Double Left Hook

Remembering Arturo Gatti

2009-07-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Arturo Gatti was more of a role model to me than any fighter out there. There may never be another fighter who will inspire me to “suck it up” when things get hard in my own life. Arturo taught me not to look for defeat, but to look for a way to overcome it, and that when we are down, that is when life is most precious.

It still has not fully hit me yet that Arturo Gatti is no longer with us. Sure, he had been out of the ring for almost exactly two years since suffering a shock knockout loss to Alfonso Gomez in July of 2007. But when you consider all that Arturo Gatti persevered through as a fighter, all the punishment he took in and out of the ring during a tumultuous sixteen year professional career that included world titles in two different weight classes as well as four Ring Magazine Fight of the Year awards and a Comeback of the Year Award, you figured if he was able to survive all of those things that he was going to be around for awhile after he hung up the gloves. Sadly for us, Arturo Gatti was taken way too soon and the circumstances surrounding his demise are as tragic as they can get.

This article is not going to delve too deeply into what caused Gatti to be found dead in his villa in Brazil, presumably from strangulation while he was intoxicated in his sleep. Gatti is one of those fighters that always had personal problems, whether it be from partying too much, chasing women, or just not taking good care of himself in general.

When Gatti retired, it was reported he was back to his old partying ways. His friends always wanted to go out, and Gatti obliged them and would tag along. Arturo Gatti was a man who was always the life of the party. How could you not be with the kinds of stories that not even Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky Balboa” could contend with? Eventually, Gatti was able to taper off his partying and started settling into his life post-retirement. He had a one-year old son who many said was the light of Arturo’s life. The saddest thing of all of this may just be that Gatti’s young son will now grow up without either parent, but the fact that he has the same blood running through him as his father makes me think he will be able to handle whatever life intends on throwing at him.

What Gatti meant to people on a personal level is what makes this so hard for everyone. I was unlucky to have not been around the sport as a journalist long enough to cover an Arturo Gatti fight. I never had the chance to meet him, to shake his hand, and say thank you for the never-ending amount of memories that he supplied us with over the course of his career. The list of memorable moments that Arturo was a key part of might take the whole rest of this article to articulate.

First, there was his memorable and underrated title victory over Tracy Harris Patterson. Gatti came out of the gates quickly, but let Patterson back into the fight late, gutting out a close unanimous decision to win the IBF super featherweight title and become a world champion for the first time.

In his very next fight, Arturo Gatti would emerge as a star. In a fight against Wilson Rodriguez, he faced a rugged veteran who had been around awhile but was not expected to be too much of a challenge in what many considered a showcase bout for Gatti. From the opening round, you knew it was not going to be that easy of a fight. Gatti was getting hit, very often in fact at a rate that fighters at the top level of the sport should not be taking. Part of what made Gatti a fighter who was able to even compete at that level was the fact that he could take that kind of punishment and keep coming forward.

The Rodriguez fight was the headlining bout of HBO’s second ever episode of Boxing After Dark. The opening episode was a bout between Marco Antonio Barrera and Kennedy McKinney that many considered the best fight of the year and a tough act to follow for the hard-hitting Gatti. From the opening bell you knew that this fight could be just as good as that one.

Rodriguez came out in the first very quickly, peppering Gatti with an assortment of power shots that had Gatti heading back to his corner in a daze. The same onslaught continued in the next round, as Gatti took tons of punishment before being knocked down. But Gatti made it to his feet, and this would mark the beginning of the legacy of a fighter who was not world-class in skill but world-class in heart. The next three rounds saw Gatti continue to get hit but at the same time mount a comeback and tire his opponent out. At this point, Gatti’s eyes were nearly closed and he could not see right hands coming.

Heading to his corner before the sixth, he was given a “How many fingers?” test and somehow passed it and was given one more round to finish the job. Gatti went to the body immediately in the seventh, getting away with a few blows below the belt in between landing brutal body shots that would slow down his opponent. The body shots would setup a perfect left hook up top that would send the challenger spiraling to the canvas. Ringside Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant would go nuts, with Merchant proclaiming this fight one that nobody who saw it could ever forget.

