Pascal and Hopkins give fight fans a happy holiday

So if boxing is a declining sport riddle me this:

Why is it that the opening a movie about a boxer could anchor the front pages of both entertainment and sports sections of the print version of Friday's Toronto Star?

Oh wait, I can hear some of the skeptics now, suggesting that Friday's Star proves only that dying industries deserve each other.

Maybe.

But maybe people really do like boxing, or at least the idea of it and the characters that surround the sport. Even if suspect decisions and a string of superfights that haven't happened have turned you off of the action in the ring, its tough to deny that among major North American sports boxing provides the setting for some of the most interesting stories.

And one more will play out Saturday night in Quebec City, when Montreal's Jean Pascal defends his WBC Light Heavyweight title against rugged veteran and sporting senior citizen Bernard Hopkins.

If you saw Dawson's August title defense against Chad Dawson then you know the 27-year-old is athletic and aggressive but vulnerable to opponents who pressure him. Dawson discovered that flaw a few rounds too late help him win a decision in a bout that went to the scorecards when a headbutt cut Dawson in the 11th.

 

And if you follow boxing you know the scouting report on Hopkins -- smart, rugged unflappable.

And old.

Years ago the former middleweight champ promised his elderly mother that he would retire from fighting before he turned 41.

Less than a month after the Pascal bout he turns 46, and if he wins he becomes the oldest fighter ever to challenge successfully for a world title.

So much for promises.

The Philadelphia native has been a pro fighter for fully half his life, and over his 22 years in the game he has mastered both his ring craft and the mind games that precede every great fight.

When the two fighters matched wits at an October news conference in Toronto Hopkins battered Pascal with language, beating him to the verbal punch in every verbal exchange.

And at a news conference earlier this week Hopkins simply jacked Pascal's championship belt, holding it just beyond the Montrealer's reach, turning Pascal into the Tantalus of the prize ring.

A glance their birth certificates says Hopkins won't be able to keep pace. At 27 Pascal is in his athletic prime, and while Hopkins may be significantly younger than the last guy to fight Canadian heavyweight champ Neven Pajkic (seriously, look at him), at nearly 46 he's positively paleolithic by non-heavyweight standards.

The problem for Pascal is that B-hop is brilliant, and a specialist in upending fighters who appear to have every advantage over him.

Yes, he dropped a disputed 12-round decision to 168-pound champ Joe Calzaghe in 2008, and his official record does contain a pair of decision losses to the talented but tactically challenged Jermain Taylor. But the loss to Calzaghe was a long way from decisive, and  Hopkins lost the Taylor bouts more than Taylor won them, frittering away the early rounds before late rallies fell short.

Beyond those fights Hopkins and trainer Nazim Richardson have a track record of surprising wins that stretches back nearly a decade.

Or did you forget the 12-round boxing lesson Hopkins handed to Felix "Tito" Trinidad in September 2001?

Or the one-sided win he collected over light-heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver in his first start following the Taylor losses.

Or the near-shutout he pitched against the previously undefeated Kelly Pavlik, a thorough beating from which "The Ghost" still hasn't recovered.

 

 This isn't to say that Hopkins walks through Pascal like he did Pavlik, but if Hopkins' pressure keeps Pascal from setting up it'll be a long and taxing night for the champ.

And it could be a record-setting one for the old man.

 

PARTING SHOT

Unless some crazy urge to work for free overtakes me, this is my last entry for 2010, but be sure to check back in early January when "Fighting Words" returns with the insights, interviews and interaction that have made the first year of this blog so much fun.

And if you want to check in during my time off, feel free to follow me on Twitter. 

See you guys in the New Year.

Till then have a happy and safe holiday season...

New Jiu Jitsu magazine seeks perfect balance

If BJ (The Prodigy) Penn's MMA career has taught us anything, it's not that you don't need a physique to succeed. Royce Gracie proved that in the mid 1990s.

Nor is it that you lose virility when you lose your hair. The line of power donuts in the octagon stretches from Matt Lindland to Kimbo Slice and beyond. Just because you take your hairstyling cues from George Jefferson doesn't mean you can't throw down.

No, the biggest thing we've learned from watching the Prodigy at his peak, as opponents tried and failed to take him down, is that fighting  -- like life -- is all about balance.

