Article posted at boxingnews24:
“He had a good defense, but defense isn’t enough to win a fight,” Roach said. And that basically summed up the whole Pacquiao-Clottey Affair. The Event was – no small thanks to Clottey – uneventful.
His defense was too good for his own good. There was madness in his method. The method to his madness, however, was lost in that air-tight defense. Impenetrable as it was that almost nothing went in, nothing also went out. Clottey honed his defensive mastery to the extreme, almost possum-like, but thoroughly forgot that boxing also required a lot of punching in order to win.
Joshua Clottey was a caricature of a boxer that night – too bad to be real and too real to be believable.
That, however, just proved a point that The Event was never about the punching bag that was Clottey. It was, after all, about the whirlwind of a man in his opposite corner.
Perhaps that was also the reason Clottey appeared comical – not quite as being held down by the weight of his inneptitude but by the approaching onslaught that appeared to be perpetual. Across him was a man who’s really that good – make it great. At times a blur but almost always an exclamation point of force, Pacquiao was (in Clottey’s mind) one punch away from knocking him down.
Of course Clottey never went down. He was never knocked out. Nobody is expected to knock out a punching bag. Not even Pacquiao. And not even in Dallas.
The Event was a one man show. And we could not blame Pacquiao when it turned out a bore because in boxing, as in dance, it takes two to tango.
In Clottey’s defense – all pun intended – he’s also not entirely at fault. He was simply outclassed. (Big time because it happened in Dallas where, you know, everything’s big.) His failure to perform could be attributed to Pacquiao’s performance. Pacquiao, after all, is such a great fighter known to make even elite fighters look mediocre, if not downright bad. Why should Clottey be the exception?
Clottey was standing when the final bell rung. That must be, in Clottey’s mind, an accomplishment by itself. With Pacquiao’s recent run of havoc, it must indeed be. Congrats to Clottey also but we don’t want more of that.
“He had a good defense, but defense isn’t enough to win a fight,” Roach said of Clottey. He might as well have said it to goad another fighter.
The Event, for all its pomp and glory, was found wanting. It all goes back now to the fight we truly wanted. Everything now depends on Mayweather. If he survives Mosley and answers the call, he could – in spite of himself – really save boxing.
His defense was too good for his own good. There was madness in his method. The method to his madness, however, was lost in that air-tight defense. Impenetrable as it was that almost nothing went in, nothing also went out. Clottey honed his defensive mastery to the extreme, almost possum-like, but thoroughly forgot that boxing also required a lot of punching in order to win.
Joshua Clottey was a caricature of a boxer that night – too bad to be real and too real to be believable.
That, however, just proved a point that The Event was never about the punching bag that was Clottey. It was, after all, about the whirlwind of a man in his opposite corner.
Perhaps that was also the reason Clottey appeared comical – not quite as being held down by the weight of his inneptitude but by the approaching onslaught that appeared to be perpetual. Across him was a man who’s really that good – make it great. At times a blur but almost always an exclamation point of force, Pacquiao was (in Clottey’s mind) one punch away from knocking him down.
Of course Clottey never went down. He was never knocked out. Nobody is expected to knock out a punching bag. Not even Pacquiao. And not even in Dallas.
The Event was a one man show. And we could not blame Pacquiao when it turned out a bore because in boxing, as in dance, it takes two to tango.
In Clottey’s defense – all pun intended – he’s also not entirely at fault. He was simply outclassed. (Big time because it happened in Dallas where, you know, everything’s big.) His failure to perform could be attributed to Pacquiao’s performance. Pacquiao, after all, is such a great fighter known to make even elite fighters look mediocre, if not downright bad. Why should Clottey be the exception?
Clottey was standing when the final bell rung. That must be, in Clottey’s mind, an accomplishment by itself. With Pacquiao’s recent run of havoc, it must indeed be. Congrats to Clottey also but we don’t want more of that.
“He had a good defense, but defense isn’t enough to win a fight,” Roach said of Clottey. He might as well have said it to goad another fighter.
The Event, for all its pomp and glory, was found wanting. It all goes back now to the fight we truly wanted. Everything now depends on Mayweather. If he survives Mosley and answers the call, he could – in spite of himself – really save boxing.
January 11th, 2010
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