Golden Boy to finally feed veteran lightweights to the wolves

Mark Ortega

Golden Boy Promotions has just finalized an eight-man lightweight tournament that features six former world champions (and one former interim champion) in a series of bouts that are slated to take place April 4th in Texas on HBO pay-per-view. The announcement is expected to generate lots of excitement, and for good reason.


When Golden Boy Promotions was first established in 2001, one of their first orders of business seemed to be to snatch up all of the top talent in the 135-pound weight class. Eight years later, they control all but three of the major players at lightweight. One of those fighters is Manny Pacquiao, who was nearly a Golden Boy fighter but had already signed with Top Rank. Another is unified lightweight champion Nate Campbell, who fights this coming Saturday and could be signing with Golden Boy should he be victorious in order to ensure a big money fight. The only other 135-pound fighter they do not control, Edwin Valero of Top Rank, is expected to participate in the tournament.

This was a move that I personally expected to happen for months. When it was announced that Carlos Hernandez signed with Golden Boy back in June of last year, I half-expected to see him matched against either Michael Katsidis or Juan Diaz in order to rebuild those fighters after they both suffered their first professional defeats. Golden Boy went another route and matched both of those fighters against each other on one of HBO's best free telecasts of the year.

Now six months later, we likely will be seeing a few veteran lightweights put down to pasture. The tournament's first round matchups look like this:

-Edwin Valero [24-0, 24 KOs] vs. Antonio Pitalua [46-3, 40 KOs] for the interim WBC lightweight title.

-Joel Casamayor [36-4-1, 22 KOs] vs. Julio Diaz [36-4, 26 KOs]

-Michael Katsidis [24-2, 20 KOs] vs. Jesus Chavez [44-4, 30 KOs]

-Carlos Hernandez [43-7-1, 24 KOs] vs. Jorge Barrios [47-4-1, 34 KOs]

Valero is the youngest competitor in the tournament at 27 years of age. He poses the most intrigue in this lightweight tournament, fighting for the first time in the United States in many years due to his license being revoked for medical reasons. He has been cleared to fight in Texas, where this card is likely to land. Valero will also be making his 135-pound debut, and it will be interesting to see how his power (24 knockouts in 24 contests) translates at his new weight.

His opponent, Pitalua, is a 16-year veteran who is coming off a September upset victory over former interim WBC lightweight champion Jose Armando Santa Cruz, his biggest victory to date. In his lone challenge for a world title, Pitalua lost a decision to Artur Grigorian in November of 2000 and has since plodded along, losing one more along the way. Aside from his victory over Santa Cruz, Pitalua's last five fights have come against opponents that tally a total of seven victories, and all of those came from one fighter.

The second most intriguing bout is one that features two former world champions in Joel Casamayor and Julio Diaz. At 37, Casamayor does not have many fights left in him, but he should be favored here. In his last fight, an 11th round TKO loss to Juan Manuel Marquez, Casamayor was even on two scorecards and gave a good account of himself after starting off slowly. Before that, he was coming off likely his most thrilling victory, a 10th round stoppage of previously undefeated Michael Katsidis in a 2008 Fight of the Year candidate.

Diaz, on the other hand, has mostly fought off the radar since being totally dismantled by Juan Diaz in a lightweight unification bout back in October of 2007. In his first fight back, he took apart undefeated pretender David Torres on ESPN and has since added a victory over the many-times-beaten Fernando Trejo in October. At 29, Diaz still has seemingly a lot left in the tank and a win over Casamayor would be the biggest of his career.

28-year old Michael Katsidis returns to the United States to take on former super featherweight and lightweight world champion Jesus Chavez. Katsidis has just recently rebounded from two consecutive losses with a unanimous decision victory over soft-touch opponent Angel Ramirez. A victory for Katsidis could mean a much sought after rematch with Casamayor, so it is easy to assume he won't be looking past "El Matador".

For Chavez, a former two-division world champion, this could be the end of the road. Since suffering an injury against Julio Diaz in February of 2007, costing him his IBF 135-pound title, Chavez has looked far from spectacular. His 10-round decision win over Daniel Jimenez was acceptable, especially coming off of a serious injury. He then followed it up with a thorough beating of journeyman Andres Ledesma via ninth round stoppage, but many expected Chavez to take care of business a little bit quicker. Many feel that Chavez has not looked the same in the ring since his tragic bout with Leavander Johnson that resulted in the first major Las Vegas ring death in years, and it is easy to understand why. Still, a victory over Katsidis is within the realm of possibility and could be the trendy pick for an upset on the card.

The fourth bout features two more former world champions whose best days as well as pounds are behind them in Carlos "Famoso" Hernandez and Jorge Rodrigo Barrios. Since moving up to lightweight again in 2005, Hernandez has looked far from spectacular against less than stellar opposition. After losing to a much-faded Kevin Kelley at the end of 2006, Hernandez retired but has since returned to the ring once, a majority decision victory over Hector Alatorre in August of last year. In that bout, ring rust was very apparent and it took Hernandez many rounds to establish a rhythm. Hernandez also does not seem to have the legs that made him a world champion in 2003, the first of El Salvador. With that said, Hernandez still has a good chance at emerging victorious but is likely the least expected to conquer this proposed tournament.

Barrios is making the move to lightweight after unsuccessfully challenging Rocky Juarez, another Golden Boy fighter, back in September. Barrios looked much different than usual in the ring, imploring actual boxing technique in the ring that seemingly befuddled his opponent for at least the first half of the bout. Barrios nearly made it to the scorecards before Juarez busted open a cut in his mouth late in the 11th round, one of boxing's grossest injuries of last year. In the Juarez bout, new to Barrios' camp was trainer Rudy Perez, who made it known that he basically had to teach Barrios how to box again. The transformation that Barrios made from a wide open slugger to a slick boxer was as quick as any, and it worked for much of the fight before the brutal cut and knockout ended his hopes of victory. Barrios is now moving up another five pounds, but stands a fair chance at scoring a victory against Hernandez.

It seems that Golden Boy is building towards a Casamayor-Katsidis rematch with Edwin Valero likely playing the spoiler to those plans should the two not meet in the second round. The way the tournament is setup, it is yet to be known who would face each other in the next round. Expect that not to be hammered out until the first round is completed and negotiations can be worked on.