You Gotta Bite… For Your Right…

OK, especially in boxing, this has got to be the weirdest Olympiad ever.

In boxing alone, there’s the boxer found unconscious in his room trying to make weight at a weight class he’s never fought at, the one who ran for the last thirty seconds losing the fight because he thought his corner was telling him to move, the one who stormed out of the ring because he “wasn’t feeling the vibe” after losing, and now… What is WRONG with people???

Boxer disqualified for biting Olympic opponent

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BEIJING (AP)—A light heavyweight boxer from Tajikistan was disqualified for biting his opponent on the shoulder during their Olympic quarterfinal bout Tuesday night.

Dzhakhon Kurbanov’s bout with Kazakhstan’s Yerkebulan Shynaliyev was stopped with 17 seconds left in the third round when Kurbanov apparently bit Shynaliyev during a clinch.

Shynaliyev, who angrily showed the blood on his shoulder to the referee, led 12-6 at the time. Kurbanov had been warned multiple times for shoving and holding his opponent.

Kurbanov is a 22-year-old fighter who got off to an auspicious start in Beijing last week, beating world champion Abbos Atoev in his first bout. He won the 2005 Asian championships as a middleweight, and was competing in his first Olympics.

Oddly enough, the evening card at Workers’ Gymnasium was watched by Evander Holyfield, who was infamously bitten on the ear by Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997.

Something’s Rotten in the State of… the City of Beijing.

So as I was waiting for someone to show up at Suncoast Casino last night (where the nearly dead come out to play) I was sitting at the bar watching Olympic boxing. It was 130 lbs, I think, and the bout was between Mexico and Romania. By the end of the second round, Romania was ahead 13-3.

 

Let me repeat: Romania was beating Mexico.

 

Is it just me or are there a whole lot of upsets this year in the Olympics? I’m keeping my eye on the men’s basketball team. If it weren’t for Michael Phelps, I’d blame the Communists.

–Ryan

Celebadrama

The “Celebrity Smack Blog” reports that the Rev Bob Levy and Danny Bonaduce are going to end their dispute in the ring on September 13th.  The following video shows the spawning of the drama.  I trained briefly as a boxer and when I was younger enjoyed a good fisticuffs, but I do not think I would ever want to take on Bonaduce.  The man has muscles on top of muscles and is a legit black belt (as opposed to the celebrity black belt- which is a star basically playing a karate master a sum of money to award them the belt).  In short, the man can crack and is knowledgable enough in the fight game to really fucking hurt most people- Rev Bob included.  Though I am not a fan of most celebrity boxing matches, I look forward to seeing Danny bring the pain to this one…

Bonaduce vs Levy

Here is the vid:

You can catch the fight for $5 LIVE on gofightlive.com

Favoritism in Boxing? Nah…

Being a boxing writer for over five years I know the sport inside and out.  I’ve seen people get title shots without ever beating anyone remotely in the top twenty.  I’ve witnessed terrible decisions that had to come down to gross incompentance or criminal corruption.  The decisions were so bad I can not think of any other variable.  While I am talking about the professional ranks where a won or loss can cost a fighter, his promoter and manager millions of dollars, life in Olympic boxing is also fraught with the same kind of unbelievably bad decisions.

Ask Roy Jones, Jr.

Jones “lost” to South Korean fighter Park Si-Hun, despite out landing Park 86 punches to 32.  That would be like scoring 10 runs in a baseball game while holding the other team to 1 and being declared the loser.  The decision was so bad the IOC was shamed into suspending all three judges that ruled in Park’s favor.  Unlike the 2002 Winter Olympics scandal where in the aftermath the IOC made Russian and Canadian figure skates co-gold medalist, Jones has never been given a reprieve.

That brings us to this year’s Olympics.  It is no different.  Lest you believe I am another biased American in my Olympic coverage (I am- though I try not to be), the Ukrainian team filed a protest over lightweight Oleksandr Klyuchko’s 10-8 loss to Hu Qing on Monday night. The protest was reviewed and denied.  Not to be outdone the Brits also jumped on the bandwagon with British bantamweight Joe Murray and his coach accusing Olympic judges of favoring his Chinese opponent Tuesday.  Finally, our US coach Dan Campbell didn’t like the scoring in medal favorite Rau’shee Warren’s upset loss to South Korea’s Lee Ok-sung.

Grrrrr…  looks like Russia doesn’t have the corner on being the Grinch who stole Olympic spirit from the world…

Tom