. At the same time, there is biological information about these fighters that is not being broadcast or is being dismissed without a lot of discussion.
I myself don't know enough about these athletes nor do I trust many of the media reports, but I will say this - if boxing wants to try and figure this out, they will need to evaluate each athlete objectively and scientifically without political influence from any side. And they need to be very transparent about the results, regardless of how it will be scrutinized. Otherwise, it may be hard to convince some female boxers to compete or take fights with someone like Imane Khelif, with controversy like this swirling around. This issue has popped up in other sports but boxing is unique, at least on a professional level, as athletes are directly and expressly putting themselves in harm's way every time they step in the ring. The potential for serious harm to fighters based on even slight physical variations is why there are so many different weight classes, some of them separated by only a few pounds.
TURKI AL-SHEIKH, RIYAD SEASON, AND DAZN
What's crazy is that he also has brought down the price of pay-per-view on DAZN. I didn't think anyone would ever do that. He complained that he thought it was too expensive, so prices dropped- even for the biggest fights. Fury-Usyk II, a hugely anticipated rematch for the undisputed heavyweight title, cost me $39.99. By contrast, in 1988, I think me and the other kids pooled our money together to pay for the Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks fight and paid about 50 bucks! Again, that was in 1988!
Maybe even better for me is that the fights take place in Saudi Arabia so they start in the early afternoon on Saturdays in my Eastern time zone, with the main event going on at about 7 or 8pm. This is compared to fights that happen in the US, where the main event usually doesn't go on until after midnight. For an older person/curmudgeon like myself, this is awesome! It means I am wide awake for the main event instead of fighting just to keep my eyes open.
Boxing still faces many challenges to ever get back to being even close to what it once was but Turki Al-Sheikh has done more to help the sport than any one person in recent memory.
BIVOL VS. BETERBIEV
MIKE TYSON VS. JAKE PAUL??
Going in, I did not feel like Mike Tyson stood much of a chance. It's not just that he is 58 years old fighting an athletic young man in peak physical condition, it's that he has a lot of extra mileage on him. I had purchased an instructional video with Mike (talking about his peek-a-boo style) about a couple years ago and even in the video, despite the fact that Mike could still move pretty great, he clearly couldn't do it for much more than an extremely short period of time and even shot a lot of the video sitting down. He suffers from sciatica and a bad back and at his age, these aren't things that are going to get much better. Then in July, when the fight was originally scheduled, Mike had an ulcer that was so bad, he apparently almost died and had multiple blood transfusions and lost about 25 pounds in the hospital. After his recovery, he had a few months to train back up again, but you have to imagine this had a significant effect. People were wowed by some of the training clips they saw of Mike but again, these were very short and some of them were not at all recent.
Jake Paul is, of course, a YouTube star (though I still don't totally understand why or how), who has made a new career out of highly-publicized boxing fights with non-boxers. The fights have generally been exciting though and Jake Paul is no joke. Can he make any kind of a run in the professional boxing circuit? Probably not but he is athletic, has decent technical skills, and seems to take his training very, very seriously. He does a great job marketing himself as a disrupter heel and I think everybody wanted to see old Mike Tyson knock him out on international TV.
Either way, we all had to find out what was going to happen. Would Mike defeat this snot-nosed punk AND Father Time? Would Jake Paul actually knock out a living legend? Would the fight even be real? When I first heard about it and realized it wasn't a joke, I had a hard time believing it would be a legitimate fight . There is plenty of speculation that some of Jake Paul's earlier fights were scripted and people were paid to take a dive, but nothing concrete in my opinion. I didn't know how a real fight between the two could even be sanctioned.
As soon as I saw Mike walk into the arena and later walking into the ring, I knew that if the fight was real, he didn't stand much of a chance. He could barely walk at all. Or maybe it was all part of the ruse? Round 1 kicked off and for about a minute or two, it looked like the fight could be kind of interesting. Mike got off a few punches and you could see he still had a little bit of speed and power left. The only significant strike he landed was a jab but it did knock Jake back and I started to think, "hey, maybe he can do this." But in Round 2 it was all over. Mike ran out of gas and could not really move. Jake could just potshot and then run away, with Mike powerless to catch him. The 8 rounds ended with a whimper, with none of them coming anywhere close to matching the first round. Or anything interesting at all.
Plenty of people still thought the fight was fixed because Mike started biting down on his gloves routinely and saw what they assumed was Mike pulling his punches. But it's very hard to tell whether someone pulls their punch because they don't want to hit the other person or because they don't think they will be able to land it and don't want to miss. If it was fake, it wasn't a very good fake. I would think they would want to make it more interested and certainly make Mike Tyson look better. But whether it was or it wasn't, it did illustrate something I tell people all the time about boxing. Footwork is the most important thing in the sport. If you can't catch somebody, it's gonna be hard to hit them with anything solid, no matter how good of a puncher you are. And it will make them much easier to hit you with superior footwork.
But anyway, while the fight sucked, the event itself was kind of a great thing and hopefully someway, somehow, boxing can matter again to general audiences.