 

Toronto entrepreneur and Brazilan Jiu Jitsu practioner Dave Menceles reached a similar epiphany about balance last year when he and business partner Matt Soroka embarked on a pilgrimage to Brazil. Mornings they would train, afternoons they would relax and evenings they would socialize, and by the end of his six weeks in Brazil Menceles was intrigued by what he calls the "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle." Basically it's the ideal daily mixture of work, fun and working out, and when Menceles returned to Toronto he was determined to find the best way to promote this lifestyle here.

His solution hits the market this week.

Thursday marks the official launch of Jits Magazine with its website and initial press run of 10,000 copies. The magazine's purpose, Menceles says, is to explain and promote the "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu" lifestyle he discovered in Brazil, and he hopes to reach a pool of potential readers that grows as BJJ's popularity does.

"It's all about finding a really great balance in your life and balancing training with the rest of your life," Menceles says. "Getting all the positive effects that training Jiu Jitsu has on the other parts of your life...There's a worldwide community of people who do BJJ and it's very supportive."

Have Menceles and his staff of roughly 30 volunteers enocuntered hurdles on the way to publishing their first issue? 

Of course they have.

Though Brazilian jiu-jitsu as ridden the UFC's rising tide to an unprecedented level of prominence, and though the number of dojos teaching BJJ has exploded in the last five years Menceles realizes that the martial art is still largely misunderstood.

To the uninitiated BJJ looks at best like a blend of judo and amateur wrestling, and at worst like a homoerotic fantasy run wild. Menceles is acutely aware of how people outside the BJJ community view the sport and hopes he can change peoples' perceptions.

"When I talk to people to people who aren't familiar with the sport and try to explain it they say 'so it's basically dudes rolling around on the ground with each other, right?'" Menceles says. "It's much, much more than that. It's really a beautiful sport."

But Menceles says his magazine doesn't aim to convert mainstream sports fans to BJJ faithful. Instead, the magazine speaks directly to people who already participate in the sport, and it's available for free at various at BJJ gyms, amateur tournaments and stores that sell martial arts gear.

For readers outside the GTA Menceles offers subscriptions, and says requests came trickling in even long before the magazine's official launch.

Menceles plans to keep the quarterly magazine's circulation steady at 10,000 for the first year, nudging it upward later as readership and revenue increase. 

 

For more information on Jits Magazine's premier issue click here.

And to follow the Star's Morgan Campbell  on twitter, click here

 

UFC Winners blend martial arts and sweet science

Before we headed to Cineplex Queensway Cinema to watch UFC 124 my good friend Andre Batson -- former Argo and Eskimo and mid-90s saviour of York University's football program -- highlighted something interesting about welterweight contender Josh Koscheck.

In my preview to the fight I mentioned that Koscheck held tight to his peroxide blond locks even even though some of the hairstyle's most famous proponents abandoned it years ago. But Batson pointed out that while Koscheck's hair isn't back to its natural colour it's darker than the platinum blond to which we'd grown accustomed, and that he looked less like Sisquo and more like Titans CB and notorious NFL instigator Cortland Finnegan.

And when the bell rang for Koscheck's title shot he fared about as well against Georges St-Pierre as Finnegan did in his punch-up with Texans receiver Andre Johnson.

Which is to say he got manhandled.

Beyond a takedown late in the first round Koscheck mustered zero offence against St-Pierre and his game plan seemed to have been crafted by Kimbo Slice:

Wade straight in throwing wild right hands and pray one lands.

Meanwhile St-Pierre demonstrated why he belongs at or near the top of pound-for-pound lists, controlling nearly every minute of every round with his superior size, strength, quickness and boxing skill.

St-Pierre spent part of his training camp sparring with Montreal-based pro boxers like Sebastien Demers and working with famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach -- and it showed. While Koscheck arrived in Montreal promising to score a knockout win in front of St-Pierre's hometown crowd, the champ set the pace with a stinging left jab. 

With the most basic weapon in a pugilist's arsenal he blunted Koscheck's headlong rushes, raised an ugly welt over his right eye and set up the takedowns that underscored his dominance.

In jabbing his way to a lopsided decision St-Pierre didn't just prove that he's the world's best welterweight by a wide margin. He reminded us all of an important fact that's often lost in the "Boxing vs MMA" debate.

Boxing is a martial art too.

And a very effective one in the right situations.

Nobody debates whether jiu jitsu and wrestling skills are essential to an MMA fighter's arsenal -- naturally, since 80 percent of all MMA matchups go to the ground. 

And muay thai's importance is a given, mainly because elbows, knees and leg kicks hurt (bad), and because the clinch allows you to combine striking and grappling to inflict some serious damage.

