Kirkland v Tapia WOW

Forgive me if this has been covered but just wanted to know if anyone caught this little gem recentley?

Can't believe I missed this one. Heard about Tapia a while back but then forgot about him for a couple of years only for him to show up in this fight against James Kirkland. Kirkland is without doubt a value for money type fighter, anyone who remembers his war with Angulo can testfy to this. Tapia the younger hungry fighter from New Jearsy came into this fight with a so so un-defeated record.

This fight was Kirlands first back with on again, off again trainer Ann Woolfe who has some militant style training methods. You have to listen to this woman in the corner she is box office great for boxing imo. Tapia was fighting infront of his home crowd including loved ones. He really did step up to face Kirkland tho, by far the biggest name on his record. Kirkland getting back to what he used to be when coming up in the middleweight division came to make a statement.

Anyone who knows of Kirkland would be surprised at Tapia's decision to fight Kirklands fight. I won't give you a round by round account just check it out on youtube for yourself.

It was a great fight in terms of excitment, heart, and guts and interesting with regards to the corners responsibility for thier fighter check it out.

A great fight to watch at first but it just became sickening after a point, really poor refereeing.

I remember seeing Kirkland hammering Vera on the Malginaggi-Hatton undercard in 2008, and from that point on I promised myself that I'd never miss one of his fights if I could help it. I think it was obvious from an early stage that the fact that he's so raw and open (and a bit of a head case!), but also so immensely powerful and strong, would always make him unmissable entertainment.

I think the fact that Tapia had so much early success and seemed to catch Kirkland off guard in the opening stages of the first round was the worst thing that could happen to him, in a way. Looked as if he had the basic speed and movement (Kirkland's very heavy-legged) to outbox him but got a bit too brave and confident for his own good.

Hopefully the sustained punishment he took as the fight wore on won't take too much from him, given how young he is.

The fight highlighted the good and bad of boxing.

The fight was great to watch. Tapia fought the wrong fight and should have boxed and moved. Kirkland was too easy to hit and only stalked around the ring yet Tapia decided to go to war with him poor decision imo.

As the fight wore on it was evident that Tapia was getting pinned to the ropes when in the early rounds he had Kirkland up against the ropes real back and forth. Kirkland just broke him down with shots to head and body but what troubled me was Tapia's corner were trying to liven him up but he was clearly not responding like a man who wanted to be there clear indication that they should have stopped the fight.

I hope Tapia is ok he showed some guts.If that were me I would be on my bike against Kirkland every chance I get.

haha, I'm sure I rememebr Anne Wolfe screaming at him "Beat this motherf***r's ass!!!" She is relentless in terms of her conditioning training supposedly.

And yeah it was a great fight, I rewatched it a couple of weeks back, tapia should have been pulled out earlier though.

Smolder or whatever his name is, is a good ref known for letting the fighters decide the outcome more often then not but he messed up by letting Kirkland un load those final 2 lefts. 

sickening.

Steve Smoger, I think he's a good referee, but he does occassionally allow fights to go on too long. The final left hok that Tapia had to endure wasn't necessary, that was a punch that can ruin a career.Smoger stepped in lacksadaisically it looked in my view instead of pulling Kirkland away so he couldn't throw another punch, he just slowly stepped in front.

Aye, I like Smoger a lot as a referee but like any of them do, he gets it wrong from time to time and I think he was at least a couple of big punches too slow stopping that one.

He's had a bit of a poor run by his standards lately, I think. A little off the pace in Kirkland-Tapia and then of course he didn't exactly cover himself in glory with his display in the Hopkins-Murat fight, where he clearly let his partiality towards one fighter get the better of him.

I thought he was maybe ever so slightly slow in halting Gamboa's assault on Mtagwa as well, but that aside I can't think of any times I've taken umbrage to him....Which is saying something, because I love picking apart a referee's performance!

Ah, thinking back to how exciting it was watching Gamboa emerging between 2009 and 2011 now that I've mentioned it.......If only it had lasted!

Kenny Bayliss, the man rarely makes a mistake.

Bayliss, Smoger and Ortega between them make very few mistakes but by often reffing the bigger fights the mistakes they do make get magnified ten fold.

Yeah I like Tony Weeks too.

I'd love to see bayliss or Smoger referee a Klitschko fight, not some bumbling European referee.

AlexHuckerby wrote:I'd love to see bayliss or Smoger referee a Klitschko fight, not some bumbling European referee.

      

The commentators were raving about him in the Kirkland v Tapia fight but when it got a little uncomfortable in the last couple of rounds they wanted to shift blame to the corner who in my view bore most of the blame especially after the ring doctor had taken an age to examine Tapia.

Yea was a great fight but you could see from the 2nd round that Kirkland had closed the distance and it was always going to be his fight

I agree with everyone that it went on for too long though, the kid is only young and Kirkland is a monstrous puncher

According to compubox he LANDED 72 & 68 power punches in the 3rd and 4th round respectively