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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4272854, member: 289"] I wasn't sure I'd fork up the money for the Gervonta Davis- Rolando Romero fight, which they put on pay-per view rather than regular Showtime. I could always watch a replay. I'm waiting for the big confrontations in the lightweight division, and this didn't seem like one of them. But I did some research and found that both of these guys were unbeaten with combined records of 40-0 with 36 knockouts and it was a grudge match, (or at least they hyped it up into one), with predictions of first round knockouts, including and advertised prop bet of $5,000 for a knockout occurring in the first 50 seconds. I'm not a betting man but I thought I should see this live. Before it came on, I watched Erislandy Lara dispatch one Gary O'Sullivan, who had a splendid moustache but no defense. Lara, a veteran middleweight who I saw upset Jarrett Hurd back in 2018, hit O'Sullivan with straight shot after straight shot, often staggering him. O'Sullivan went down once and I thought the fight was over but the bell had sounded and he was able to get up and get some rest and attention. later he was again staggered at the bell for the 7th round, expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the 8th round and when he was against staggered and retreated to the ropes, the refs stopped it. I had a friend who did some collegiate boxing once and gave up on the sport due a distaste for the feel sound when he hit someone's head with a good shot. "It was like punching a head of cabbage". That's what Lara's shots sounded like as the intersected with O'Sullivan's nogging. Still, he left the ring on his feet, moustache and pride in tact. Romero was bigger and looked heavier and more muscular than Davis. He came out first and stomped around the ring, glaring at it as if to say "This is mine - I own it!". Davis was quiet and seemed concerned with the challenge. Both fighters respected each other's power so much that it became a strategical fight, not the pier six brawl the hype suggested. They both seemed to be waiting to counter each other, Romero reach out with a range-finder jab, (which seemed aimed at Davis' right glove) and Davis floating like a butterfly but not stinging like a bee. At the end of the round Davis shouted at Romero, something about how he didn't get the first round knockout he'd been predicting. Both men were looking to get in the one shot that could win the fight, or at least turn it in their direction. Davis seemed to be having trouble with Romero's reach while Romeo had trouble finding Davis. But he did land a couple of looping left hooks in the second round and roughly threw Davis to the ground after one of them. It was not a knockdown but it made Davis even more cautious and may have even injured him as a few rounds later he tried to throw his left but winced in pain, (they never asked him after the fight if he was hurt). The fight continued with Davis moving in and out and sideways, looking for an angle and Romero, from an erect stance, trying to set something up off the jab. there were no combinations. Both were waiting for the other to make a mistake and run into a punch and that's what happened. I thought Davis might have been more vulnerable to this as one of his defensive maneuvers was to duck under Romero's punches. But it was Romero who, near the end of the 6th round, lunged too far forward to deliver a blow and got a counter left, (which Davis said he didn't even throw all that hard), hit him right in the schnozz. he stiffened up and fell face first against the ropes, which spun him over. he was able to get up but didn't seem to know what was going on and his legs were spaghetti so the ref stopped it. It looked exactly like the ending of the last Marquez-Pacquiao fight except that Manny hit the floor face-first and was out cold. Romero was helped to the dressing room by his father but still didn't seem to know quite what had happened. Davis said that he wants nothing but big money fights from now on. Names like Kambosis, Haney, Garcia and Lomachenko were mentions. (Where is Teo Lopez?). He might want to avoid taller fighters. Davis also made the mistake of describing himself as "a glock with no safety". Jim Gray tried to school him a bit on public relations. Davis certainly holds one title: he looked like the most tatooed man I've ever seen. [/QUOTE]

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