Yet whenever a boxer transitions to MMA it's seen as a final referendum on which sport -- and by extension fighting art -- is superior, even though boxer vs. mixed martial artist matchups prove only what we already know. Somehow we see the two disciplines as mutually exclusive simply because the two industries are going toe-to-toe over the pay-per-view dollars of mainstream sports fans.

Fighters know better.

Does that mean a background in boxing is the best foundation on which to build a mixed martial arts career?

Nope.

Somebody as accomplished in jiu jitsu as James Toney is in boxing would have lasted longer than two minutes against Randy Couture and even with little specific mma training might have even forced "The Natural" to sweat. 

But can an advanced education in boxing enhance a mixed martial artist's skill set?

Ask Joe (Daddy) Stephenson, who lunged chin first at Mac Danzig on the St-Pierre/Koscheck undercard and paid a painful price.

 

 

Boxing folks call that shot a check hook, and it could have come straight from Floyd Mayweather's playbook.

 

Or ask Koscheck, who took a thorough beating Saturday night because he had zero answers for the punch you learn on the first day of boxing class.

The left jab.

Now let's get this straight. GSP is far from a master boxer.

When baseball people talk about how fast certain baseball players are I'm always pointing out most of them aren't really fast -- they're just baseball fast. No denying guys like Ichiro and Chone Figgins are light years faster than their baseball peers but in the broader world of fast guys they're on the left end of the bell curve.

Far left.

So GSP is to boxing skill what Jose Reyes is to sprinting. He'll destroy most of us and hold his own with journeyman pros (like the guy getting flattened here) but an experienced pugilist nullifies that jab and hurts him bad.

But in his world he doesn't need to be Bernard Hopkins. He simply needs to sharpen a skill -- boxing -- that many mixed martial artists neglect.

He did exactly that in training for UFC 124 and his performance Saturday night hit observers like a revelation but it shouldn't have. The UFC's welterweight champ simply understands something a lot of his competitors are learning the hard way.

Boxing may be the sweet science, but its also a hell of a martial art.

 

END NOTES

* As mentioned above, I caught Saturday's fights at a movie theatre. First time for me and thanks to the folks at Cineplex for making it happen. If you're the type who likes his fights with a lot of beer and hollering then cinema viewing isn't for you. I like O'Doul's as much as the next guy, but I also enjoyed actually hearing the commentary for once. The polite applause after each fight will jar you, (especially if you're used to war cries in the sports bar) but you adjust to decorum. Besides, everybody loves a huge screen and surround sound. Can't replicate that experience at home or in a bar. So was the UFC experience different without alcohol and a mountain of chicken wings. Of course. A little. But would I watch in a theatre again? No question.

* From the "Find a way to watch it" file: this past Saturday's boxing. Between the double header on HBO and the bantamweight tournament on Showtime/Superchannel, I can't recall a single Saturday so saturated with boxing action. So I picked wrong on the Amir Khan/Marcos Maidana fight. So what? As I told folks on twitter, each of those four fights was more exciting than anything that went down at UFC 124. Even if you say you don't like boxing, if you're reading this blog you like action. And if you like action find a way to watch those fights. And if you're still not entertained you better go check for a pulse.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Stallone belongs in the boxing Hall of Fame -- seriously

While I was out chasing Dana White and telling the world about the UFC's inevitable arrival in Toronto, the International Boxing Hall of Fame announced its Class of 2011.

And as HOF inductions always do, Tuesdays announcement provoked plenty of passionate discussion about who deserved the call, who didn't and why.

First, we can all agree that Julio Cesar Chavez deserved the nod.

Did he pound his share of cab drivers and plumbers during the 87-fight win streak that opened his career? 

Sure.

And shouldn't that 88th fight, a 12-round "draw" against Pernell "Sweet Pea" Whitaker, really have been JCC's first loss?

Of course.

But on the way to Whitaker, Chavez dominated stars between 130 and 140 pounds, steamrolling stylists, technicians and tough guys alike. Granted, he had to rally to reel in Meldrick Taylor in their March 1990 unification bout, securing a knockout with just two seconds remaining in the bout. But the point is he pulled it off, as a future HOF in his prime should, and he's one inductee that generated no arguments from anyone.

Mike Tyson, though, is another story.

Without even discussing his in-ring credentials Iron Mike's inclusion raises the question of whether a convicted rapist and two-time ear-biter deserves as spot in boxing's most hallowed place. And you could also argue -- correctly -- that though Tyson fought until 2005 he peaked in June 1988, or about two weeks after Michael Cera was born. And there's not much point in arguing that for the final decade of his career the former "Baddest Man on the Planet" devolved from champion to sideshow to freak show.

