Boxing Challenge: Crawford stops Brook

Photo: Mikey Williams-Top Rank

        Terence Crawford may not be facing the best welterweights in the world, through no fault of his own, but against the opposition that is facing Crawford is showing why the elite fighters in his division have shown such reticence to meet him in the ring.

Crawford took a few rounds to figure out former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook and then took Brook out in the fourth round in a manner that enhanced his standing as the best finisher in the sport.

Crawford's fourth round right hand spun Brook into (and almost through) the ropes and his resulting hop away brought to my mind the desperate leap by Joe Frazier against George Foreman in 1973.

After the knockdown was declared, Brook attempted to continue but with Crawford jumping on him and scoring with another strong right hand, Brook was fortunate to have the fight ended before serious injury occurred.

For Kell Brook, the time appears right to walk away from boxing for a once-excellent boxer.

Unless the UK-lusted for fight with Amir Khan can be signed, I don't see a lot of reasons for Brook to continue fighting.

A Khan fight would bring a sizable payday and not a lot of danger, so I can see making that fight, but otherwise I don't see the point.

Terence Crawford was the best welterweight in the world entering this fight and I believe he left this fight at the same level.

Errol Spence has a legitimate claim to the same title, but with promotional issues involved a fight that needs to be made looks unlikely.

Mainly because it appears that both see more money to be made by fighting a 42 year old Manny Pacquiao in the Middle East somewhere.

Both Crawford and Spence would be favored to win such a fight and enrich themselves doing it, but the best fight is with each other.

It appears to be possible that Crawford may have to leave Top Rank to meet Spence (Although all bets are off if Danny Garcia upsets Spence in December) and I'm fine with that, if that's what it takes to make the fight, but it shouldn't be this hard to put the best against the best- yet boxing always finds a way.

Speaking of boxing always finding a way, there was the co-feature in which boxing botched another one.

In Andrew Moloney's rematch vs Joshua Franco, Moloney dominated the first two rounds and appeared to close Franco's eye shut with his jab.

However, referee Russell Mora ruled the eye was swollen by a headbutt, but no worries as Nevada has installed an instant replay program to avoid these travesties.

BUT this is boxing and after a twenty minute delay for a national television audience and countless reviews from the ESPN truck, the Nevada officials decided not to overturn Mora's mistake and ruled the fight a no-contest to deprive Moloney of a deserved win.

Only in boxing.

In the boxing challenge, I added two points to Ramon Malpica's one and move the season total to 158-148.

Boxing Challenge

  A soft weekend in boxing as far as depth is salvaged by an appearance by arguably the best fighter in the world on somewhat free ( you do pay for cable after all) television from ESPN and Top Rank.

Terence Crawford defends his WBO welterweight title against former IBF champion Kell Brook in a heavily anticipated fight- If this was 2016.

At that time, Brook was possibly the best welterweight in the world, having a decisive win over Shawn Porter ( that holds to this day, as Brook's win was far more authoritative than later wins by Keith Thurman and Errol Spence) and few wanted to face Brook.

That was before his gutsy, but questionable decision to face middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, in which he was stopped and suffered a broken orbital bone, and a title defense against Errol Spence that saw him fight well and take a lead before another broken orbital bone and stoppage loss. Since losing to Spence, Brook has won three in a row at junior middleweight against weaker competition and hasn't looked good doing it.

Combine all of that for Brook along with fighting at a weight that he hasn't seen in years with the skills of Crawford and this looks like an easy fight to call.

I can see Brook winning some rounds early as Crawford doesn't always start fast, but Crawford should break him down and finish him in the middle to late rounds.

The co-feature is a junior bantamweight rematch from an ESPN bubble fight earlier this fight with Joshua Franco battling Andrew Moloney for a minor title.

Franco surprised Moloney (and Top Rank) in winning a unanimous decision that Franco won (on two cards) only because of an eleventh round knockdown, but deserved to be far wider in my opinion.

