From the Mind of Wayne Abbott...

A thing of beauty: It's called a check hook...

It's been a long while since I've made an entry but it's been a busy year. Tons of activity on the work side, joy and pain with the family, and more fighting the good fight with martial arts. Since the last time I've mentioned my martial arts training I've gotten my 1st degree black belt (the original black belt is a "0" degree - you're basically starting all over again) and this past Monday I successfully passed my black/green test. I was able to get a lot of motivation leading up to test by watching the Floyd Mayweather / Ricky Hatton fight 3 times over the weekend.

While Floyd obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way from his boasting and wearing out that tired hip-hop focus on money one thing that can't be questioned is his work ethic. His training regiment is impressive to say the least - if you haven't seen it catch repeats of 24/7 on HBO. Mayweather in many ways is not the most exciting boxer out there: he doesn't throw a lot of combinations which is a real shame given his superior speed and stamina, rarely knocks people out early in fights, and often requires a real challenge to see his best skills on display. However you can count on him to always have amazing Compubox stats, show off nasty right hand leads and effective counter punching, and see a defensive showcase almost every fight.

That said he put on a clinic December 8th. People shockingly were giving rounds to Hatton early in the fight for nothing more than managing the real estate of the ring - he barely got any punches of note in those early rounds although he did a good job brawling. However Mayweather's superior skills just overwhelmed Hatton in the end. While th fight ended in the 10th the real damage was done in the 8th round - a it was just a thing of beauty. You see Mayweather throw combinations, soften Hatton up with body punches, and then just punish him with crosses and hooks. The 10th round was just the finishing touch but if you ever want to see a textbook check hook look no further than this below:

And here's the technically devastating 8th round where Mayweather's Compubox stats were through the roof:

PUNCHSTATS FIGHTERS Mayweather Hatton TOTAL PUNCHES Thrown 329 372 Connected 129 63 % 39% 17% JABS Thrown 72 63 Connected 29 11 % 40% 17% POWER PUNCHES Thrown 257 309 Connected 100 52 % 39% 17%

The fight gave me great motivation as I went into my test where we now have more physically demanding challenges and weapons use. The worst is the chocking combat - you either choke or get chocked and things don't stop until some cries uncle. I'm still sore 3 days later but I should be ok in time to enjoy Christmas.

In any case I'll talk about my Nevada build 80/compiz 6.2 installation on my Tecra M2 hopefully before the year is out. Enjoy the holidays everyone and have a happy new year...

Posted at 10:27AM Dec 20, 2007 by curtaintime in General  |  Comments[0]