We all watched it happen.

Still, Tyson's 15-year slide into boxing "Bolivian" doesn't dim his incandescent early career.

From the time he turned pro until his 91-second demolition on Michael Spinks, Tyson displayed a mixture of power and speed never before seen among heavyweights, and rode a string of spectacular knockouts to the world title before he turned 21.

 

 

Tyson beat so many heavyweights so thoroughly in his career's first four years that for the next decade people barely noticed his slowly eroding skills.

But even a past-his-prime Tyson remained a celebrity during an era when boxing was fading from the mainstream because he did everything big. He won big, lost bigger and when he lost it, he lost it all the way.

So whether you like him as a human being (most of us probably wouldn't) or think he would never have beaten a prime Muhammad Ali (Ali makes him quit like Liston did....hypothetically), you have to remember that this isn't a hall of virtue. It's a hall of fame, and no fighter since Ali has brought more fame to the boxing game than Tyson did.

And since we're talking fame, can I ask every one of you to calm down over the induction of Sylvester Stallone as an "Observer"?

If the Hall had inducted Mr. T I'd see your point. 

 

But Stallone?

Check this list of guys already in the Hall as Observers and ask yourself what most of them have in common.

If you haven't figured it out I'll tell you.

Most of the guys on that list are there because they spent large parts of their careers telling stories about boxing.

Anybody here remember why Stallone became famous in the first place?

Exactly.

He told a compelling story about boxing, won an Oscar for it and used the film as the foundation of a film career that, incredibly, continues today.

No, Stallone isn't to screenwriting what W.C. Heinz was to prose (and if you've never read The Professional you need to....like yesterday), and yes the Rocky franchise grew more far-fetched with each successive film.

Tommy Morrison leaving the arena after a title defense to brawl with Rocky in a Philadelphia gutter?

Really?

Of course not.

But if you're over 30 years old and can't quote a single line from Rocky IV I've got questions about how you spent your youth. If you're flipping through channels and come across James Brown singing "Living in America" while Apollo Creed shimmies toward his fate at Drago's and don't drop the remote and watch the rest of the movie I question how you spend your idle time.

And if these scenes don't compel you to bang out a few pushups you just might have an artificial heart.

 

How much does climbing a mountain while wearing right jeans and a sheepskin coat have to do with actual boxing?

Not a damn thing.

But that whole inspiring sequence (I'm shadowboxing between sentences here) is part of a six-film franchise Stallone built around the sweet science.

That's about 5.5 more boxing features than most filmmakers produce, and in the world of "Observers" its more than enough to qualify him for Canastota.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter.

 

 

 

Will Koscheck's taunting bring out the best in St. Pierre?

Question:

Is trash talk still trash talk if you don't really mean it?

Ever since the UFC announced that Georges St. Pierre would headline UFC 124 by defending his welterweight title against Josh Kosheck, the challenger has been lobbing verbal bombs at the surprisingly patient champ.

In October Koscheck made plain that he didn't plan to lose to a "French guy."

*Koscheck casts himself as the anti-Canadian in the bout but he must have studied geography under Don Cherry if he thinks being from Quebec makes you "French." No more than being from Ontario makes me "English," but I digress.*

And if you watched the latest season of Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter" you saw Koscheck needle St. Pierre ceaselessly hoping, it seemed, to distract the champ from the task he'll face this Saturday. 

It's a tried and true tactic, both in the ring and in the octagon, and with this showdown taking place in St. Pierre's hometown Koscheck had the chance to revel in the heel role, use the crowd's animosity as fuel and make St. Pierre so angry he forgets his game plan.

But on Monday afternoon conference call to hype the fight Koscheck revealed he doesn't plan to take this villain act that far this week because it was, after all, just an act.

"The show needed some entertainment," said Koscheck, who enters Saturday on a three-fight win streak. "(The trash talk) was nothing more than that."

Oh.

Well St. Pierre says it's too late anyway.

The 29-year-old Montreal native says Koscheck's trash talk won't distract him when he enters the octagon. He intends to execute his plan, period.

But he acknowledged that Koscheck's verbal barrage motivated him in the lead-up to the fight, fueling him through grueling training session and pushing him to craft a fool-proof game plan.

"I prepared myself like I've never prepared myself before," said St. Pierre, who hasn't lost since April 2007. "This is the best Georges St. Pierre I've ever been. I'm sharper everywhere, I've been working on a lot of different things for this fight and I can't wait to show it to the public."