He would follow that big victory with wins over Patterson in a rematch and Calvin Grove in an exciting underrated fight. Next he would face the tough former super featherweight champion Gabriel Ruelas in a fight that would win the 1997 Fight of the Year courtesy of Ring Magazine. Gatti would again fall behind early, get hurt and cut under his left eye, but he would not lose his resolve. It was never that Arturo Gatti had an iron chin or a thick skull where the punches had no effect on him, he constantly showed that he was getting hurt by the shots his opponents would land. It was that Gatti was mentally strong enough to take those shots and keep coming as he had the confidence that he would get his man out of there eventually.

With Ruelas, Gatti would land a ridiculous left hook that would drop Ruelas and end the fight in the fifth. Once again, Lampley, Merchant, and Roy Jones, Jr. went nuts following the victory.

“Can you believe Arturo Gatti?” exclaimed Larry Merchant as Jones, Jr. laughed like a young school girl giddy with excitement. “He just seems to have a bottomless well of will-power that just can’t stop him.”

Being an Arturo Gatti fan was a difficult thing to deal with. On one hand, you knew the guy was always going to bring you a good fight, but on the other hand you had to think to yourself, at what cost? If you were an Arturo Gatti fan, you may have been calling for him to retire after losing three straight bouts in 1998 to Angel Manfredy and Ivan Robinson twice in an attempted move to 135 pounds.

Manfredy was able to brutally cut Arturo early in the fight and drop him in the third round. This was an instance where Gatti was debilitated enough to not even be able to score a dramatic last-second victory, but even in the loss he gained more respect as he endured seven plus rounds against a contender without being able to see anything before the referee stopped the fight. Most other fighters would have packed it in as soon as the blood starting pouring into their eye but Gatti was not most other fighters.

In the first Robinson fight, Gatti would win Fight of the Year honors for the second time in this action-packed war that saw both guys hurt multiple times. With Gatti trailing on the scorecards heading into the final round, he knew he needed a knockout to get the win and came as close as you possibly can to making that a reality. In the tenth and final, Gatti would use every last bit of energy he had trying to knock Robinson out. A lot of fighters at that point in a brutal fight would just be trying to make it to the final bell, but Arturo Gatti never fought just to make it to the end. He was unsuccessful in his quest to stop Robinson, but made more fans in the process of losing.

Gatti would lose again to Robinson, and many considered him done as a top fighter. In 1999 and 2000, he would fight four times against lower level opposition, and even in one of those fights he faced a ton of drama.

In a fight against Joe Hutchinson in his hometown of Montreal on ESPN, Gatti would again get cut very badly early on in the fight. In most cases, a cut like this would have been a cause for stoppage, but the fact that this was Gatti’s first fight in his hometown probably helped keep the fight going. Gatti gutted out another decision victory and would earn a big payday against Oscar De La Hoya that many considered Gatti’s “cashout” fight. In other words, this was Gatti’s big payday so he could get out of the sport with some money and finally hang them up.

Gatti would suffer yet another bad cut under his right eye but it would not deter Arturo from coming forward and trying. In the fifth, Gatti’s trainer Hector Rocha would throw in the towel after seeing De La Hoya land at a 60% rate against his fighter.

If Arturo Gatti had retired after the De La Hoya fight, he would likely still be remembered as one of the sport’s most strong-willed fighters of the past few decades. But Gatti would continue fighting in 2002, and it wasn’t until then that he made his biggest mark on the sport.

After beating former title holder Terron Millett in the early portion of the year, Gatti would sign on to fight “Irish” Micky Ward, a similarly tough fighter who wasn’t the most skilled fighter but he was definitely in competition with Arturo for the title of biggest heart. Ward had a few of his own dramatic comeback victories and he also had a penchant for getting cut in fights. This fight deserves its own article to tell you the truth.

This would be Gatti’s second fight with former champion Buddy McGirt working his corner. HBO’s team would be Lampley, Merchant, and trainer Emmanuel Steward. This is a fight that has given me goosebumps upon each viewing, because the action in the ring turned the guys at ringside into fans for the duration of the bout. It is hard to act in a professional matter when you are engulfed in one of the sport’s most brutal wars, and neither Lampley, Merchant, or Steward were able to hold in their excitement.