Moloney was in deep trouble in the eleventh and had the fight been ended in the round, I don't think many would have objected, but Moloney finished as well as he could for a fighter with two busted eardrums and Moloney exercised his rematch clause immediately after.

In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 156-147

WBO Welterweight Title. 12 Rds

Terence Crawford vs Kell Brook

R.L:  Crawford Unanimous Decision
TRS: Crawford KO 9

Junior Bantamweights. 12 Rds

Joshua Franco vs Andrew Moloney

Both: Franco Unanimous Decision

PPM

  It's a Covid-19 crippled college schedule as the pandemic wave continues to get higher, but at the PPM- we deal with what's on the schedule and not with what should be!

Last Week: 7-3

Overall: 54-23

College

Boise State over Colorado State 45-17

Marshall over Middle Tennessee State 39-17

Houston over South Florida 37-21

Texas Tech over Baylor 34-32

N.C. State over Florida State 28-24

Georgia Southern over Texas State 31-14

Game of the Week

Purdue over Northwestern 30-28

Pro

Browns over Texans 34-30

Saints over 49ers 36-28

Game of the Week

Seahawks over Rams 37-31

Covid cancels Buckeyes trip to Maryland

 The Ohio State Buckeyes will have to shrug adversity off like Big Bubba Rogers taking a Dusty Rhodes chair shot as their visit to College Park, Maryland has been canceled with the ugly head of Covid-19 making an appearance with the Maryland program with several members being unable to participate in the game safely.

Ohio State will return a week from Saturday at home against the currently undefeated Indiana Hoosiers in a game that surprisingly could determine the East Division title and accompanying trip to Indianapolis.

A few words about the Covid crisis that is returning to the country with a roar.

I'm becoming more and more negative on many things involving Covid-19.

I'm extremely skeptical that we are going to see the college football season come to its conclusion and if it should, I think it is likely that there will be controversy over the four selected teams.

Ohio State started late and now has lost a game, will that cost them a spot, and should it?

Alabama is losing their game this weekend vs LSU, and there are already rumblings after Notre Dame's upset of Clemson (Minus Trevor Lawrence) that the SEC and ACC should each send two teams and to hell with any other qualifiers.

Granted, this is the usual M.O. of ESPN's Heather Dinich, who spoons out this garbage every year it seems ( Before you hit me as a chauvinist, the definition of equal treatment is being able to say someone is liked or disliked regardless of an outside reason), but it is going to result in controversy no matter how things tumble out.

Bill Landis of the Athletic offered this scenario, which is not farfetched in this environment.

Indiana defeats Michigan State on Saturday.

Next week's Indiana visit to Columbus is canceled.

Both teams run the table with Indiana winning the East at 8-0 to Ohio State's 7-0 and the Hoosiers play in the Big Ten title game.

Indiana wins that game (vs either Wisconsin or Northwestern of this writing) and yet it's Ohio State that gets the ticket to the playoffs.

Imagine that uproar- Do you take the better team that had a game (or two) canceled or the team that did finish the season undefeated, but did so likely because their game with team A was canceled?

Especially when the argument could be made that one team is always in the hunt and the other would be in the middle of a once in every forty years season.

What it's going to take to finish this season is the bubble version of housing teams and college football just isn't set to handle that with college students.

Perhaps they could do it if they make it to the final four teams, but nothing more than that.

The NFL can make it because they have the type of money that they can sequester teams in their town, bus players to the hotel to practice, and otherwise only leave a controlled area when they travel to a road game.

I'm also skeptical that basketball and hockey are going to start on-time and even more skeptical that either league will see more than maybe a scattering of fans for their games.

The NHL with a weaker television package and relying so much more than the other leagues on the gate revenue could be in the biggest danger zone of all, but the NBA isn't out of the woods.

Even boxing, which has handled things well thus far, could be in some danger of shutting down under certain conditions, should interstate travel become restricted.

