TalkingBoxing Articles
When The Weather Report is Wrong
MON May 1, ROGER GORDILLO - We’ve all experienced it before you hear a report of an oncoming weather change and plan accordingly only to be left waiting like an uninvited girl hoping to receive a prom date. Unfortunately for me I was the Nicolas Cage (The Weatherman) at fault this time.
After all, if all us sportswriters were right all the time we wouldn’t write, we‘d be sitting at the sportsbook at the MGM making thousands daily.
In what had the makings of an intriguing must win fight for both fighters it seems that someone forgot to tell the two combatants that failure was not an option. In fact the fight was such a let down that I didn’t even bother to score the rounds. With both fighters in and out odd angled lunging forward technique one thing became apparent it was going to be a long night.
Frietas looked to fight and all though his output was like nothing of recent past fights; Frietas would bring the fight to Raheem for most of the fight swinging hard and wide although missing a large amount of his total shots. As Frietas swung Raheem would go through the fight diving towards Frietas waist and hold on to it like a child not wanting his father to leave to work. One thing I left out in the final edit of my previous story in the mental make up section of it. Was that Raheem is just one of those guys that always looks unsure of himself or fearful. I don’t know exactly what it is but there’s just something about them that I can see in their eyes, something that tells me when the going gets tough they might fall apart. I saw it in Tyson, Michael Moore, Golota, Michael Grant, McCline, etc. etc. and I see it in Raheem. Call me crazy as often times people can’t see it but for me I’ve always had an uncanny gift for reading people and no matter how many times I’ll tell somebody something about a persons character and no matter how many times they say nah or are you sure or I don’t think so it never shocks me when they eventually say man you were right!
Frietas was not without sin during their encounter as the Brazilian held and held tightly as Raheem did when hit squarely. Raheem was effective in a few rounds but it seemed to help that Frietas had taken a back seat role as Raheem stepped in as the driver. The one factor that I really think lost the fight for Raheem was his jab or therefore lack of it. If you look back at his fight with Erik Morales it was his jab that led to everything. He would double even triple jab his way to some beautiful combination punching all night.
But with no jab what so ever Raheem allowed Frietas to come in unopposed and never kept him back having to make him search for openings in zahir’s offense so he could attack.
In the sixth round when Raheem pushed Frietas to the floor flagrantly it was obvious that a point should have been deducted. It was something that was so apparent you could read it in Raheem’s body language as he knelt to the ground begging for forgiveness with his hands locked as in prayer towards the referee (that’s a little look into reading people).
As the bout came to an end everyone was aware that the match could have been interpreted in several ways. To me I saw it as neither man was dominant or impressive. Frietas seemed to press the action more outworking Raheem if you would. And while in hindsight Raheem landed more than his opponent, it was Frietas that landed the harder more effective shots. Something that was apparent on Raheem’s face and that isn’t always easily distinguishable especially when you have two fighters with two different pigments. By no means do I think Raheem was afraid of Popo or his pop he simply just didn’t do what he had to and what I knew he could do. You know the scenario you’re sitting in front of the boob tube screaming at your guy let your hands go!
So am I being hard on Raheem? By no means in fact I picked Raheem to win while essentially sensing that Frietas had although a good one, he basically had only a punchers chance to win. But for the record I wanted the Brazilian to win merely on the fact that this was the best thing for boxing. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a nice guy. Before all the uproar starts against me being a Popo fan I will say this in his next bout against an aggressive top level guy not even necessarily a puncher, I think Frietas gets stopped.
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