It would take forever to talk about all the great moments in this fight, so here are my favorites.

In the fifth round, Gatti would get blasted by a five-punch combination that turned his head around like he was a robot. “Oh…look at that! Look at that combination!” Steward would exclaim following the barrage. A few more big shots from Ward would elicit loud noises of appreciation from Steward as the crowd starts to get into the fight more and more.

The ninth round is perhaps the best round of the century so far. Twenty seconds in, Gatti gets blasted by a left hook to the body, Ward’s signature punch, and go down. Steward noted that he doesn’t think Arturo will recover from this one because body shots are much different than head punches. I am guessing that Steward had not seen the Rodriguez fight, or the Ruelas fight, or either Robinson fight, or the Hutchinson fight.

Gatti does make it to his feet but is badly hurt. He gets blasted for the next minute and a half by Ward. “In the past, this is where Gatti has been dangerous,” notes Merchant.

“Gatti blinking away the blood in his right eye…can’t see out of the right eye! Vicious body shots by Gatti, Ward nods as if to say ‘Come on! Come on! Come on, let’s fight!” exclaims Lampley in a moment that will forever give me goosebumps.

“You know, you dream about fights like this and sometimes they don’t meet your expectations. This is more than you can dream of!” shouts Steward.

As Gatti takes more than a dozen unanswered power shots from Ward, one of which nearly bounces his head off of the turnbuckle, Lampley shouts, “Stop it Frank! You can stop it any time! Arturo Gatti is out on his feet! Frank Cappucino is going to let him keep going! Less than ten seconds in the round! Gatti is going to survive the round!”

Round nine is unequivocally Arturo Gatti in a nutshell. He didn’t take those shots easily and keep marching forward. He was hurt badly and somehow found it in himself to continue. And it is that quality that Arturo possessed that made him such a polarizing fighter.

In the tenth and final round, Merchant would note, “I am humbled by watching these two guys take the punishment they are taking.” As the round wore down, with both guys winging shots, Merchant says “This is the way it has to end.”

Gatti would go on to lose a majority decision to Ward but would gain even more notoriety than he had already obtained. He would help Micky Ward earn a few more paydays in two subsequent rematches that Gatti would win, one of which he had to do with a broken hand.

Gatti would follow the memorable Ward trilogy with a victory over Gianluco Branco for a vacant junior welterweight title. Gatti would then earn another payday against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and again gamely take a savage beating from one of the sport’s best fighters. Gatti would then try and obtain a third world title in a different weight class, but finally ran into someone who could take his punches with little effect. The Gomez loss was the nail in the coffin for Gatti’s career but he is a fighter that would forever remain in the memory of anyone who ever had the privilege of seeing him wage war.

Gatti was a fighter who proved that losing didn’t have to be the end of things. Gatti lost nine fights over the course of his career, sometimes brutally. But he still made good money because he went out there and gave the fans what they wanted to see everytime out there. And I don’t believe Gatti ever fought on in those difficult fights because of the money, but because there was something inside of him that made him push on, made him continue going when all signs were pointing that he maybe should give up.

Arturo Gatti was more of a role model to me than any fighter out there. There may never be another fighter who will inspire me to “suck it up” when things get hard in my own life. Arturo taught me not to look for defeat, but to look for a way to overcome it, and that when we are down, that is when life is most precious.

The way I will always remember Arturo Gatti is with his hands raised, face swollen and bloody, totally exhausted following a well-deserved victory. For Arturo Gatti, nothing ever came easily just as most things in life aren’t.

Gatti will forever be immortalized in the minds of those who had the luxury of watching him ply his trade. Everybody who saw him fight will have a story or twelve to share for the rest of their lifetimes, and I am lucky to count myself as one of those people.

Ward dominates Miranda!

