SBW survives late White Buffalo onslaught
8 Feb 2013
Sonny Bill Williams beat Francois Botha on points in Brisbane after the boxing bout was controversially reduced from 12 to 10 rounds during the fight.
The former All Blacks centre was hanging on by a thread in what turned out to be the last round and would almost certainly have lost if another two rounds had been allowed.
The judges awarded the fight to Williams 97-91, 98-94 and 97-91.
‘I love Sonny Bill, but this is bullshit,’ Botha said afterwards. ‘I beat him hands free!’
Earlier, Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper won his first professional fight in a first-round knockout of Australian Barry Dunnett.
There will be repeats of both fights on SuperSport at 3pm (SS5) and 7pm (SS1).
945 Comments
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8 Feb 2013, 15:05 pm
What happened to that great work of literary genius that Keo bestowed on us on Wednesday? It must have been deleted accidentally. Never mind, I’ve found a cached copy.
You’re welcome, boys and girls.
Rocking your rugby world.
6 Feb 2013
Players should be judged on performance and not the promise of performance. Selectors, coaches, media and supporters should lose their obsession with age and the restriction of four year cycles. If you read this to the end you could be the making of rugby’s revolution. To the brandy and coke okes don’t go beyond this point.
The introduction of the Rugby World Cup was to give one country official bragging rights to officially being called the best in the world. It grew quickly into a commerciaL beast whose appetite to be fed will only increase. It is no longer about bragging rights but about commerce and the supposed investment of the game in the future.
But those who appoint themselves as the architects of vision are merely enforcing the limitation of their vision on whoever is prepared to emulate what is deemed to be the best, when the innovators and inspirers are the ones who define success on creating and giving something unique, which is then interpreted by the chasing pack as the standard that invariably has to be matched. Unfortunately everyone wants to be the best but society’s stone-cast, yet non sensical, set of rules cater only for contradiction because while it caters for the mind to be aspirational it provides a greater immediate seduction and safety net for the mind to favour the short term comfort of conservatism.
Society’s selfish cavaliers are too often the ones reinforcing the reward and restriction that gives the majority the comfort that conservative is good because there is no risk but with cavalier could come failure.
With cavalier however comes something new every time and the possibility to success. Conservatism’s failure is that it brings no new reward.
The rugby media and supporters are a primary exhibit of what is aspiration and what is acceptable and the ideal of being the best is always replaced with a sense of satisfaction that not coming last is the equal of coming first. The result is the core of teams in any competition and the core of people in life are conditioned that having the fantasy of wanting to be the best and the reality of never been called the worst is the most sought after emotion.
It is why core of coaches will talk about breaking new ground but always revert to what they know because it’s not deemed failure.
Oh to find coaches who see the adventure in selection and strength of individual skills that combined make for the extraordinary.
Those investors in teams do so out of vanity so their intention is not to want the best rugby team. Supporters and the rugby media are the most powerful investors in the coach who can talk of unchartered ground and know the adventure will be a shared one with those who determine his job security, which is the supporter and the reporter. Why do the two of us actually have the responsibility and the power of influence? Because for there to be a rugby team there has to be an owner, but an owner only wants a club if he has an audience who actually pay his bills and spend the money and his players need an audience to perform.
The reporter in rugby is also the game’s story teller and without the story being told, be it in print, electronic or by broadcast, the performance is reduced to a bunch of blokes enjoying a Sunday social run around. Owners and investors need an evolving audience so they need to have a story being told. More paying support and more money allows for better player purchases and dividends. The rewards are great and the risk is the story teller’s words wreck a business and don’t seduce enough to inspire this new audience to pay more than the existing ones.
Coaches are restricted – and we are the worst culprits. You and me.
Our opinions, pre game, demand adventure, investment of skill and something out of the ordinary, but we make the demand of wanting to see a creation without it being allowed to stumble in pursuit of seeing its capabilities.
The World Cup is all about keeping the professional game one controlled by elected officials, who get the benefits of a professional game by way of sponsorship, broadcast deals and a paying support base. It’s commercial value is restricted because those who control it use it as the controlling influence of the game.
The World Cup should be a tournament within rugby’s professional identity. Currently everything else is compromised because to succeed at the World Cup once every four years allows for any amount of failure. The Word Cup is a great tournament but it should be seen as tournament and not as the pinnacle of a four year cycle. All enjoyment and adventure and logic are compromised with the possibility (not probability) of our team winning the World Cup.
What then, a month later this team is playing again and the chance is there to get beaten? And that’s okay?
The game should be played in the current and the obvious is wanting to do better today than was the case yesterday. Think of the madness of the statement if I told you that living was about four years of toil and restriction and just maybe you will get one day in the sun and then your reward is you can at least boast to your friends about it.
The right brag your team is the best in the world once every four years apparently has such gravitas that everything is compromised and excused within those four years.
The World Cup – and its four year cycle – has restricted a game yet those who control the game through elections and not necessarily intelligence – are convinced its been a revolution. Every value of selection has been compromised. The best aren’t always played for fear of injury. Performances lacking in pedigree are dismissed as not playing the World Cup-winning hand and no player is assessed on what he brings to the team in the week that team is selected.
Players, not yet good enough, are picked now because in three years time they may have to need World Cup final experience. Players, more experienced, are questioned because age is again the restriction and the fear of not knowing whether he will be too old is deemed a worse one than the fear of not knowing if a player, picked on what could be, is actually not good enough.
Professional rugby tournaments have forced the evolvement of a squad system, but the supporter is as amateur in his demand for one and only one starting XV as the amateur administrator is in wanting the players to be thankful someone is willing to actually to administer their game and give them the platform to play.
The media is the worst culprit because the reports discuss a player being dropped when it is the workings of a squad system. The media influences the supporter who is in the professional game the most important voice because it’s the voice of the paying customer.
Think about the power of the supporter but a confused buyer is a sucker of a buyer and rugby’s elected official only sell you the game they want to control and not the one you want to necessarily watch. They think the player is a liability because the supply is greater than the demand and they think the game is about the way they govern when it’s future is exclusive to those who support with their eyes and their cash.
The numbers have again allowed to influence restriction because to start has a bragging right that it is somehow means a player is better than the guy who is the greatest exponent of closing out a win in the role of a substitute. The different skills of these two types of players have never been allowed to develop because those who govern and the majority who support resent the player earning money from a game in which the limitations of the game being strictly amateur have grown to legends of romance and beauty.
No amateur player was exposed to a playing schedule the equal of a professional player. That is why one to 15 worked then but it doesn’t matter now who starts and who finishes. All that is significant about the number is that 15 stays on for the duration of the match.
Age, another number, is the greatest curse because it means performance is secondary.
Endorsing the romance of the amateur days only encourages the restriction in potential pleasure of a professional game.
The coach needs to use a squad system to last the season but the supporter wants only the 15 best every weekend and everyone has ultimate escape of planning for a World Cup.
The performance of the player is not the priority any more. It’s how that performance fits the four year cycle. The performance is no longer the celebration. How wrong.
Player ‘A’ wins your team the Test match and he gets no sense of your joy because you have already accepted he won’t be around for the World Cup and instead of the joy of the day your focus is the possible pain of the big World Cup day.
How absurd is that? What does that say about us that invariably our pleasure is from a possible bragging right once every four years and we condition ourselves to believe that living is about the possibility of feeling something extraordinary in four years time and that living to experience something extraordinary has the risk of death.
Imagine the possibilities of sport if the worth of a team was determined by the pleasure gained through performance and not by relief at not losing.
For rugby, like any sport, to ever be true to the supporter and give pleasure the supporter would have to change his mindset.
That won’t happen because it’s about bragging rights and being defined by what you can tell others or what they will have to say about your team. Only to a few is it about the pleasure they derive from their emotional investment in a team whose pedigree as much about their belief in the manner of performance and not just the winning result in a performance.
Super Rugby can’t rock your world if electric guitars and drums are a risk to your hearing. And when there’s no real sound to what you think looks like a great visual performance then no pie and beer should be enough of a lure to keep you coming back. If it is then eating pies is your passion not watching rugby.
Super Rugby should be about the uncertainty of your heartbeat and not about the certainty of your heartburn.
Here’s to your team rocking your world this season in the pleasure you get from their effort and not in the way it makes you feel only if they win. Now that’s a bragging right because you got reward for your emotional investment.
We want our team to win but if we are watching it for pleasure then the winning is in that emotion. Rugby, like rock and roll, should never be compromised by restriction, especially not by an audience whose passion is for the pleasure felt in watching a performance.
If you are the type of Super Rugby supporter so insecure in identity that your team has to win to give you a reason to smile and give your voice a growl every Monday morning at the office then let’s agree that we will always disagree because my pleasure is your pain and your pleasure, even in observation, is more torture than pain.
To the minority who want the rock and roll, we’ve got every Saturday to live this season. To the oke so desperate to tell you how kak your team is he’s got one Saturday to live through what will be the pain of 80 minutes so he can feel relief that he will be able to tell you his team is the winner.
8 Feb 2013, 15:05 pm
47 The Curse, haha, that’s brilliant. I forgot they did that, pathetic!
8 Feb 2013, 15:10 pm
@the curse-47:
And free counselling would be available to all kiwis, courtesy of the governemnt, had SBW lost. (The structures are still in place)
Sorted.
8 Feb 2013, 15:11 pm
@Stawm-53: really? strange that, they were sent to SA after the one day series loss, didnt know they had returned yet..
still, Botha could use the travel disadvantage angle surely?
8 Feb 2013, 15:12 pm
@Stawm-53: Domestic abuse would have been rife, too…
8 Feb 2013, 15:16 pm
@the curse-54:
” really? strange that, they were sent to SA after the one day series loss, didnt know they had returned yet..”
Thats a bit unclear. Please tidy up a bit.
“still, Botha could use the travel disadvantage angle surely?”
Nah, think he will just use the expression of disbelief on SBW’s face to explain it all.
8 Feb 2013, 15:16 pm
@Angostura-27:
Or Mark Waugh and Shane Warne
8 Feb 2013, 15:17 pm
@the curse-47: I’ll have a size 12 please…no…wait…make that a 10!
8 Feb 2013, 15:18 pm
@Stawm-56: whats to explain, the great white buffalo lost..
to a kiwi
thought Africa wasnt for sissies?
8 Feb 2013, 15:18 pm
@Stawm-56: Mate, i’m no SBW fan, but Botha looked like one of you fat lazy props tonight, until the last round where he finally threw a punch. SBW won hands down!
8 Feb 2013, 15:19 pm
@Stawm-56: Or, Botha could – and I’m reaching here, I admit – simply point out that there were two rounds left in the fight. But that would be terribly unsporting of him.
8 Feb 2013, 15:20 pm
@the curse-59:
True. But it had to be rigged.
Still, if it makes you happy then enjoy it.
8 Feb 2013, 15:20 pm
Botha should sue his chemist, obviously didnt get the right mix of steroids for this fight..
8 Feb 2013, 15:22 pm
@Stawm-62: I couldnt care less to be honest, boxing has no credibility whatsoever, this “fight” just further enhances that notion..
8 Feb 2013, 15:23 pm
Kiwis are used to things finishing prematurely – they don’t see the problem
8 Feb 2013, 15:24 pm
what happened to the unreadable article?
8 Feb 2013, 15:24 pm
@lawsy25-60:
I cant argue with that. He looked like he didnt even bother training for this fight.
Keeping that in mind though, SBW couldnt do much damage to him, and when Botha started to lift his game in the 10th like his trainers said he should, lo and behold, suddenly its a 10 round fight, not 12.
@kaksioek-61:
Lets not ruin the fantasy of a great SBW victory with facts though.
8 Feb 2013, 15:25 pm
More cheating from the Kiwis.
Nothing new.
8 Feb 2013, 15:25 pm
i want to get a picture printed of Sonny in the last few seconds of round 10, i havn’t larfed so much.
only two more rounds, Sonny
8 Feb 2013, 15:25 pm
@the curse-64:
Now we’re on the same page.
8 Feb 2013, 15:26 pm
What’s with this curse chick?
8 Feb 2013, 15:27 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-69:
He was totally finished. Felt sorry for him. One more PK from Botha and it was lights out.
8 Feb 2013, 15:27 pm
@Predawn-71:
its a monthly thing.
