i am the furthest thing from a Lakers fan but everyone needs to calm down a bit. This was expected. It happens every year. A team that finishes their first round series and sits around for a week always come out flat. It happens year in and year out. Sometimes they can overcome it and pull it out, sometimes they can't, either way a sluggish game 1 after a week off should be expected. I wouldn't worry about the shots missed as much as the effort. They had open looks they just missed. They need to play with more energy which i am 99% positive they will. However if that 1% shows up like they did tonight then you have a problem. I still see lakers in 6
sixringz1's forum posts
Federer vs Nadal. This is the best rivalry in sports right now because they are individuals. No matter what those other players that are mentioned do, ultimately there teams determine their success not the other way around. All of them play an important role, but Brady and Manning don't play defense, Ovechkin and Crosby can both get overshadowed by great goaltending and lebron and kobe or wade can have the ball taken out of their hands by double and triple teams therefore forcing other people to make the plays. Federer and Nadal are one on one. They don't have anyone to bail them out
first of many
[QUOTE="sixringz1"][QUOTE="jsmoke03"] i guess so. mayweather isn't on here either.... btw-how do you consider hopkins the best boxer of the last ten years when he lost 2x to jermain taylor and 1 to calzaghe. plus he lost to rjj? jsmoke03level of competition. He lost to Roy Jones in 93 when he was fresh out of jail. There was a reason Jones ducked him for the last 15 years. Both Jermain Taylor wins losses were iffy. And calzaghe got him but i'm not sure he would get him again if they rematched. none of those were convincing. When you fight the level of competition he has you can't win em all, but he's fought NOTHING BUT BIG FIGHTS for 10 years. He made like 25 consecutive title defenses which i think was close to the most ever. When you factor in level of competition, consistancy in his performance and results it's hard for me to think of another fighter over the last 10 years that can match that. Just my opinion. If lennox lewis wouldn't have retired so suddenly i'd probably have him on the list, but he hasn't been around for the last 5 years. Jones Jr, Mayweather and Calzaghe haven't fought nearly the competition. Delahoya never won his big fights and Pacquaio is just getting into his prime now. Those are the main names i can think of that most could or would argue for. jermain taylor's were legit losses, just because it was close doesn't mean it was iffy. it wasn't a robbery by any means. he stopped fighting for awhile, and it took calzaghe beating him to realize he couldn't fight 8 rounds of boxing and expect to win against elite fighters.his level of competition isn't that great either...trinidad and de la hoya, and pavlik was his biggest wins. forgive me if im wrong, but the reason why hopkins never got a rematch is cuz of the money split? hopkins was asking 50/50 but rjj wanted 60/40 yea apparently that was the reason. At least that's what i heard for the longest time. That was at the begining of the decade after the Trinidad victory. But if i remember correctly by about 03-04 Hopkins said he'd take the 60/40 but Jones then just said he wanted to fight other fighters. I watched both Taylor fights and the Calzaghe fight and i have no gripes w/ the decisions but all three of them were close. If it would have went his way i don't think you'd hear many people say "oh taylor got robbed". I thought they were all toss ups. At no point in any of those fights did i say "man hopkins is getting owned" which is hard to say for anyone else. He also beat Winky Wright when he was at the top of his career and Antonio Tarver at the top of his career. I just don't see any other fighter who fought the level of competition he did this decade and been as successful. I mean you look at his last 8 fights you have Delahoya, Eastman (who's 40-1), Taylor twice, Tarver, Winky, Calzaghe then Pavlik. That's a hell of a list
[QUOTE="sixringz1"]i guess so. mayweather isn't on here either.... btw-how do you consider hopkins the best boxer of the last ten years when he lost 2x to jermain taylor and 1 to calzaghe. plus he lost to rjj? level of competition. He lost to Roy Jones in 93 when he was fresh out of jail. There was a reason Jones ducked him for the last 15 years. Both Jermain Taylorlosses were iffy at best. And calzaghe got him but that was a win based on activity and not overwhelming execution. None of his losses over the last 10 years did I look at and say "Man Hopkins got owned tonight". All those fights could have easily gone his way. none of those were convincing. When you fight the level of competition he has you can't win em all, but he's fought NOTHING BUT BIG FIGHTS for 10 years. He made like 25 consecutive title defenses which i think was close to the most ever. When you factor in level of competition, consistancy in his performance and results it's hard for me to think of another fighter over the last 10 years that can match that. Just my opinion. If lennox lewis wouldn't have retired so suddenly i'd probably have him on the list, but he hasn't been around for the last 5 years. Jones Jr, Mayweather and Calzaghe haven't fought nearly the competition. Delahoya never won his big fights and Pacquaio is just getting into his prime now. Those are the main names i can think of that most could or would argue for.so let me get this right. The best boxer of the last decade, Bernard Hopkins, isn't on the game. He was just on the cover a couple years ago. I don't get that.
