Watchdog Answers on Hatton vs Castillo, Cotto and Zab, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather and much more
 Watchdog By Steve Hudgins (June 20, 2007) Doghouse Boxing (Photo © HBO)
This week, the PPV Criteria, Cotto vs Judah: The Aftermath, Hatton vs Castillo and much more!
Thanks Watch Dog for your PPV Criteria. Every fight on the card was exactly as you said it would be! – Rex
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Thanks. Hey, I’m not always right. I just look at the matchups and try to let people know what they can most likely expect out of the fight and let them make up their own minds. On this particular night
however, most of the fights went pretty much as I expected.
Bet you feel dumb after saying the Judah/Cotto ppv wasn’t worth 45 bucks huh? It had a good undercard and the main event well, you know what went down. So far hands down that’s the fight of the year. Thought Cotto was supposed to win without too much difficulty? He got stunned in the first and third. I hope nobody followed your criteria and chose not to order the ppv because of it. If they did you made them miss out on the fight of the year for 2007 at this point! – George
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Fight of the year!? Haha! What?? Did you see the fight? Sorry to have to burst your bubble, but yes, Cotto DID in fact win that fight without much difficulty. Judah had some good moments and showed a lot of courage, but I gave Judah 2 rounds at the most. Cotto was giving Judah a beating to the point where I was wondering how much longer they would allow the massacre to continue, and finally they did. Fight of the year? Are you sure you weren’t watching a replay of Mormeck/Bell II? As for the other undercard fights, well, lets see, we had a boring fight and 2 mismatches. You must be on Bob Arum’s payroll or something. The card was not worth 45 bucks. Not even close.
I like the rating system you developed. These PPV’s are exactly why boxing is losing its fan base. . Too expensive for the "real" boxing fan. – Johnny
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: If people would stop buying the bad PPV cards, the prices would go down and the quality would go up. But as long as we have enough people buying these crap cards to turn a profit for the promoter, we’ll continue to get these types of PPV’s. It’s up to the fans.
It seems like you never give a passing grade for a PPV card. Why is that? – Franklin
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Because most of them are not worthy of passing grades. Period. Simple as that. I’m not going to dumb down my criteria and lower myself to their standards. I think they should rise up to my standards, don’t you? It would be better for the boxing fan and the sport as a whole if they did. The fans deserve more bang for their buck! It’s a damn shame that so many fans seem to feel that they aren’t worthy of such.
I like your approach of rating each fight that is placed on a ppv card. Can you do this for every ppv card from now on? I also like that you took "The Ring" ratings for the combatants because that's the only rankings that count in my book. Screw the alphabet boys and their corruption! I didn't buy the ppv event (Cotto/Judah.) I watched the monthly Showtime card instead. Well done, Steve! Keep up the work! – Marc
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Thanks for the kind words Marc. Rest assured I will continue on with the PPV Criteria. Make sure you check doghouseboxing.com often the week before a PPV event. The PPV Criteria is usually posted that Thursday, Friday or Saturday – and yes, the ring ratings are currently the only way to go. Everyone, especially the television networks need to stop recognizing the ABC crooks. What seems worse than the apparent corruption is the confusion! In their quest to collect as many sanctioning fees as possible, with their multiple “champions” and seemingly unlimited weight classes, you have to be a rocket scientist to keep up with it all. The best thing to do is just ignore them all and follow the Ring’s ratings and nothing else. If the television networks would do this, it would be the first step toward making boxing a mainstream sport again. But the networks are so obsessed with being able to promote fights as “Championship fights” (Even though anyone with half a brain knows that is completely false 95 percent of the time) that they don’t seem willing to do so. Not yet anyway. Hopefully that attitude will change soon. The Showtime fights were horrible, but at least they were free.
Hey man, most times agree with you because you’re direct and to the point honest! Why bash Floyd Mayweather like my mother said it takes 2 to tango! Floyd is getting criticized for the mediocre performance of the ‘World Awaits’ bout in general. No one is blaming Oscar who was the bigger man, chose the gloves, and chose an 18 foot ring to fight in! Oscar was the bigger man, how come he couldn’t just walk all over PBF and KO him? Why? Because he was unable to! Floyd was too skillful for Oscar that’s why! Floyd in many rounds did stand right in front of Oscar and Oscar was unable to do anything except get hit upside his head, so it wasn’t like Floyd was running all night. Why is it when Muhammad Ali moved around the ring in a similar manner to the way Floyd moves it wasn’t called running? I agree with you that Floyd should enjoy his pile of money and stay retired because I personally want to see Floyd give his opponents a BEAT DOWN and it seems that at this point in Floyd’s career he is either unable or unwilling to do so! Maybe Floyd will challenge to fight Kelly Pavlik; Yeah Right! – Robert
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Floyd will never fight Pavlik. He won’t even fight Margarito! I feel like it’s a rematch with De La Hoya or nothing for Floyd. By the way, there are a lot of people who would call Ali a runner, but at least Ali threw combos. Floyd just isn’t going to be very entertaining unless the other guy in the ring is making the fight. And even against a dangerous opponent like De La Hoya, it still turned out to be a very ho-hum fight. No one cares about a rematch. I don’t think too many people are very interested in Mayweather at the moment. There are a fights out there to be made that are much more fun! Cotto/Margarito anyone?
What’s your take on the Hatton/Castillo fight? – Darren
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: I think it will be a war. Hatton has taken some criticism for excessive holding in his last couple of fights, but I don’t think he will get away with that against Castillo who loves to fight in close and do a lot of body work. Hatton didn’t take it to the body well vs Urango, so it will be interesting to see how he holds up against a master body puncher like Castillo. I really think this is going to be an all out war. I’m expecting a fight of the year caliber bout.
Was Castillo washed up or just rusty against Herman Ngoudjo? – Phil
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to rust. Ngoudjo is a pretty decent fighter. We’ll find out for sure on Saturday.
What is your official prediction for the big Hatton/Castillo fight this weekend? – Betty
THE WATCHDOG’S RESPONSE: Hatton by hard fought, very close decision.
THE WATCHDOG’S NOTES
After the Hatton/Castillo fight this coming Saturday, the next big date to focus on will be July 14th on HBO. They will feature a welterweight tripleheader. The line up will consist of Kermit Cintron vs Walter Matthyse, Arturo Gatti vs Alfonso Gomez and Antonio Margarito vs Paul Williams. Any thoughts on this card? Like the matchups? Don’t like them? Let’s hear what you have to say!
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