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22 August 2014 Emily Blunt vs Anna Silk

Page history last edited by Archer844 9 years, 7 months ago

Emily Blunt 04.jpg Anna Silk 01.jpg

RAMPANT FIGHTING PPV

(Writing: Rampant Fighting; Results: Lookout)

Posted by Rampant Fighting on August 22, 2014, 4:05 pm

A career is an accumulation of wins and losses in the same way that a boxing match is an accumulation of punches landed. The wins and losses count, of course, but equally as important is the impression created. The takeaway. Few women know this as well as Emily Blunt and Anna Silk, who each have strong enough records for this to realistically have been a title fight, but whose progression has been hamstrung by the more colorful nature of their losses. ‘My team has been trying to get the rematch booked for months without hearing anything back,’ Anna said of last year’s bludgeoning brawl with Claire Holt. ‘So let’s put this on record now; I’m tired of you ducking me, Claire. We are going to do it again, and this time when I put you on your ass you aren’t getting back up.’ Blunt was similarly bullish when it came to her own nemesis. ‘I know that the fights with Natalie have a disproportionate effect on people’s perception of us both,’ she admitted in prefight. ‘And that’s fine, because I’m better than her. Believe me, the only thing that I’m worried about with Natalie is that she wins enough for it to still be meaningful when I beat her arse.’

But if they were disdainful about some of their past opponents, then, outwardly at least, they had only respect for each other. ‘From what I’ve seen on tape Anna hits as hard as anyone in the division. I know that I can’t let her get her feet set and that my movement has to be really good,’ was Emily’s analysis, while in return Anna came close to gushing when asked about Blunt’s yoga honed physique. ‘Her body is just sick. For her to get back into that kind of shape so quickly is incredible. Thing is, I’ve got the kind of power that can make all of that hard work irrelevant with one shot; if I was Emily, that would be making me nervous.’

The interesting thing about watching two women with such different styles is that it becomes all too apparent just how precarious this is; they were smart and they were talented but they were also a couple of fighters working with barely more margin for error than a tightrope walker. A single wrong step late on in the first put Emily too close to the corner and with her weight awkwardly on her back foot, allowing Anna to walk through her waft of a left hand and shove her back hard against the ropes. It cost her a beating, and if there had been longer left until the bell she might not have survived; twice, Silk’s left uppercut whistled by her hairline as she slouched forward after taking hard, lashing hooks to the waist, and Anna’s right cross to the underneaths of her breasts had her shouting out in pain behind her gloves time and time again. It was the same for Anna in the fourth. One missed read meant that she took Emily’s jab flush on the chin, and the subsequent dulling of her reflexes, though likely only tiny, was enough for her to be simply overwhelmed by Blunt’s accuracy and volume; punished high and low, she ended the round with her back against the ropes and her arms loose by her sides. The walk back to her stool came on notably unsteady legs.

Rarely can two last names been less apposite than these. There is little that looks silky smooth about Anna’s heavy-handed thumping, and Emily’s technically sound, high workrate style is more precision tool than blunt instrument. Regardless, both women know how to use the skills they have, and Emily’s finishing effort was typically well-executed. With Silk clearly still hurting from the previous round, a flurry of initial body punches beat her to all fours in no nonsense fashion. The impressive part happened on resumption, though; as Anna tried to clinch up and buy time, it took a tremendous physical effort from Blunt to keep those shoulders working, keep Silk’s groggy weight from bogging her down and keep popping uppercuts to the head and hooks to the body until, finally, Anna was beaten unresponsive, and the referee stepped in to stop the fight.

‘Obviously my conditioning was a big factor,’ Emily said in her press conference. ‘There’s a little bit more oomph on my punches now, and I don’t know if I’d have shaken off that first round as quickly early on in my career.’ Asked about future plans beyond Alba she was noncommittal, but perhaps the most noteworthy thing about this win from Blunt’s perspective was that the hashtag Emilyinatanktop trended throughout the fight, offering hope that perhaps her new look can finally help her make an impact with a wider audience. As for Anna, this was a tough fight to take off a long layoff, but she avoided the kind of visually spectacular loss that can color people’s perceptions, and with an upcoming PPV date with Frege already confirmed there’s every chance of a quick bounce back, and perhaps ultimately a reckoning with Holt.

(Blunt beats Silk TKO5)