Irresponsible, half-baked, boxing takes: Joe Joyce vs Daniel Dubois, Spence vs Garcia
I was right but nobody heard about it
Alright people, the title says it all. This is the first of many irresponsible, half-baked, boxing takes and it will read like word vomit, because it is. Let’s get started!
First, a question: if a slow Heavyweight underdog wins, but no one saw me predict it, did it really happen?
Obviously yes, but the point is I called last weeks fight! Last Saturday was the big Heavyweight face-off between two of the UK’s most promising contenders.
— An aside. Boxing has 3-4 terms for a boxer based on where they are at in their career. A “prospect” is a fighter just starting out who has the talent to potentially be a champion one day. A “contender” is that same talented boxer, but who has many quality fights under their belt and are maybe a few fights away from getting to challenge for a championship belt. Obviously, a “champ” is one who holds a belt, and a “journeyman” is a skilled, veteran fighter who doesn’t look like they’ll get a belt, but nonetheless are gate keepers who prospects and contenders need to beat before they get a title shot. Ok, back to our main, scheduled, programming. —
The match up was between the younger, quicker, seemingly harder hitting Daniel Dubois against the older, more experienced, taller Joe Joyce. Everyone and their mother was picking Dubois, the odds favorite, to win (the brits were split more evenly, to their credit), saying that he was going to be too quick and explosive for Joyce. On top of that, people were being lil hedger hedgersons, saying “it’s a 50/50 fight,” before giving a list of reasons why “lumbering” Joe Joyce was too slow and got hit too often to be able to last with Dubois.
I will agree Joyce is slow. He reminds me of a softer hitting George Foreman, the way he plods through the ring and pressures you into submission. I don’t know exactly why, but when I first saw him fight a year ago I remember thinking, “hey that guys not bad.” He lacked a “schtick” but was good at everything, even if he was a little slow. I never had that thought about Dubois, except for the physical power he had. Anyways, I picked Joyce to take Dubois into the later rounds and make him quit. And boy, did he ever.
If you don’t really watch boxing, you should watch this one! Many boxing fights can be boring and technical, but this was an exciting grudge-match.
Joyce’s jab landed so many times to Dubois’ left eye that it swelled shut and split his orbital bone… that is not a common occurrence in boxing, just FYI. That is some rare, terminator shit.
It’s the ultimate irony since Dubois made a distasteful comment about Joyce’s blind mother, to her face, during their press conference before the fight. It was an awkward, out of character moment for two people who could not be bigger stereotypes of polite, British fighters speaking the Queen’s english (lookin at you, Lennox Lewis).
Luckily Dubois took a knee as soon as his left eye was starting to bother him, the ref counted him out of the fight, and Joyce walked away with the TKO win, a step closer to a world championship fight. Professional boxers everywhere cried foul, blasting Dubois for quitting during his biggest opportunity — until the broken orbital bone news came out. It’s good to know there’s a limit to boxing psychopathy, fighters will stop at blindness. That’s a good line to have.
So now I’m keeping count! There is now going to be a “win-loss” counter for each week’s post on bad boxing takes. The opportunist that I am, I’m starting it with a win, so here it is:
Irresponsible prediction tally: 1 - 0
Undefeated, baby! (For now…)
Errol Spence vs Danny Garcia (Dec 5th)
Briefly, I wanted to make a prediction for the big fight this weekend between the unified welterweight champion (“unified” because he has two of the four possible belts, which is hard to do) Errol Spence and top welterweight/former champion Danny Garcia.
This should also be an exciting fight. Expect Errol to come forward and try and wear down Danny with volume punching, mixed with some smart boxing pot-shots. Danny will probably be moving back, trying to counter Errol with big shots.
The stereotype with Danny is that he’s a really talented, hard hitting, underachiever. He’s fallen short in all his recent fights with the top welterweights not because they are necessarily better than him. When the fight is close, and in the last two rounds, instead of “going for it” he usually coasts. No dramatic sprint to the end, no risk taking. He’ll have to do it this time with his toughest challenge to date in Errol Spence, who is looking to take all four belts at welterweight on his quest to being the pound-for-pound best in the world.
Ultimately, I think Errol is going to out-punch and outbox Danny. I don’t think he’ll be able to knock Danny out, but I see him fighting through Danny’s hard counters to get on the inside and do some damage.
Irresponsible prediction submitted: Errol wins by decision.