I was hanging out at home last night searching for anything of redeeming quality to watch on television. After surfing around for a bit I happened to catch ESPN Classic’s airing of the boxing matches between Greg Haugen and Vinny Pazienza. Man. Now there’s some boxing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any clips of those fights on YouTube. However I did find a couple of good ones from the past.

I was talking to Angela on the phone while watching Paz vs. Haugen and she mentioned that whenever she caught a boxing match it was pretty boring. I can understand where she’s coming from. This is mostly due to the heavy weights, although sometimes there are some good matches. I told her that she should watch some of the lighter weight fights. These guys are fast and have insane punching power.

One of my biggest beefs with boxing these days is that all the big fights occur on either HBO/Showtime or on pay per view. Puts on old man hat: In my day, the best boxing matches were aired on network television. I remember catching them on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. These days we don’t have that luxury. In order to see a title match you have to buy it. I guess it is the economics of the whole thing. But, dang, I miss watching boxing like the following on network tv. I think I’m going to go out and pick up the documentary of Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman – When We Were Kings. I’ve watched that before and I thought it was a great.

Roy Jones vs. Vinny Pazienza
Roy Jones, Jr. got robbed in the Seoul Olympics when he outclassed and out boxed a Korean fighter but the win was awarded to his opponent. Vinny Pazienza, known as ‘the Paz-manian Devil’ and ‘the Paz’, was in an accident where he had to wear one of those halo things bolted to his head. Pazienza was a cocky mofo. Watch as Jones cleans his clock.

Roy Jones Jr.
Watch for Jones vs. Pazienza at about the 3:14 mark of this clip. Jones has been known as the best pound for pound fighter in the world. He was amazing. And then…he tried a rapping.

Pernell Whitaker vs. Greg Haugen
I put this in here because Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker is a hometown boy from Norfolk, Virginia. Man, he was fast. If you listen to the commentary they say that Haugen thought that Pernell’s punches were about the same as Paziena’s. The announcers point out that Pernell is probably a lot faster.

Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Greg Haugen
I just love that Chavez just wants to kill Haugen. Doesn’t even want to shake hands with him. There was a lot of smack talk prior to this fight. Chavez was able to back his up.

Leonard vs. Hearns
Sugar Ray vs. Tommy the Hitman. During the 80’s these were some of the best fights to catch. Everybody rooted for Leonard because he always came off as such a great guy. It was classic ‘Good vs. Bad’. I mean, how can someone with the nickname ‘Hitman’ not be considered bad? I wish I could have found the fights where Hearns had long hair.

Hagler vs. Leonard
Just more pounding. Hagler vs. Leonard was also a great series of fights.