He recently gave a review on the Harris/Lucas fight. Now this is his second, his original made no mention of the bad stoppage.

Does Dan watch all the fight he reviews or does he write his reviews based on word of mouth. This is definitely bad journalism if he does this but I will let you judge

http://espn.go.com/sports/boxing/blog/_/na...rrible-stoppage

Scroll down to the reader comments and read what they say about Rafael journalistic effort as it relates to this fight.

I'll cut him some slack,

Dan might have been sick or something. In fact, I had to You Tube this fight because I did not get it on any of my digital cable channels here. The You Tube video said HBO Latino, but the HBO Latino I had did not show it.

What's important to me is that when he finally did see the fight, or at least reported on it, his comments were reflected on what most others observed. I posted in the "BS Stoppage" thread a piece that talked about Harris' KO from a head-butt in his previous fight and the serious consequences of that. Many reporters may not have picked up on that.

It would have been a lot different if his report was totally different from what most witnessed. I did not get a chance to read his original commentary on the fight. What did that say?

Jack

This is what he originally wrote:


Welterweight
Lucas Matthysse TKO4 Vivian Harris
Records: Matthysse, 26-0, 24 KOs; Harris, 29-4-1, 19 KOs

Rafael's remark: Matthysse and former junior welterweight titleholder Harris were originally scheduled to fight Jan. 30 on the Shane Mosley-Andre Berto undercard. But when Mosley-Berto was canceled, Matthysse-Harris was rescheduled on one of Golden Boy's HBO Plus cards, which are televised throughout Latin America and South America. Argentina's Matthysse, 27, the brother of former welterweight title challenger Walter Matthysse, scored his most notable victory as he stopped the faded Harris. The fight was competitive until the fourth round. New York's Harris, 31, swelled Matthysse's right eye and Matthysse ripped Harris repeatedly with body shots. But in the fourth round, Matthysse went after Harris and eventually rocked him with a hard right hand, which prompted the referee to jump in to stop the bout. Harris and his camp complained about the quick stoppage. Harris' career continues to spiral downward as he fell to 1-2 with a no contest in his last four fights. In his last fight in August, Harris fought to a second-round no contest on ESPN2 against journeyman Noe Bolanos, a match that ended after Harris was on the receiving end of a severe accidental head butt that knocked him out. If Harris keeps fighting, it's probably not going to get much better than what has happened in his recent fights.

What specifically is fraudulent about what Mr. Rafael wrote?

The description above is an accurate portrayal of what I saw. Matthysse did rock Harris with a brutal right hand. Harris looked for a moment to be out on his feet.

While I agree that the stoppage smacked of corruption, nothing above is out of line with Rafael's more in depth commentary that followed. Harris certainly deserves a rematch, but there is no doubt that he HAS been on a downward spiral and that, given what I witnessed in his bout with Matthysse, he should be looking for another line of work if he intends to be speaking without a slur by the time he is 40.

In the initial writeup, he refers to it as a quick stoppage. He goes on to discuss in depth in a later article...what is the problem?

You were expecting a reason behind posting that? lmao.

Rafael is a favorite whipping boy for many boxing fans for whatever reason. Not always is there a reason needed.

I personally think the guy is a dick, just from some of the responses he gives in the boxing chats, but that's just my opinion. I like his notebooks and blogs and whatnot.

HERE IS DAN RESPONSE WHEN ASK YESTERDAY BY A FAN IN ONE OF HIS CHATS:

Brandon (San Diego)


Dan Im curious as to why there was no mention of Harris being the victim of bad officiating in the Weekend Wrap, yet you felt so strongly about it in your blog which was posted after the Weekend Wrap? Did you even watch the fight?


Dan Rafael
(1:15 PM)

Well in my weekend scorecard I wrote that Vivian was wobbled by a decent punch and that they complained about a bad stoppage. I thought it was sooooo bad that I expounded upon it far more detail the following day so I am not sure what your issue is. Of course I watched the fight. If you go to my blog I even linked the fight video to it so all Freaks could see it.

OK...so...what is the problem?

What he did - separating reporting and full opinion - is ok with me, but it's the answers like this that irks me off about this guy. He is always so defensive and gets p1ssed off when people don't agree with him.

This guy would be the worst boss you can have.

Dan Rafael is a big, fat, greasy, MAINSTREAM DOUCHE....I don't like OR respect him....same goes for The Ring too...I stopped reading that shit like 20 years ago....

I really don't care if it is or not, Beardo...lol...I weighed and measured him and found him to be full of shit a long time ago....

Yeah, but the question asked was whether or not he watched the fight. I would think that if you wanted to get on Rafael, there were far better examples than this.