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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4254131, member: 289"] I decided to watch the Katie Taylor- Amanda Serrano fight, even though I don’t normally pay much attention to women’s boxing. There was an article on the two of them in SI a few weeks back and this was billed as the biggest women’s fight ever. The atmosphere was like Leonard-Hagler or Mayweather-Pacquiao. Serrano was the physically stronger, harder puncher of the two, (42-1-1 with 30 KOs vs. 20-0 with 6). She was two years younger, (33 to 35) but has been fighting as a pro since 2009. Taylor was the 2016 Olympic champ and then turned pro. Serrano marched forward behind her jab. Taylor weas in and out, throwing accurate counterpunches. The problem with counterpunches is that you aren’t going to have the same volume of punches so they’ve got to have a greater effect than your opponent’s punches and if your opponent is the harder puncher, that’s hard to do. Also, Taylor had a bad habit of not returning her hands into a defensive position after a punch and so she was vulnerable to counter-punches herself. Serrano was the more aggressive in the first round, but Taylor turned that around in rounds two and three. In the fourth round there was constant action. Taylor landed more punches but took some hard shots and was looking the worse for wear. In the fifth round, Taylor made the mistake standing in the corner and trading with Serrano and she got the worst of it. The look in her eyes was one of panic. Her defensive movement stopped and her rate of throwing punches declined to almost nothing. It looked like the ref was thinking of stopping it. Katie was lucky they were fighting two-minute rounds. In her corner she seemed not even to be paying attention to her corner’s instructions, as if she couldn’t comprehend them. I expected her to get knocked out in the 6th round. But she didn’t. Serrano won it but Taylor survived it and in her corner she appeared clear-eyed and was fully cognizant of what her cornerman was saying. Here in-and-out movement returned. I gave Serrano round seven but she seemed to be running out of gas. Taylor got her second wind and won rounds 8 and 9 to even the fight on my card at 86-86, (I had round 4 even). Round ten was toe-to-toe, both women giving it all they had. Taylor got rocked a couple times and for me that was the margin of victory, 96-95 for Serrano. The judges didn’t see it that way, one going 96-94 for Taylor but the other two decisively for Taylor, 97-93 and 96-93. It was the type of fight with so many competitive rounds that different judges could have very different looking-cards and yet they saw the same fight. Punch count said that Serrano threw 624 punches to Taylor’s 375 which didn’t seem quite right. But Taylor landed 39% for 147 to 28% for 173, which seemed closer to the truth. I’d rate it the fight of the year so far, men or women. They will no doubt be fighting again. The Shakur Stevenson-Oscar Valdez fight was a one-sided disappointment. Stevenson was cleared bigger and stronger than Valdez and used a steady diet of jabs and left hooks to keep Valdez at distance, which allowed him to tee off on his smaller opponent. Valdez never dis solve to combination. He went down when he got turned around, lost his balance but got hit by a punch on his way into the ropes. The ref called it a knockdown, giving Shakur a 10-8 sixth round. Valdez eventually gave up trying to avoid Shakur’s bread and butter, just wading in to get off punches. It was a strategy that made the fight more competitive but did nothing to turn it around. I gave Valdez the third and 9th rounds with the sixth even but that was generous. Stevenson never lost control of the fight. Neither fighter had the other in trouble but Stevenson was unmarked while Valdez’s face was red from early in the fight and he got a cut on his cheek. My card was 118-111. The judges had it 117-100 and twice, 118-109. I don’t have the punch count. I don’t know what Valdez’ future is but it won’t include any victories over Stevenson, who seems headed for bigger things – and bigger opponents. The one thing missing for him is a knock-out punch. His punches sting but they don’t disable his opponent. [/QUOTE]

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