These two men first met in August 2007, while St. Pierre was working his way back to the welterweight title and Koscheck fighting to prove that he was a true mixed martial artist and not just a wrestler in an octagon. St. Pierre, stronger and more savvy, won that bout by unanimous decision.

But in the arms race that is top-flight MMA, each man has added plenty of weapons in the three intervening years.

Koscheck was an accomplished NCAA wrestler but St. Pierre controlled him in their first bout, so even as his striking and grappling skills have improved Koscheck says he spent this training camp polishing his wrestling skills.

St. Pierre, meanwhile, hit the mitts.

In the past St. Pierre says he would throw punches mainly to set up his nearly unstoppable takedowns, but after working with superstar boxing trainer Freddie Roach, St. Pierre says he'll enter Saturday's fight ready to throw knockout blows.

"Before I knew (Roach) I thought I knew boxing, but I found out that I didn't," St. Pierre said. "He corrected a lot of stuff. I feel...very confident.

Roach has said he expects St. Pierre to win by knockout Saturday but when St. Pierre co-signed on the prediction Koscheck couldn't resist countering with his own verbal jab.

"Working with Freddie Roach is all good...but Freddie Roach can't teach strengthening your chin," he said. "That's where I'm going to hit George and knock him out on Saturday."

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter.

 

Will Koscheck's taunting bring out the best in St. Pierre?

Question:

Is trash talk still trash talk if you don't really mean it?

Ever since the UFC announced that Georges St. Pierre would headline UFC 124 by defending his welterweight title against Josh Kosheck, the challenger has been lobbing verbal bombs at the surprisingly patient champ.

In October Koscheck made plane that he didn't plan to lose to a "French guy."

*Koscheck casts himself as the anti-Canadian in the bout but he must have studied geography under Don Cherry if he thinks being from Quebec makes you "French." No more than being from Ontario makes me "English," but I digress.*

And if you watched the latest season of Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter" you saw Koscheck needle St. Pierre ceaselessly hoping, it seemed, to distract the champ from the task he'll face this Saturday. 

It's a tried and true tactic, both in the ring and in the octagon, and with this showdown taking place in St. Pierre's hometown Koscheck had the chance to revel in the heel role, use the crowd's animosity as fuel and make St. Pierre so angry he forgets his game plan.

But on Monday afternoon conference call to hype the fight Koscheck revealed he doesn't plan to take this villain act that far this week because it was, after all, just an act.

"The show needed some entertainment," said Koscheck, who enters Saturday on a three-fight win streak. "(The trash talk) was nothing more than that."

Oh.

Well St. Pierre says it's too late anyway.

The 29-year-old Montreal native says Koscheck's trash talk won't distract him when he enters the octagon. He intends to execute his plan, period.

But he acknowledged that Koscheck's verbal barrage motivated him in the lead-up to the fight, fueling him through grueling training session and pushing him to craft a fool-proof game plan.

"I prepared myself like I've never prepared myself before," said St. Pierre, who hasn't lost since April 2007. "This is the best Georges St. Pierre I've ever been. I'm sharper everywhere, I've been working on a lot of different things for this fight and I can't wait to show it to the public."

These two men first met in August 2007, while St. Pierre was working his way back to the welterweight title and Koscheck fighting to prove that he was a true mixed martial artist and not just a wrestler in an octagon. St. Pierre, stronger and more savvy, won that bout by unanimous decision.

But in the arms race that is top-flight MMA, each man has added plenty of weapons in the three intervening years.

Koscheck was an accomplished NCAA wrestler but St. Pierre controlled him in their first bout, so even as his striking and grappling skills have improved Koscheck says he spent this training camp polishing his wrestling skills.

St. Pierre, meanwhile, hit the mitts.

In the past St. Pierre says he would throw punches mainly to set up his nearly unstoppable takedowns, but after working with superstar boxing trainer Freddie Roach, St. Pierre says he'll enter Saturday's fight ready to throw knockout blows.

"Before I knew (Roach) I thought I knew boxing, but I found out that I didn't," St. Pierre said. "He corrected a lot of stuff. I feel...very confident.

Roach has said he expects St. Pierre to win by knockout Saturday but when St. Pierre co-signed on the prediction Koscheck couldn't resist countering with his own verbal jab.

"Working with Freddie Roach is all good...but Freddie Roach can't teach strengthening your chin," he said. "That's where I'm going to hit George and knock him out on Saturday."

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter.