Olympic Boxing: Damien Hooper bombs and sinks Marcus Browne

Light heavyweight hopeful Marcus Browne was billed as one of the most talented and explosive fighters on the U.S. Olympic boxing team. Even celebrated boxing trainer Teddy Atlas, who works as a color commentator and analyst with NBC in the London Games, has high regard and is sold in Marcus Browne's skills and talent. Teddy Atlas knows Marcus Browne first-hand, as the young fighter is a constant fixture in one of the gyms that his foundation runs in Brooklyn, NY. 

photo credit: Scott Heavey/Getty Images

Teddy Atlas, however, pointed out that Marcus Browne's inexperience and ambivalence inside the ring can become a hindrance in a close fight as he cautioned that the American boxer will need to be mentally prepared and focused if he wants to get by Damien Hooper of Australia, a veteran campaigner.

In his young boxing career, Marcus Browne has been exposed to have a Jekyll and Hyde personality inside the ring. Marcus Browne has shown that he can be very explosive at one moment, but disappear like a puff of smoke in the next. Marcus Browne has shown that he can be very aggressive like a bull but be passive later on. And for his first fight, Teddy Atlas wants the aggressive and explosive Marcus Browne to show up if he wants to advance to the next round.

Going into his fight with controversial Australian Damien Hooper, who has Aborigine roots (and caused a stir in London and at home after he entered the arena wearing a T-shirt bearing the colors of the Aboriginal flag which some people pointed out to be a 'political statement' that is a no-no since the Olympics is supposed to be apolitical), Marcus Browne was beaming with confidence.

The first round, which Marcus Browne won 3-2, was slow and lacking in action. Both fighters spent the round sizing up and feeling out each other's strengths and weaknesses. Both fighters threw more misses than hits.

The action in the second round picked up a little, with both fighters having their moments. Marcus Browne began using his footwork, circling and moving away from the action while Damien Hooper commenced to roughhouse the young American.

In the course of the fight, both fighters slipped and fell to the canvas as a result of trying to wrestle and outpower each other. But Damien Hooper's right hand was beginning to find its mark, while Marcus Browne was tentative and contented in trying to time and counter his opponent. The round ended in 3-3 score.

Marcus Damien was ahead a point 6-5, going into the fateful third and final round. However, Damien Hooper drew first blood by landing a huge right, but Marcus Browne countered with his own shots. The American began to dig into his opponent's body but the Australian took them well and started to use his experience and began to bully the young American that eventually took its toll.

Damien Hooper imposed his will on Marcus Browne as he bombed his way into the young American's porous defense. Hooper's attacks were so successful that Browne was given a mandatory 8 count by the referee at one point in the fight. Damien Hooper's dominance of the final canto gave him an 8-5 edge and won the match 13-11.

The story of the fight: Damien Hooper brought the highly-regarded, talented and 'unsinkable' Marcus Browne to deep waters and sank him with his tenacity. Thus, Damien Hooper will live on to fight another day while Marcus Hooper will go home and ponder his future while having the ignominious distinction as the first U.S. boxer to fall on the wayside in the XXX Olympiad.

In an interview after the fight, Marcus Browne has this to say about his downfall: "I didn't listen to my corner in the last round and I paid for it" while at the same time reiterating the lesson that he learned in the bout, which is to always "finish strong."

Note: This article was previously published on Detroit Fight Sports Examiner

Manny & Money: Re-mapping Teddy Atlas' brain

ESPN Friday Night Fights host Teddy Atlas just became a rumormonger and he just made a respected network like ESPN a fish market by peddling fishy tales that reeks of Golden Boy’s rotten propaganda machine about the purported emails that began in Tim Smith’s New York Daily News report allegedly coming from Manny Pacquiao’s camp with regards on what to do if and when he tested positive for PEDs in his fight with Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

Reading his answers to BoxingTalk’s G. Leon’s interview, I couldn’t help but laugh and be amused of how this self- styled straight shooter was obviously bumbling and fumbling on his answers. He was trying to look cool and confident but we could easily discern that he was following a crooked script while struggling to deliver straight lines.

If I didn’t have any idea of the man’s personality and reputation and on what he was trying to impart to the ill-informed and uneducated habitués of the boxing world about an unsubstantiated issue that is obviously being rehashed by people with vested interests, maybe I could have been easily swayed.




Maybe the people behind this issue are believers of Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels‘ dictum that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep on repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”, huh? Looking at their records, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are.

But despite the well- thought out and well- rehearsed plan, his slips are quite obvious and his inconsistent statements are glaring.

Teddy Atlas: “I'm really not going to talk too much about this because again, the internet to me is like a graffiti board and it just gets more and more, I mean you got people like Mike Marley out there who are just low-life people. To me, I feel dirty every time I go near the internet. I feel like I got to take a shower or something.”

He can take a shower as many times as he wants but the dirt will not fall off his skin. He belittles the internet and yet he preaches about his belief that the so-called email is genuine and real. If he really understands his thing, he could’ve realized that emails are products of the internet and anybody can make an account, write something and send them to anybody with these and that allegations. Anybody with an understanding of how the internet works should take this kind of allegation as nothing but garbage.

If these alleged emails really exist and that they really came from Team Pacquiao and knowing that there is no love lost between the two camps, they should have come up and showed them to us by now. It’s a known fact that emails can easily be traced to the IP address from where it originated. Thus, these emails simply don’t exist but are, rather, just another black propaganda concocted by people with sinister minds.


In answer to the question, “Why would the Pacquiao people be so stupid to send out such an email?”

Here’s what Teddy Atlas had to say-

"I don't think he has any rocket scientists around his group. You ever watch 24/7? (laughs) I mean none of these guys have rocket scientists around them. That's all I can say. It seems on the surface like a very stupid thing to do, to obviously have a record of something that can be incriminating or potentially look as though there's something that leads towards something inappropriate by even asking such a question? Yeah, I agree. And that was the first thing I asked. Why would somebody be so stupid to leave a paper trail on that? But yeah, these people that are around boxing, both as writers, both on the internet, both as people who get to hang around the camp and wind up becoming people that are involved in their careers, they're not rocket scientists and it just makes me sick.”

Again this makes me laugh really hard.

Obviously, Teddy Atlas has a very low regard with regards to the intelligence of the people on Team Pacquiao as he believes that these people are nothing but a bunch of idiots because they are stupid enough to send incriminating emails to the other side of the fence.

If there is a study in contradiction, it would be Teddy Atlas. He says one thing and does another. He says things as if he is an expert yet his idea of what he is talking about is vague.

I am now beginning to suspect that Teddy Atlas really has no idea what an email is and that he isn’t computer literate at all.

Let me just cite two things in this case-

If he believes that the internet is full of graffiti and dirt, how come he believes an email that is the product of the internet? If he believes that the people in Team Pacquiao are not rocket scientists but are stupid, how come he buys the thinking that they are capable of giving Manny Pacquiao performance- enhancing drugs like hGHs and steroids?

The joke is on Teddy Atlas here and everybody is laughing but himself. Oh, how gullible and silly of him to be peddling this kind of nonsense that should have been confined to the gossip section of National Enquirer where it should be.

As they say in America, show me the money err the emails in this case if it really does exist. Otherwise, he should just keep his mouth shut to spare him of being labeled as a fool.


Note: This article can also be found at Now Boxing