Middleweight Excitemnt

The Middleweight division saw a lot of excitement this past season as the title changed hands three times Tournament winner Roberto Adonte lost the belt to Bartolo Penalba who then lost the title on his first defense to Ron Nicholson who then lost the belt to Tadesse Kagwa. Kagwa held on to the belt with a TKO win over Tomas Marin. The bigger excitement came from the two unbeatens for a shot at the title next year.  22-0-2(7) Ugandan monster Hizkaias Liyongo faced off with 17-0-2(4) New Zeleander Kiwi Brawler Trent Fourace in October to set the stage. Liyongo started off well but Fourace held on strong in the middle rounds but Liyongo connected with a strong hook followed with a devestating combo to knock down Fourace in the 9th round he recovered but got caught in another flurry of combos and the ref stopped the fight to give Liyongo a mandatory title match with Kagwa. Fourace also defeated Kagwa when he wasn't a title holder and despite the loss to Liyongo is expecting a title shot should Kagwa defeat Liyongo.  It is also no surprise that these three fighters are the top 3 middleweights. 

One more report from the Welterweight division and the 2013 yearbook will close. 

Yea Dalton didnt have a chance in that route....As for hockey I love teh sport in general. But I have a stuffed penguin that was initially meant for a 5yr old daughter of a lady I was interested in (before she moved to Washington state) I had him sit with me one night when a hockey game was on and he was hooked immediately. What really swing him was that the team that was playing was the Pittsburg Penguins. So now he had an entire hockey uniform with the Penguins a t shirt with teh Penguins championship season last year and a mini stanley cup. So I slant a bit towards the Penuings but loved game one of the finals as well lots of scoring hitting and other things. Still an overall hockey fan though follow a little bit of teh Lightning since they are my "home" team.

Well as promised and watching the hockey game as well. The Welterweight WBA division is LOADED with talent as noted above but the spotlight is on Zach Chapman ranked 4th in the WBA but sports one of the better records around with a 24-3-0(14)  the scouting report is dead on Zach Chapman deserves to be on the list of the greatest of all time in the welterweight division. He is in the prime of his career.

Chapman  is good at landing punches. He gets a lot of knockouts against good and bad boxers alike. He is aware of the value of a knockout. His favorite move is the good old 'one-two', but a smart boxer will also watch out for his hook. He is an excellent boxer who usually makes his opponent adjust to him rather than the other way around. He does better against boxers than sluggers.

Chapman  can evade punches pretty well. One of the chief aspects of his game is parrying shots and then countering them. He has a pretty solid chin. Sometimes he beats the count, sometimes he doesn't. Getting cut is not an issue with this boxer.

Chapman  can box or slug it out depending on who he's fighting.   He is decent at covering up after getting hit. 

Chapman  is a pretty good draw, especially in his home country. Mentally and physically, this fighter comes into the ring in peak shape the majority of the time. He will outlast most fighters in the late rounds. Has underrated boxing intellect and will follow his corner's instructions to a tee. A fairly aggressive fighter. A fast starter. Can absorb a good amount of punishment. He is a clean boxer, for the most part.

Update time

Sorry its been a while but new work and other matters have kept me pretty busy.

In the Lightweights the title has changed hands a few times this past sim year. Billy Loughrens opened up the year with a successful title defense  over Jorge Delgado but lost it to Ken McCormick via UD who then lost it to 2012 silver medalist Ukrainian Shurochka Novikevich via UD who then lost it to 2012 Gold Medalist George Halford via 4th rd KO in Russia with a Russian referee. Halford is #1 ranked overall and Novikevich is still ranked #2. Loughrens barely held on to his #3 organization rank to remain in the unified class.