jsmoke03
so let me get this right. The best boxer of the last decade, Bernard Hopkins, isn't on the game. He was just on the cover a couple years ago. I don't get that. and i don't see delhayoa either. It's not some Golden Boy Productions omission cause Mosley is on the game. That's kind of odd
@sixringz1, I agree with some of your points. The Toney win was impressive, and IMO Jones ducked a 2nd Hopkins fight for years. But when he was at his best, there was no one in boxing even close. Yes who he fought was a joke on many occasions, but in his weight class there wasn't much competition. I don't discount the Ruiz fight in one bit. Ruiz did have a paper belt, but he fought many top heavyweights for years, and usually didn't get knocked out. In the 1st round of that fight he was pushing Jones all around the ring, Jones realized/decided Ruiz power couldn't hurt him and he then dropped his hands and put on a boxing clinic. It was one of the more impressive things I've ever seen in boxing. You know your stuff, and know how big of a difference even a few pounds can make. Jones was an amazing fighter, with several major wins, but will always have the "what could have been" label attached because of the lack of benchmark fights in his prime, partly his fault, partly not.btaylor2404agreed
[QUOTE="sixringz1"][QUOTE="hillelslovak"]This was a JW fight and Mayweather had spent the majority of his career in JW. He only moved up to WW and then JMW his last handful of fights. That's what ELITE LEVEL FIGHTERS do. They move up to fight the best competition. It's been that way for over a century. Fighters who stay in one division to beat mediocore talent (aka Roy Jones Jr.) rather than moving up OR down in weight to find the big fight are chumps. I do give him the credit for at least giving it a shot, which is more than i could say for the likes of Roy Jones. But he is simply outclassed by elite fighters. I'm not trying to come off like i have something against the guy cause i don't. He's an entertaining fighter and always has been, which as a fan i appreciate, but he's a notch below the elite. JW and WW is a 7 lb difference. You act like it's night and day. Especially when hatton walks around at 175 lbs consistantly when he's not in training. Have to disagree on the Jones Jr. point. He's a shell of his former self, and should have retired years ago, but he's won titles from Middleweight all the way to Heavyweight. He's made major moves in weight classes. I agree he stood pat for years in LHW, when he was at his best, but he still made major weight movements. 7 pounds in boxing is a large difference. Roy Jones did move up and get belts in a lot of weight classes which is impressive, but who did he beat. It seemed he would only make a jump when the competition was someone he knew he'd easily beat. Even when he went to heavyweight, he fought the worst Heavyweight champ in the history of the sport. When i look at a great boxer's career they have to have a benchmark fight. Something that years later you can say "when he beat so and so it was a classic". You have Ali vs Frazier, you have Hagler vs. Hearns, you have Leonard vs. Hagler, you have Holyfield vs Bowe/Tyson/Lewis, you have Delahoya vs Everybody lol. When i look at Roy Jones, his biggest win ever was against James Toney. He beat Hopkins when he was fresh out the pen. There is no way he could have beat him over the last 10 years and he knew that, that's why he didn't fight him. And now look what he's doing. He's staying around to fight other over the hill fighters who may have been great in their time, so that you can look back and see in 20 years "well Jones beat so and so and he was a big name fighter". But Toney was the only one he beat that was elite level and in his prime. Now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying HE COULDN'T do it, i'm just saying he didn't. And that's all i can go by. There is a reason Roy Jones PPV numbers are the worst in the history of boxing for someone at that level.NONE of those guys are junior welterweights, and Hatton will probably never fight at WW. He doesn't belong in the ring with Williams, Margarito, Mosley, Cotto, etc etc etc because he's not a welterweight, he's a junior welterweight. He's certainly not a top level WW, because HE'S NOT A WELTERWEIGHT........