No matter the side of the political side of the street that you reside on, I fail to see how the country has handled this crisis even close to an average manner, and the lack of empathy by so many boggles my mind.

As our country craves a return to normalcy on so many topics, the irony is this- we so desperately want our day to day life to be what it once was, but many don't want to pay a small fee such as wearing a mask.

Until the steps are taken by both the leaders and their followers to finish the job, we may not have a normal life for quite a while.

Cleaning out the Inbox

   Time to clean out the inbox before it gets too full and this time it will be a mixed bag between sports and non-sports to fill the outgoing tray.

We start with Chefbot.

Chefbot, who besides reminding me of the claymation characters of the 60s and 70s, is a new feature from the Kroger grocery chain on Twitter.

Chefbot is a product of a program to help with food waste by giving you recipes for three food items that you tweet a picture showing those items.

My attempt with Chefbot didn't go well

as Chefbot "saw" my picture of a potato, cheese, and sausage and "saw" it as "chicken, bread, and nut".

Oh, well.

The Atlantic's Megan Garber writes of almost everyone's favorite character from the television show "The Office" Dwight Schrute with a comprehensive breakdown of the character and how he relates to just about anything in the country today.

I cannot really do it justice except to say, if you are a fan of the show, this is a must-read.

The Athletic glances back at the Sam Wyche-Jerry Glanville feud of the 1980s when the head coaches of the Bengals and Oilers despised each other in the manner that you don't see anymore in football.

Wyche was a backup quarterback with the Lions with Glanville as the special teams coach and blamed Glanville for having a key role in his release.

Fast forward to 1989 and Wyche's Bengals relentlessly ran the score up on Glanville's Oilers with the Bengals using an onside kick leading 45-0, throwing the ball all through the fourth quarter, running a fake reverse, and finally with seconds remaining- calling a timeout so kicker Jim Breech could kick a field goal for a 61-7 final score.

The article writes about the other AFC Central (At the time) coaches in Cleveland's Marty Schottenheimer and Pittsburgh's Chuck Noll with their various divisional spats.

It's a terrific read if you enjoy looking back at a fun time in football.

I found an older article from Long Island's "Newsday" in 2018, which looks at the two seasons that the New York Giants spent playing away from the New York/New Jersey area at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut in 1973 and 1974. 

The "football" Giants had always shared Yankee Stadium, but when Yankee Stadium was closed for two years for its first renovation and the first Giants Stadium was starting to be in the works of being built, the Giants needed a place to play.

Shea Stadium wasn't offered as an option until 1975, which the Giants grabbed for their final season before Giants Stadium was competed, so it was off to the Yale Bowl with all the problems that come with a sixty year old facility ( and this was for 1973 standards) complete bathrooms outside the stadium, tremendous traffic jams, two locker rooms for each team because they weren't large enough to fit the entire team and more.

We wrap with a link from the Bobblist, a blog that covers bobbleheads and the people that collect them.

Recently, the blog noted the collection of my friend Brad Adams.

The article talks to Brad about his personal collection, how he started collecting, what he continues to collect, and the measures that he can go to add to his collection.

I really laughed when I read Brad's comparison to hunting from a conversation with his dad because I've compared it to hunting myself in a different context!

Buckeyes take sloppy win over Rutgers 49-27

 Ohio State was expected to dust the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and they were never threatened in a 49-27 victory.

However, the win wasn't a perfect one as the Buckeyes were far from smooth and Rutgers did take advantage of some sloppy play in the win, so this wasn't a machine-like win.

Justin Fields completed 24 of 28 passes for 314 yards and five touchdowns and Garrett Wilson led the skill players with six catches and 104 yards with a touchdown.

The now 3-0 Buckeyes will travel to College Park on Saturday against a suddenly resurgent Maryland club.

Since this is two days late, I'm going to cut this a bit shorter than usual.