In the featherweights it was all Mitchell Packwood but not without some serious controversy. His first defense of the year was a 10th rd TKO over Lenya Vtorygin on 1-5-14. Defeated Jonathan Fields via UD in his 3rd title defense of the year and recorded a 10th rd TKO over Francisco Guerra for his final title defense of the year. His second defense was under serious controversy. Irgen Kimotho defeated him after the Olympics in a 4 round bout and worked his way up the ranks to get a title shot at Packwood. In round one Packwood went down with a  shot under the ribcage and got up on the count of 6. Packwood rallied back in round two with combos and jabs and maintained the advantage in a non eventful 3rd round. Round 4 saw both fighters begin to feel each other out and landed equal blows for an even round. Packwood exploded in rounds five and six to send Kimotho reeling and held on long enough to make a small rally in the seventh round. Packwood easily took rounds 8 and 10 with Kimotho easily winning round 9. Round 11 the edge went to Packwood seeting up for a dramatic round 12. Packwood delivered a head butt 30 seconds in the round which fired up Kimotho and he went on to win the round. Now the judges scoring scoring had it totally different.  10-8 to Kimotho in round one naturally and 2-6 went to Packwood with a 10-10 in round 4. Kimotho won the 7th unanimously but then the controversy kicks in after that.  Packwood had a 10-3 point round but the judges saw it Kimotho by two judges and one had it in favor of Packwood. Round 9 was 10-13 in favor of Kimotho and two judges had it for Kimotho but the 3rd had it even. Round 10 went 11-3 in scoring to Packwood but one judge scored it 10-9 for Kimotho. Round 11 was 12-10 for Packwood but the judges were split 1-1-1 in the round. Round 12 was scored 12-5 (no foul point was deducted) and two judges had it for Kimotho but one had it going to Packwood. The final scoring was 113-115 Kimotho (he won rounds 8 and 10 on this scorecard) 116-114 for Packwood from the second judge (who scored it even in rounds 9 and 11). And judge 3 had it 114-114 with Kimotho winning rounds 8,9 and 11 and Packwood winning rounds 10 and 12) leaving the London fans in a state of near riot. Kimotho's and Packwood camps filed immediate protests with the scoring as both camps felt they won. None of the judges were from England.  The Unified committee reviewed it but let the draw stand and ordered a rematch in a NEUTRAL country between these two next year most likely in July since they fought in April.

In the heavyweights Brian Meyers held the title until April when he lost to Hayden Moore via UD and then went out to lose the next two bouts and his status in the unified division is severely questioned. Moore went on to a SD over Jimmy Gillon and ended the year avenging a DQ loss to Vonne Estiopia last year with an impressive 5th rd KO. There is an expected shakeup in the rankings as only 5 fighters are in the top 10 rankings with the remainder 13th or lower ranked. Two fighters expected to move up is Canadian David Poor (21-2-2 (6)) and Brazil's Elias Godim (19-2-3(7)) both were in the 2012 Olympics.

Over in the heavyweight division South African Said Kipkoech needed only three rounds to KO  Emerick Bernotti to win the unified title and retained it with four straight successful defenses but not without controversy. In April he fought Englander Fergus Puddy to a majority draw and recorded a split decision over Baptiste Leduc before returning to his KO ways needing 10 rounds for a TKO over Heinrich Freeh. With the win the WBA will be selecting  Australian's first gold medal champion Robert Puckeridge in the upcoming draft. The WBO will be selecting S. African Duecha Wandaba while the IBF will be drafting Chilean bronze medalist  Alex Florez and the WBC will take Ukrainian bronze medalist and draw specialist Bodhan Pesterov (8-1-6(1)). Five of his draws came in Olympic qualifying. 

In the Lightweights. George Halford's 5 title bout win streak came to an end against a revengeful  German Hernandez who lost his title shot in 2015 in his home country of Columbia only to win it in April 2016 via 6th rd TKO. Hernandez made two easy title defenses to give the WBC first draft pick of Scottish gold medal champion John Miekle. WBO will get China silver medalist Tzu-jao Lei while the WBC will get Belgium bronze medalist Giel Groenendaal and the IBF will get Russian bronze medalist  Seriozha  Lyagachev. Laos' Cao Minh once won 13 bouts straight and is currently on an 11 bout win streak is expected to get a shot at the title in 2017.

In the Middleweights it was the year of upsets in 2016 as Alonzo Martinez won the unified title via UD over Tadahisa Hasegawa only to lose it one bout later to American and lightly regarded Carl Wood. Wood would make a successful title defense in Philadelphia winning by UD and giving the WBA the right to draft  Belgium gold medalist Noah de Roode. IBF will take Canadian silver medalist Tim Danton while the WBC will select Japanese bronze medalist Akira  Yamashita and the WBO will take  New Zealander bronze medalist Rex Gray.

Well I have finally started on the 2017 year and just started in the flyweight seeing how the older fighters would fare (or how long they will go before retiring) and I came across this one little bout that deserves special mention.

Eddie Hammond traveled to Manila to fight  local Jose Resuena in a 4 round bout which got little attention from the fans in attendance but erupted in a massive street party when Resuena knocked out Hammond in the first round for his FIRST EVER CAREER PRO WIN!!!! Until that special night Resuena was on a 22 consecutive losing streak and came into the bout at 0-25-1. Hammond was slightly better at 22-21-18. The KO was his second in his last three bouts and is expected to retire after the 2018 season. One boxer that did retire though was Russian  Vladislav Kamyshnikov who went to the Olympics in 2012 losing to Mitchell Packwood in the first round and went into obscurity after that never getting out of the free agent pool but finished with a record  37-9-11(1) going 4-1-1 and winning his last two in a row final bouts. Another fighter making his swan song in 2018 is Lenya Vtorygin who just kept on going in 2017 reeling off five straight wins and now has a record of 29-8-9(4) to make him the winner of the Brett Farve die hard award.