Boxing round-up

There was some exciting boxing this weekend what with the Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams fight on HBO and the replay of last week’s Pacquiao-Margarito fight for those who didn’t watch on pay-for-view.

Martinez’s bullet in the second round was incredible to watch, not the least of which to see Williams out cold doing a face plant on the mat — a vivid reminder of the old adage to “protect yourself at all times.”

As for the Pacquiao-Margarito fight, the image of Margarito’s face and knowing of his subsequent facial surgery to correct his fractured orbital bone leaves one to question why the fight wasn’t stopped if not by the ref, then by his own corner. There would have been no dishonor in that and perhaps he’d have been left in better shape to fight another day.  As it is, one wonders if he will have lasting damage beyond his healed fractures after the 12 rounds of head-pounding he received.  Time will tell.

Women’s boxing was pretty exciting too this weekend.

Saturday, November 20th was the final night of bouts in the Women’s International Dual Series held in Oxnard, California.  The fights were terrific with an upset win by flyweight Alex Love over the 2008 Polish champion, Karolina Michaelczuk.  Boxing News 24 has good coverage and stats of the event here.  This puts Alex Love in a great position for medaling in the upcoming Pan American games this summer in Mexico.

Over at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, pro-welterweight Jill Emery had a first round knockout win over her opponent Addy Irizarry that reportedly sent Irizarry to the hospital with a possible broken ankle. Fight News has a paragraph about it here and WBAN (Women’s Boxing Archive Network) has it here.  The fight was on the undercard of the junior welterweight Paul Spadafora-Alain Hernandez fight — and nice to see more women’s boxing on the roster of these sorts of bouts.