Olentangy Offerings

1) Greg Schiano knows the Buckeyes personnel very well from his time in Columbus and that's why I am not as bothered as some with a 22 point win over the usual weak sister from New Jersey.

When the coach knows the personnel that well, it's a huge advantage.

2) Schiano also earns kudos for his gimmick plays and throwing everything against the wall with his outmanned squad.

Schiano used onside kicks, reverses, going for two point conversions several times, and several other plays that at least showed Rutgers was trying to win.

That's the type of entertaining football that could attract recruits to a flagging program.

3) Justin Fields has more touchdowns than incomplete passes on the season.

After three games...

4) Tackling is still a little sloppy, especially from the defensive backs and that will have to improve against a Maryland squad with talent at the skill positions.

Miss a tackle against the Terrapins and it can go to the house.

5) Some are concerned about the running game and the lack of breakaway threats, but there could be one looming in the distance.

DeMario McCall had one carry for 27 yards and showed the speed to do more with the ball.

McCall has never seemed to have won over the coaching staff and I'm not sure that will do the trick either.

Still, I'd like to see more.

I've been busy this weekend and now three days late, I figured I'd cut this shorter than usual

Boxing Challenge: Haney decisions Gamboa

   Devin Haney didn't prove anything unexpected in his unanimous decision win over Yuriorkis Gamboa, but he did retain his WBC lightweight title in a dominant fashion in Hollywood, Florida.

Haney landed more and connected with some heavy shots but never seemed close to ending the fight by stoppage and never knocked down Gamboa, who had been stopped in the final round of his previous fight by Gervonta Davis.

Haney hadn't fought in close to a year (two days shy) after shoulder surgery and the inactivity did show, as, despite his effectiveness in the bout, Haney didn't land as many punches as in past fights.

Gamboa tried his best against Haney and even threw more punches than the far younger man, but at 38 Gamboa appears to be finished as a serious challenge to the best fighters in the division.

I scored Haney a 120-107 winner, winning every round with Gamboa losing a point in the eleventh round for holding.

Devin Haney is a very talented young fighter, but he seems to be a step ahead of where he should be in his career.

Haney has not lost a round in his last two fights, but both went the entire twelve round distance, he scored only one knockdown in those rounds (against Alberto Santiago), and with Gamboa's history of being knocked down (and three times out), it's not unreasonable to begin to wonder about Haney's power a little.

Haney certainly belongs in the lightweight discussion with Teofimo Lopez, Vasyl Lomachenko (should he decide to remain in the division), Gervonta Davis, the winner of next month's Ryan Garcia-Luke Campbell fight, and maybe Jorge Linares, but he'll need to begin to fight better opponents soon.

Haney's resume' doesn't have any standouts and should Garcia defeat Campbell, Haney will have the weakest opposition of any of the four standout young fighters in the division.

Hopefully, Haney will be facing a stern test in his next outing.

In Los Angeles, (Full Van Earl Wright here) heavyweight Luis "King Kong" Ortiz returned to the ring for the first time since his second of his two knockout losses to Deontay Wilder in what seemed to be an incredibly awful Fox main event from PBC.

Sadly, it was as awful as expected as Ortiz stopped Alexander Flores in 45 seconds in what appeared to be a glancing shot at best.

I say glancing because I didn't really see a punch, the two came together and Flores fell to the floor unable to beat the count.

Ortiz officially landed three punches in the win, but proved nothing about what he has remaining in his career.
Flores had been stopped early in both of his losses which happened to be the two fighters that you may have heard of (Joseph Parker and Charles Martin), but this was just beyond awful and a pathetic excuse for a main event on FS1, let alone network television.

An absolute joke.

Ramon Malpica and I each added three points on the day in the boxing challenge to move our totals to 156-147.

The Browns are on bye, so the next post will be the sloppy, but easy win by Ohio State over Rutgers.

I may do a smaller version of a recap as I really hate those squash match recaps sometimes.