2009-05-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

Last night, in front of a crowd of 7,818, 2004 Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward [19-0, 12 KOs] scored his most impressive win to date by earning a wide decision victory over former world title challenger Edison Miranda [32-4, 28 KOs] in the televised main event of a special edition of ShoBox: The New Generation.
The win came in front of Ward’s Oakland, California hometown crowd at the Oracle Arena, marking the first time in his career that he has fought there. Ward won by scores of 119-109, 119-109, and a much too close 116-112 to silence the critics who thought Ward as being too soft and not having enough power to keep the heavy-handed Miranda off of him.

Many questions were answered about Ward over the course of this bout. One of the biggest questions was what would happen if Miranda was able to land a clean power shot on Ward, how would he react? Although those punches were few and far between, Miranda landed a few big left hooks over the course of the fight to which Ward had no reaction to. In the second round Miranda landed likely his biggest punch of the fight, a left hook up top, and Ward walked right through it and retaliated with a flashy combination.

Ward’s superior hand speed and footwork proved to be too much for Miranda; Ward was able to land two or three quick shots and move out of the way before Miranda was able to get anything off in return. On numerous occasions Ward was able to dart and duck out of the way of Miranda’s oncoming onslaught so well that Miranda’s poor footwork had him off balance and falling all over the ring.

Miranda, who did a lot of trash talking in the build-up for the fight, had no answer to Ward’s superior boxing ability from the opening bell, resorting to roughhouse tactics that resulted in a seemingly bad cut opening up on Ward due to a headbutt courtesy of Miranda. Ward seemed unaffected by the blood on his face and after pawing at it only a few times was able to go about his business like nothing had occurred. Ward’s cutman, Jacob Duran, deserves a ton of credit for making that cut be a non-factor in the end result of the fight.

After the fight, Ward made it known he wants to fight any of the four belt-holders at 168 pounds. The win over Miranda earned him a mandatory shot at WBC champion Carl Froch, which Ward responded to by saying “Let’s get it on”.

Many will still criticize Ward for not stopping Miranda, even though the only men able to accomplish that feat were Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham, two very hard-hitting 160 pound world champions. Ward was never a puncher and outboxed Miranda as well as he possibly could to where a shutout wouldn’t have been out of order.

In the televised co-feature, John Molina, Jr. [17-0, 13 KOs] scored a knockout of veteran Frankie Archuleta [25-7-1, 14 KOs] in the second round of a scheduled eight-round super featherweight bout. Archuleta had some good success before getting put down by a combination of shots from Molina that included an overhand right. Archuleta made it to his feet and did not look too hurt, but the referee waved off the fight, likely because Archuleta was shaking his head when asked if he wanted to continue.

The much slower Archuleta had early success going to the body. Molina was getting hit far too much before finally hurting Archuleta and putting him down. Hopefully, Goossen-Tutor can find a more suitable opponent for Molina in his next fight and really give him a good test.

Those who got their refreshments early may have missed 2008 U.S. Olympian Shawn Estrada [6-0, 6 KOs] notch another knockout on his belt by dispatching Brooklyn, New York’s Cory Jones [5-6, KO] in 1:31 of the opening round. After a tentative first minute, Jones would get dropped by a huge right hand and never fully recover. Jones would make it to his feet but Estrada would continue the onslaught near the ropes, prompting the referee to stop the fight. Jones was a late replacement for Oakland, California’s Tony Hirsch who had to pull out after possibly tearing a rotator cuff. Hirsch was at the fight and hopes to get another shot at a fight with the ’08 Olympic standout.

In the first of two walkout bouts, Goossen super bantamweight prospect Rico Ramos [10-0, 6 KOs] of Pico Rivera, California scored a third round technical knockout of trial-horse Trinidad Mendoza [24-21-2, 19 KOs] Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico in a scheduled six-round bout. Ramos impressed the crowd with his handspeed and how well he mixed up his combinations. After an overwhelming amount of punishment absorbed by Mendoza, the fight was stopped t 1:37 of the third round. Ramos hopes to get back onto a similar track to how he started his career, where he fought eight times in seven months before sustaining an injury.

