NOTED fight doctor Dr. Margaret Goodman once opined that a mismatch was like pornography. You don?t know how to describe it, but you know it when you see one.
Last Sunday?s experiment was indeed a mismatch but not in the way most fight scribes (including this writer), boxers, and trainers thought it would play out.
TWO FACTORS. People are asking me how the fight could have turned into a horrible mismatch in favor of our ?Pambansang Kamao.?
A mismatch occurs when one fighter is so superior than the other in all aspects that the fight ceases to be competitive. Therefore, the formula calls for two ingredients mixed together to create a fight like the lopsided one we witnessed last Sunday.
It?s often not enough for one fighter to be so good, the other also has to be painfully inept. For if two fighters showed up at their best, theoretically, what we would get is a good two-way contest.
During the ?Dream Match?Manny Pacquiao was so dominant that he later admitted to holding back his offensive assault out of pity for the ?Golden Boy? of boxing.
For his part, de la Hoya conspired to create the mismatch by showing up weak, lethargic and totally helpless against the Pacman?s brutal attacks.
Manny?s fans can argue that it was what Manny did that made the fight so lopsided; but you have to admit, that wasn?t the Oscar de la Hoya we have seen in the past. In all his previous losses, he was fiercely competitive, even in that knockout loss to Bernard Hopkins.
But last Sunday, he could not even win a single round. (The Last Round had it 80-71).
On the other hand, de la Hoya fans can counter that it was his age and his failure to make the weight that affected his performance. But you have to give Manny credit for fighting so masterfully and perfectly executing a brilliantly hatched strategy.
Not only that, he was able to carry his speed and weight well into the welterweight division.
DOING IT WRONG. Speaking of de la Hoya, I couldn?t help recalling what I wrote in my column last week. I opined that his camp was doing it wrong by having Oscar maintain a very low weight throughout training.
The guy probably walks around in the 160-170-lb range. And he rarely fights nowadays. By shocking his body into maintaining weight to around the mid 140s, he was training weak, not strong. At that time, it was probably perceived as a brilliant strategy, but it was actually a gamble likely to blow up in their faces come fight night.
Moreover, he gained only around two pounds by fight time, which is not his norm de guerre. Last Rounder John Pope ([email protected]) weighs in on this matter:
?I think you should prepare a fighter in a way that emphasizes his strengths vis-a-vis his opponent. I would have thought this would mean that Oscar would come in at the 147-pound limit then put on five to seven pounds by fight time. This would make him a bigger, stronger fighter by fight time. This is his strength. Instead, it looked like he was training to try to match Pacquio in speed which isn?t going to happen.?
But Freddie Roach?who predicted everything to turn out the way he prophesied it to be?summarized it best when he said: ?He was preparing to make the weight. We were preparing for the fight.?
SHS AMAZING RACE. Calling all SHS-B Alumni. Let?s join the SHS ?Amazing Race? on Dec. 27, at the new campus. There will be three members per team (mixed gender/mixed batch). Please e-mail [email protected] for registration and details. Last team to arrive may be eliminated.
Let me take this opportunity to alert Batch ?89. Guys, please attend our meeting and Christmas Party this Friday 7 p.m. at Atty. Wilbert Dumon?s house at Lahug. We will discuss our entry for the ?Amazing Race? and other concerns.
LAST ROUND. It?s on Pureza ?Ampog? Mangubat who recently celebrated her birthday. Cheers!
