Convicted Artist Magazine

This is a hard one for me, but I have quite a history of telling fans, writers, and bloggers alike not to allow their fandom to doctor their opinion.  Of course it will, and only published writers are ultimately held to any level of journalistic integrity, but it’s nice to see the effort made.  In this day of mass communication and information, an unbiased call of the action one has witnessed is what sets an intelligent, informed opinion apart from a glorified stadium sign-maker.

I was cheering for Pacquiao to defeat Marquez.  He did so.  However, there was quite the uproar, and I made sure to watch, and rewatch the fight, to see what my score was.  This is a practice in which I have engaged, ever since the Leonrad-Hagler match.  I watched that fight in real-time when I was 11 years old, and at least a dozen times since.  At first, I was defending my close scorecard, as many people at the time were saying Leonard clearly won.

People don’t like to admit that now, but as time has passed, Hagler’s legend has only grown since his retirement, while Leonard may have tarnished his a bit with subsequent performances.  In recent years, I have had to defend the fact that I had Leonard winning at all… which he did, and I still believe that.  I had Leonard by one point, but many people now say that Hagler won.  I had a similar score for Pacquiao-Marquez.  Manny by one point.  I have had to make sure, but I do believe that.

I have been wrong before, though, and ended up changing my mind.  This was the case for the Kessler vs. Froch match.  I was cheering for Mikkel Kessler, and had him winning by two points.  When I watched it again, I gave the fight to Carl Froch by two.  Froch has confused me a lot in his career, as his fight with Dirrell was another where I had to rescore.  I had Dirrell winning the first time, and scored it a draw the second time.

However, I am not going to bother doing this for the Khan-Peterson match.  I dealt with all my cognitive dissonance during the match itself.  I was watching Khan win a close fight that was scored improperly.  Period.  I was cheering for Lamont Peterson to win the big upset.  I did not even realize I was doing so until the match was progressing.  Peterson was engaging in a close fight… something we have not seen much of in Khan’s career (despite what the judges in the Maidana match scored), and soemthign we were not expecting in this fight.  Kudos to Golden Boy for allowing the hometown decision to go against them, something that has not been happening much lately, but a bad decision is what it was.

Peterson fought a decent fight, but was seemingly outfought by a little in most of the rounds.  I had the score that one judge turned in, 114-111.  Without the questionable refereeing, it was an 8-4 scorecard in rounds.  There should be a rematch, and it should be in Manchester/Bolton.  Peterson is a good fighter, who deserves a break, so I hope he enjoys this moment.  Winning a world title in your hometown is a great thing, and a great climax to the inspirational story of he and his brother Anthony.  I hope they are already writing the movie script, but lets be honest, he did not win this fight.

Chris Strait
www.convictedartist.com

Comments

Add New

Write comment

Name: Email:  do not notifynotify Title: UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge   Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.