In the final walkout bout, Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield [9-0-1, 6 KOs] of Daly City, California scored an impressive second round stoppage of the tough Roberto Valenzuela [49-47-2, 40 KOs] of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico in a six-round welterweight bout to remain unbeaten. Mayfield looked superb in easily dominating a guy who has nearly 100 professional fights under his belt.

In an exciting four-round lightweight bout, Mel Crossty [3-0-1, KO] of Cincinnati, Ohio was held to a draw by Jaime Rodriguez [4-4-3, 2 KOs] of Reno, Nevada in a competitive matchup. UBR scored the bout 39-38 in favor of Crossty, scoring the first round even and the last two big for Crossty. Crossty’s superior ability came apparent in the last two rounds when he let his hands go and hurt the tough Reno fighter a couple of times.

Dan Goossen made it known he would like to bring back Ward to Oakland for another big fight. When asked if that meant Ward’s next fight would be in Oakland, Goossen responded “Now is that what I said? I would like to bring Andre back for whatever his next big fight is. I don’t want to have to go to England to fight Froch, I’d like to make that fight here.”

We learned that Ward is ready to take on the belt-holders at super middleweight, and it will be interesting to see if that is where he goes next or if he will fight another contender before going after gold.

Corrales is spelled W-A-R-R-I-O-R

2009-05-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

“Brutality is what brings fans to the game. Savagery is what has made boxing great. It has elegant moments and it has savage moments. But it's still a great game. One on one it can be beautiful.” - Diego Corrales, 1977-2007

Four years ago today, everything for me changed.

I was at the tail-end of my four years of high school, just finishing up my junior year. You know, the last year in school you really have to try hard at before applying to colleges to attend following your graduation.

Needless to say, I was pretty much finished caring about school at that point of the year. Summer was only about five weeks away, so I had already floated off into my own world and began my summer early.

At the time, Showtime was offering a replay of the WBO 135-pound title clash between the undefeated Acelino Freitas of Brazil, who was 35-0 with 31 knockouts at the time and Diego Corrales, 38-2 with 32 knockouts of Sacramento, California. Corrales was moving up in weight after earning a split-decision victory over Joel Casamayor to claim the vacant WBO 130-pound title in a rematch of a fight won by Casamayor on cuts.

Freitas came out quickly against Corrales, piling up an early lead on the scorecards. But Corrales would overcome the initial surge by Freitas and then overwhelm him with well-timed power shots that would force Freitas to the canvas multiple times before also forcing him to give up and Corrales had earned a title in his second weight class. It was one of the most see-saw battles I had ever witnessed, and it got me excited for Corrales’ next fight, which would be a unification bout with WBC 135-pound champion and recognized world lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo.

I had never seen Castillo fight before to my knowledge, but I had quickly read that he was a fighter who may be an equal to Corrales in terms of will and one who possessed an iron chin, as he had never been down before in fifty-nine professional fights. It was a fight that was promised to provide a ton of action, and that was what I was seeking that weekend that would occur on the eve of my 17th birthday.

I must say that to this day, that bout is easily the best early birthday present I have ever received. Watching live on Showtime, I eagerly awaited the main event as Juan Manuel Marquez pounded out a one-sided decision victory over Victor Polo to defend his 126-pound title. The main event was finally about to be underway, and I couldn’t help but feel that something incredible was going to take place.

“This is a war of attrition. This is the final battle. I am here and I will die in that ring before I give up what I have,” Corrales would say in the pre-fight hype. He would soon find out exactly how far he would be willing to go exactly to hold onto his title.

From the opening bell, I knew that my gut instinct was a good one. Corrales and Castillo went right at each other, toe-to-toe, in the center of the ring. They would take turns firing off four or five punch combinations on the inside, which was where the fight was exclusively fought, with Castillo having the early moments and the Showtime team of Al Bernstein and Steve Albert questioning Corrales’ decision to fight on the inside with Castillo. Bernstein would quickly rescind his comments after Corrales stopped Castillo in his tracks with his own in-fighting. Neither guy had an obvious edge but both men had each other’s respect.