8 Feb 2013, 15:28 pm
@the curse-64: @Stawm-70: Agreed. But even though outcomes are dodgy……Some of the ‘hits’ are still pretty cool to watch
8 Feb 2013, 15:28 pm
Bakkies ek kyk die geveg nou en sal so n bietjie mooi kyk na die tiende rondte
8 Feb 2013, 15:28 pm
@mamma_lou-66: I guess Keo realized that had also ended prematurely and is working on a second volume. He will publish the unabridged version as soon as he can scrape together enough ZAR for another data center.
8 Feb 2013, 15:29 pm
@lawsy25-35: not sure if it’s worth responding to someone of your limited intellectual capabilities, but try this analogy. Your rugby team is staging a comeback in the 70th minute when suddenly the ref stops the game. I bet you’ll be jumping with joy.
8 Feb 2013, 15:30 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-74:
In all honesty, I really wanted to see how good SBW is.
He is a fantastic athlete and he took a few solid PKs.
SBW is the only reason I watched this fight, I think the first heavy weight fight I have watched since Gerrie thanked his wife Wendy and his dog.
8 Feb 2013, 15:31 pm
Cape Crusaders gotta be careful here…can’t be dissing their rugby hero.
8 Feb 2013, 15:31 pm
die keewees moet net vir my verduidelik hoe n twaalf rondte geveg ewe skielik tien rondtes word en of hulle dink dit is regverdig.
eenvoudig.
8 Feb 2013, 15:32 pm
@Stawm-72:
my donner maar dit was no blerrie snaaks.
i havn’t larfed that loud in a while. the way he hung onto Botha and the look on his face, priceless
six more minutes Sonny… six more minutes…
8 Feb 2013, 15:32 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-69: I wanna get a picture of him holding the World Cup and super 15 cup!
8 Feb 2013, 15:32 pm
I heard that the 15h00 re broadcast will go the full 12 rounds
8 Feb 2013, 15:32 pm
@Fern-75:
Fern, dis p0&$ snaaks.
8 Feb 2013, 15:33 pm
@Fern-80:
Dis die aussies wat moet verduidelik!
8 Feb 2013, 15:33 pm
Die ringlady’s was heel duidelik aussie meisies gewees
8 Feb 2013, 15:33 pm
@Stawm-78: You mean wife Rina and Wendy the cocker spaniel?
8 Feb 2013, 15:34 pm
@@whistle@blower@-83:
Hell yeah!
That sums up boxing to a T!
8 Feb 2013, 15:34 pm
@Fern-86: Did you notice that they carried the SA flag upsidedown?
8 Feb 2013, 15:35 pm
@Stawm-85:
die keewees moet verduidelik of hulle so n uitslaag as regverdig sien.
8 Feb 2013, 15:35 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-87:
I stand corrected!
8 Feb 2013, 15:35 pm
@Fern-80: back from the dead lazarus?
I dont see any kiwi saying the missing two rounds was fair, can you point me to the post?
we all also thought it wasnt right, but the way some of you go on youd think every kiwi spectator was complicit in the missing two rounds..
you’ll have to ask the officials in charge why it happened, only they know..
8 Feb 2013, 15:36 pm
@lawsy25-82:
en jou punt is..?..
8 Feb 2013, 15:36 pm
@H-77: Thank you for giving me your time of day, I’m truly blessed! Would it matter if your team is already down 30-0 with 10 minutes to go?? knobhead!
8 Feb 2013, 15:36 pm
This was supposed to be a WBA Heavyweight World title fight. Surely it had to be a minimum of 12 rounds to qualify?
8 Feb 2013, 15:36 pm
Why did they do that jaw move before the boxing started. Something to do with the steroids kicking in?
8 Feb 2013, 15:36 pm
@Fern-90:
I refer you to Womans Monthly Curses’ comments above. (In jest I know)
SBW ‘s face said it all at the end. He wasnt happy.
8 Feb 2013, 15:37 pm
Rigged…. Bookies in on it.
When will SBW have a fight that doesn’t create controversy?
8 Feb 2013, 15:37 pm
Maybe too much speed?
8 Feb 2013, 15:37 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-93:
Ek het al n rondte golf by Cullinan. saam met Fransie se pa gespeel.
Baie nice sout van die aarde omie.
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