KATIE TAYLOR AND AMANDA SERRANO II
The rematch was highly anticipated and both ladies did not disappoint! Once again, Amanda had Katie in trouble early, big trouble, and it looked like she might win by KO. But also again, Katie fought back showing tremendous hand speed. Amanda still out-landed her but Katie had some good flurries. The big turning point of the match came from a head butt that opened up a huge cut over Amanda's left eye and bled profusely. It looked like the fight was going to be stopped but they let it go on and Serrano fought until the very end. I think Katie tried to take advantage of the situation by repeatedly clinching and pushing her head into the cut to try and make it bleed more. The constant clinching is, to some degree, how Katie fights but a lot of the head contact looked intentional to me. The referee even took a point away from Katie for doing this.
The last round saw both women going for broke and just slugging it out with absolutely no defense or head movement at all. It was just a brawl. Round by round, I thought this fight was a little closer than the first one but still gave it to Amanda, especially with the point deduction. But once again, Katie Taylor won a very controversial decision which looked even worse to me because of the head-butting. Despite that, it was a great fight and I really hope they do it again. Women's boxing has come a LONG way since the days of Christy Martin and it good to see it represented by someone like Amanda Serrano in particular. And some credit goes to Jake Paul here. Nobody outside of the sport's hardcore fans even knew who she was until he started promoting her on his fight cards and I think it was universally recognized that she and Katie Taylor stole the show that night.
FURY VS. USYK 2!
He definitely faired a little bit better, in my opinion. The fight was razor close the whole way through. Hard to score the rounds. Unlike the first fight, there were no real momentum swings and no one ever looked hurt at any point. There was a very high level of concentration from both fighters though. You could feel it. Fury wasn't going to make a big mistake and let himself get outboxed in any of the big exchanges.
It came down to a decision and people watching seemed pretty divided. The promoters ringside though Fury won. The announcers leaned towards Usyk. The judges did too and only gave Fury 4 rounds, which didn't seem quite right but again, being so closely contested, it is very hard to score. Fury was completely disappointed and while some would like to see a third fight between these two, I would expect it would go down exactly the same way. My hope is that Fury fights Anthony Joshua next as I think that would be a good one. Then Usyk should have another fight with Daniel Dubois, who seems rejuvenated recently. Otherwise, there aren't really a lot of good heavyweight contenders out there. Everyone is saying that the next big star will be 19 year-old Moses Itauma who scored a first round knockout on the same card, but he might not be ready for a title shot quite yet. We need somebody that is ready for sure as the heavyweight division is by far most compelling to a general audience.
JUDGING AND THREE IDEAS TO MAKE BOXING MORE INTERESTING
Idea 1 - Here's how boxing scoring currently works: Judges decide who won the round on a number of factors. The winner gets 10 points for the round they win and the loser gets 9 points. If there is a knockdown, it is usually scored as a 10-8 round. Points can also be deducted for certain penalties.
The problem is that many rounds are very difficult to score. Both fighters might land an equal amount of punches and there may be no clear winner at all. But judges have to give one fighter 10 points and the other 9. They can't call it a draw round unless there are point deductions. Then let's imagine there is another round where one fighter totally dominates. They land at least twice as many punches as their opponent and seem to have them pretty hurt. That round would be scored exactly the same: 10-9. Unless there is a knockdown, it is almost impossible that judges would score it 10-8. So a toss-up round that no one really wins is worth just as many points where a fighter totally dominates. That is ridiculous to me and I can't imagine it seems fair to anyone.
The solution is to simply score any toss-up rounds as a draw. Make them 9-9. Unless someone clearly dominates the round, it gives them no advantage in scoring at all. If you have to even argue who won it, it's a draw. Should be very clear cut. This might also encourage fighters to try and dominate more and take more chances. Plus, I think it would give the viewing audience a better perspective on who is winning.
Idea 2 - This one is very simple. Allow the judges scores to be available after each round for everyone to see. Or at least, the people watching on TV. Let them know who is currently winning the fight. There are certainly drawbacks to this, where someone may realize they have the match wrapped up and are ahead on the scorecards and then just coast but I think that this is worth it for clarity's sake. And it may do the opposite. Someone may think they are ahead, realize that they aren't, and try to work harder instead of coasting. Plus people are going to do this anyway to a degree. Every other sport allows their audience to see who is winning, why should boxing be any different?
Idea 3 (the crazy one) - One thing other sports generally have over boxing is this notion of the buzzer beater. No time left on the clock and someone launches up one last shot, one last throw, one last kick, or a final at bat in the bottom of the 9th to potentially win the match in the most dramatic fashion. You never really see this boxing. Sometimes you'll get a good final round where anything can happen but usually, you see submaximal effort and a lack of urgency. This often manifests itself in a lot of grabbing/holding. Even when someone feels like they need to win the fight, they will throw a couple of bombs coming forward and then just hold on for dear life. This is never really exciting.
So how do we fix it? We eliminate all holding in Round 12 (or whatever the final round is). If you hang onto your opponent for even a split second, you lose a point. The action doesn't need to be stopped, the referee just calls out the deduction and raises his hand. Or you could stop it like a regular point deduction. If one fighter knows they're way ahead on points and just runs away, they should also lose a point every time the referee sees them doing this for more than, say, 5 seconds. Just like the holding, deduct every time the do this. The thinking here is obviously to encourage action. Incentivize both fighters to have to go at it in the final round as the threat of massive point deduction can completely change who wins. This would naturally lead to at least a few more exciting finishes in the final round and that's a lot better than what we have now, which is almost none.
Now I just have to convince Turki Al-Sheikh or someone with similar juice to make it happen!