To this day, I have seen this fight at least two dozen fights and have scored it every way possible. After four rounds, I’ve had both guys ahead before, and I have more than often had the fight even. I wasn’t sure whether I could not find one fighter better than the other or whether I just did not care enough to remember; as what I was seeing would grasp my full attention. At so many different points in the fight, I have gotten goosebumps, even at the replay capacity. Whether it’s when Albert comments that “you could fit a sheet of paper between the two of them, and that’s it” or when Bernstein remarks that he can’t recall a better fight in the history of Showtime Championship Boxing, the commentators did their part to add to the mystique of the battle without over-diluting it with useless banter.

The fight had everything. It was brutal, yet tactical. Both guys were landing at a high percentage but you couldn’t say these were two guys who thought “defense” was a four-letter word, either. There was a lot on the line and both men were doing everything in their power to emerge victorious. It was the type of war that I had never had the privilege of seeing before, and I knew it was a moment in my life that I would recall forever.

In the tenth round it finally seemed that one fighter was going to pull away, as Castillo landed a picture-perfect left hook on a lunging Corrales just seconds into the round, depositing Corrales on the seat of his pants and seemingly out of the fight.

Corrales would remove his mouthpiece and get up before the count of ten, buying himself some additional seconds of recovery before Castillo would continue his assault and put Corrales in the very same predicament he had found himself in not half a minute beforehand. Corrales would again remove his mouthpiece, return to his feet, and be allowed to continue, but not before referee Tony Weeks would correctly take a point away from Corrales.

Joe Goossen, Corrales’ esteemed trainer, would utter the famed words “You gotta fucking get inside on him now!” to Corrales, and that would prove to be all he needed to get his wits about and try and survive the round.

If Castillo had read "The Art of War", he would know to "never corner a desperate man". With an obvious 10-6 round in Castillo's favor in a very close fight, it was obvious what Corrales would need to do in order to win this fight. At that point in time, you can imagine that Corrales was just trying to survive. But a fighter like Corrales is most dangerous in survival mode.

Castillo thought it was just a matter of time before this fight would be officially over, but Corrales would change that thought with a series of powerful shots that began with a right hook and wouldn’t end until a left hand would send Castillo’s eyes reeling into the back of his head as his body would bounce of the ropes like a rag-doll. “Weeks steps in and the fight…is…over!” Albert would exclaim as the referee would stop the fight earning Corrales the most emphatic victory of his career. It was a round that sent me jumping into the air full of an excitement or an adrenaline that I had never experienced before, and from that moment onward I knew that boxing was the sport that had everything I was looking for.

From that day forward, I caught any and all boxing-related programming that I possibly could. That included ESPN all the way to Telefutura’s Solo Boxeo even though I spoke high school Spanish at best. Through the many wonderful possibilities on the internet, I was able to see fights from twenty years prior on ABC or from that weekend that had occurred somewhere internationally at just the click of a button. At first it was almost too much to handle but I quickly became a student of the game.

------------------------------

Two years ago today, my life would change again. I woke up early in the morning headed to class my freshman year of college. I hadn’t completed all my work the night before and had planned on doing it early, but first I decided to check the headlines on ESPN to see if anything interesting had happened.
Unfortunately, something had happened as Diego Corrales was killed in a three-vehicle accident near his Las Vegas home as the boxing star was riding his motorcycle nearly three times the legal alcohol limit of .08. The headline would instantly take my mind off of my schoolwork and instead put my focus onto Corrales, who was hands-down my favorite fighter in the world.

Corrales died much the way he lived, recklessly. In the ring, that recklessness provided fans with unreachable levels of excitement and Corrales’ heart would constantly bail him out of those tough situations with Corrales coming out on top more often than not. That night, however, Corrales would meet his match and his recklessness had caught up to him.

It was as unbelievable of a day as I can recall. It had felt like a family member of mine had been lost. I skipped my initial class that morning and instead rewatched Corrales-Castillo and was given goosebumps. It was then that I would write about Corrales and what he had meant to me in somewhat of a personal ode to the fighter and his impact on me as a boxing fan.

It was the first thing I had written about sports since my senior year on the newspaper, but everything came naturally. I had written it in about twenty-five minutes, and, accompanied by a list of quotes of Diego’s I posted it on Facebook that morning.