btaylor2404
Imo, Floyd wasn't destroying Hatton in their fight. He cried after the TKO i think because for the first time he was worried his showboating and 2 punch combos were not overwhelming his opponent. If Hatton is a B list fighter than so was Joe Frasier. Foreman destroyed Frasier in 2 in '73. In '74, frasier fought Ali to a 12 rd. decision. Ali beats the piss out of Foreman in 8 later that year. Then Frasier fights Ali for 14 brutal rounds in '75. Styles make fights. Hatton was tailor made for a fast, strong, 3-4 punch combo fighter like Pacman. I think Pacquiao rips Floyd up in 7, when they fight. He's fast enough to hit him consistently and he hits hard. Plus Floyd isn't going to be willing to take 'em to land 'em like Pacman is.no way about Frazier. Frazier beat Ali. And was right there wi/ him at the Thrilla in Manilla and Ali wasn't going to last the final rd . It was Frazier's people who threw in the towel. Every one of their fights was close. In fact you can make an argument that Frazier should have won all 3. He also fought and beat Buster Mathis for the vacant Heavyweight belt, who was an elite level heavyweight. I called him a B list fighter because he got manhandled in his 2 biggest fights. I didn't just make this up. Teddy Atlas said the same thing. Mayweather had won every round against Hatton except one on ALL THE JUDGES scorecards. He was winning each round more and more convincingly as the fight went on til he knocked him out. It was a surgical procedure. And as for him crying, he does that in all his big fights. He cried when he beat Gotti, and hugged him after the fight. I don't judge a fighter's class based on whether or not they win or lose, but rather how they performed. And the fact is in his 2 elite fight he has fought a total 12 rounds and won 1 and got convincingly knocked out in both. It wasn't some lucky Foreman vs Moorer knockout in the mayweather fight. He was wearing him out a little worse each round. In MY OPINION, and that's all it is, in order to be an elite fighter you have to prove that you belong in the ring w/ the best. You don't have to win but you have to look like you belong and Hatton hasn't done that in his 2 elite level fights. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me a 3rd time......well i'm not sure there will be a 3rd timecainetao11
ok sucks was the wrong word. But he obviously doesn't deserve to be in the ring with elite level boxers cause this is what happened. He won one round against mayweather and was slowly getting beaten down each round til he finally got knocked out. Then you have this fight. An elite level fighter is judged by how he performs against elite level competition. He's had 2 chances, and not only didn't he win either, he got destroyed. The biggest win of his career was against Kasta Tszyu. Does that really scream out elite fighter. I'm sorry but the guy is a second tier fighter. There's no other way to look at it. Mayweather, Pacquiao, Mosley, Cotto, Margarito and Williams (maybe a couple others) are first class junior welterweight and welterweight fighters. Ricky Hatton doesn't belong in that class.[QUOTE="sixringz1"][QUOTE="hillelslovak"] Hatton wasn't getting destroyed by Mayweather, he wasn't doing enough to win a majortiy of the rounds, but he was keeping up, and he got caught, simple. And Pacquiao has been kiking everybody's ass for YEARS. Just because Hatton got destroyed by Pacquiao (like everyone else) doesn't make him a b-level fighter, it makes Pacquiao an amazing fighter. And Hatton has not faced bums. The junior WW division is not stacked like WW, but he beat every challenger in the division until tonight. I don't know how your only losses came to the #1 and #2 boxers in the world makes you suck............hillelslovak
NONE of those guys are junior welterweights, and Hatton will probably never fight at WW. He doesn't belong in the ring with Williams, Margarito, Mosley, Cotto, etc etc etc because he's not a welterweight, he's a junior welterweight. He's certainly not a top level WW, because HE'S NOT A WELTERWEIGHT........
This was a JW fight and Mayweather had spent the majority of his career in JW. He only moved up to WW and then JMW his last handful of fights. That's what ELITE LEVEL FIGHTERS do. They move up to fight the best competition. It's been that way for over a century. Fighters who stay in one division to beat mediocore talent (aka Roy Jones Jr.) rather than moving up OR down in weight to find the big fight are chumps. I do give him the credit for at least giving it a shot, which is more than i could say for the likes of Roy Jones. But he is simply outclassed by elite fighters. I'm not trying to come off like i have something against the guy cause i don't. He's an entertaining fighter and always has been, which as a fan i appreciate, but he's a notch below the elite. JW and WW is a 7 lb difference. You act like it's night and day. Especially when hatton walks around at 175 lbs consistantly when he's not in training.
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