It’s Thursday and here we are with another heaping, healthy load of salty truth coming from the depths of my bulging sack. This week, we have comments/questions regarding Naoya Inoue, Canelo Alvarez, and Friday’s Times Square fails.
Weak (Cinnamon) Tea
Hey Magno.
I know William Scull ran and ran, but Canelo looked just as bad for not even trying to cut off the ring and force a fight. People will tend to blame Scull more for that garbage non-fight, but I put more of the blame on Canelo because we all knew Scull didn’t have a chance in an actual fight and that it would be up to Canelo to bring the entertainment. He didn’t do that and let this fight play out the way it did. Screw this guy, I hope Bud beats the brakes off him.
-- Sam from Houston
Hey Sam.
Yeah, both fighters deserve the blame, but this fight wouldn’t have happened if Canelo didn’t want it to happen. As he’s been saying for quite awhile now, he calls all the shots and can fight whoever he chooses. So, he needs to take most of the heat. On the DAZN pay-per-view telecast, Chris Mannix railed against the IBF for creating the opening for Canelo-Scull by stripping Canelo and making Scull’s championship reign possible. But Canelo didn’t need the fourth super middleweight belt to prove that he was the undisputed, real super middleweight champ. Everyone knows he’s the real champ. The Scull fight was given to him as a signing bonus for aligning himself with the Saudis and Turki Alalshikh. Canelo jumped at the soft-touch fight, but then half-assed it through the entire contest. If anything, this sort of showcases his mindset as an aging, beyond-jaded star with a raging case of entitlement. The fire isn’t there and it hasn’t been there for awhile. If he doesn’t find that fire before September, Terence Crawford is going to embarrass him.
Friday Night Snoozers
Hi Paul.
Rolly Romero is the only one getting any love from the NYC Times Square card in Friday, but even he really didn’t do all that much. Everyone stunk up the joint and everyone needs to be held accountable for their boring fights. There’s been a lot of speculation about why everyone flat-lined all at once, but I’d like to get your take on the why and also if they can win back the fan love after fights where they clearly showed they don’t care about the fans.
-- Chi-Town Fight Fan
Hey Chi-Town.
In the aftermath of those shit shows, a lot of people have been talking about fighters making too much money, fighting for paychecks, but I don’t think money necessarily has anything to do with it. I believe all of those fighters stunk up their fights for different reasons and the mass of nothingness just happened to be lumped together on back to back days.
Haney, who’s never exactly been an offensive dynamo, looked shell-shocked and still not in a very good mind space after his no contest beating at the hands of Ryan Garcia last year. Matched against an aged and slow-footed Ramirez, his jackrabbit caution looked even more off-putting.
As for Garcia? Who knows what’s going on in his head? He never really let his hands go against Romero and never stepped on the gas, even when he knew he may be behind in the fight. Could the reason be as simple as Romero keeping his right hand up all night, protecting from the left hook, and the infamously uncoachable Garcia not knowing how to create opportunities for that hook? Maybe. But, again, this is Ryan Garcia and it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.
Canelo, as I stated above, is just jaded and entitled. He’s at the point where he just won’t do what he doesn’t feel like doing-- and that goes for his fights as well.
I would hope that the market punishes these guys for lack of entertainment value by simply not purchasing their fights, rather than someone moving in (TKO Group) to restructure pay scales based on this “they make too much money” talking point.
Dissing Inoue?
Hey Paul.
Are we in the dumbest generation of boxing fans ever? Yeah, Naoya Inoue got dropped, but he helped put on a hell of a show and scored a stoppage rounds later in an exciting scrap with a very game Ramon Cardenas. Why do I go on social media and see people calling him a hype job and overrated? Boxing fans are dumb.
-- Shell
Hey Shell.
Social media amplifies everything. If you think that, back in the day, great fighters weren’t being called bums for suffering knockdowns or for comparatively poor performance, then you’re too young to have had any boxing conversations before social media. Fans did that all the time. It’s just the nature of fandom. As a kid, I remember hearing a lot of the fan bitching that now swarms the internet boxing world. Ultimately, fans will be fans and people should let them be fans in whatever way they like. People bitching also means people are watching.
Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.