I know Marco Antonio Barrera lost the fight last Saturday to Manny Pacquiao, but unlike Larry Merchant and the rest of the HBO cast, I thought given the circumstances; his age, his past wars, his battle weariness, he did what he could. His game plan was to take Pacquiao the distance and out box him, at those times when he took a stand against Paquiao he fared fairly well. We all knew it would be an up hill battle for Barrera, a tough mountain to climb. He failed. There is no shame in that.Am I the only one that thought Pacquiao was hamming it up when Barrera popped him with a right hand just as referee Tony Weeks was calling a break? The point deduction was unwarranted, a warning would have sufficed. It would not have made a difference
on the scorecards, but if Paquiao was as hurt as he seemed to be, and if Weeks had let the fight continue, we might have seen a different ending. Or is it just me?
I was appalled by Larry Merchants line of questioning when he was interviewing Barrera after the fight. He seemed to be trying his best to take the last shred of dignity from a great, but aging warrior. Barrera, to his credit, didn't bite and remained unbowed.
To Larry Merchant and others who choose to judge fighters from the comfort of a ringside seat, or perhaps an easy chair in the den, beer in hand, watching the fight on television with some buddies, I give you the following.........
........It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat........Anonymous
2 comments:
I didn't understand the deduction either.There's been a rumor that George Foreman left the show to avoid knocking out Merchant.
One other question/complaint...On HBO Boxing(I haven't watched other channels enough)you could generally depend on hearing the Mexican National Anthem-and Spanish translation done by a hispanic translator.The Mexican National Anthem ain't goin' nowhere-but it sorta sounds like Spanish translation on HBO fights is now being done by someone on an old martial arts movie from Hong Kong-or from The Iron Chef cooking show.Until recently the translator was introduced as Ray Torres;I don't think they're announcing who's doing it now.Obviously,there is no law that you have to be hispanic to translate Spanish.But,any foreign "leader" uses a translator that's sorta home-grown.So...I'm just wonering if this is some sorta gimmick to give boxing some kind of "martial-arts" marketing gimmick.In any case,if I'm right,dis non-hispanic hates to see this kind of 'it doesn't matter' erosion.
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