Ironically, it would be off of the basis of that piece that I wrote that I would earn a job writing for Ultimate Boxing Results.

When Diego Corrales made me a boxing fan, that was one thing. But when his impact on me would give me one last push towards making this more than a hobby, it was entirely another. It would be an understatement to say that Diego Corrales had a tremendous effect on my life. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be doing this.
Every day since that first Corrales-Castillo fight, I have looked for someone to display that combination of heart, sheer guts and will, talent, and endurance that made him champion that night. I have yet to find it, but I will gladly continue looking.

Ward-Miranda undercard update!

2009-04-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

May 16th brings a big night of boxing to the Bay Area as native son and 2004 Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward will take on the heavy-handed former world title challenger Edison Miranda at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. The card, promoted by Goossen-Tutor Promotions, will mark the first time that Ward will be fighting in Oakland in his professional career.

The undercard has been shaken up a bit since the card was first announced back in March. Originally it was reported that Goossen-Tutor prospects John Molina, Shawn Estrada, and Javier Molina would be participating in action but only the first two will make it into the ring on the 16th. Javier Molina is expected to be on the next Goossen-Tutor undercard while John Molina and Estrada will fight in Oakland, possibly in televised co-features to Ward-Miranda.Ward-Miranda undercard update!

John Molina [16-0, 12 KOs] will be fighting in an eight-round super featherweight contest against an opponent to be determined. That bout has been confirmed as a televised co-feature on the Showtime broadcast.

2008 U.S. Olympian Shawn Estrada [5-0, 5 KOs] will meet his toughest foe to date when he takes on Oakland’s very own Tony Hirsch [8-1-1, 4 KOs] in a four-round super middleweight bout. Estrada has received some criticism since turning professional for fighting very limited opposition, but in Hirsch he will meet a very determined opponent who has knocked off an undefeated prospect before. Hirsch’s lone loss, a second-round TKO to unheralded Cromwell Gordon, was vastly considered a bad stoppage by those who were ringside. When focused, Hirsch is a very tough customer and isn’t expected to fall over at the first sign of adversity, which is more than can be said for any of Estrada’s five previous knockout victims.

In an intriguing off-television fight, 2000 U.S. Olympic silver medalist Ricardo Williams, Jr. [15-2, 8 KOs] will take on San Francisco’s Karim Mayfield [8-0-1, 5 KOs] in a six-round welterweight bout. It will be Williams’ sixth bout since returning to the ring following a three-year prison sentence he received for the sale of cocaine. Williams was once regarded as one of boxing’s brightest prospects before losing his work ethic and suffering two defeats to Juan Valenzuela and Manning Galloway.

Mayfield returns to the ring for the first time since beating previously undefeated Mario Lozano on the untelevised undercard of the March 7th HBO Boxing After Dark card headlined by James Kirkland against Joel Julio, which took place in nearby San Jose. Six of Mayfield’s nine professional bouts have taken place in the Bay Area. Mayfield won’t be new to the Oracle Arena, either, as his professional debut took place there.

Promising super bantamweight prospect Rico Ramos [9-0, 5 KOs] of Pico Rivera, California will take on trial-horse Trinidad Mendoza [24-20-2, 19 KOs] in a six-round contest. Ramos began his professional career rapidly, fighting seven times in eight months before suffering an injury that kept him out of the ring for almost six months. In his return, he earned a six-round unanimous decision over Gino Escamilla on the Williams-Wright undercard on April 11th.

Mendoza’s record is a “who’s who” of 118 and 122 pounders having fought the likes of Israel Vazquez [TKO7 by], Jhonny Gonzalez [TKO3 by], Danny Romero [L12], and Daniel Ponce de Leon [TKO2 by]. More recently, Mendoza is a loser of five straight, although in those five losses he fought opponents who collectively had a single loss between them. At the very least Mendoza is a step in the right direction for the fast-rising Ramos.

In a four-round super featherweight bout, Mel Crossty [3-0, KO] of Cincinnati, Ohio will take on Jaime Rodriguez [4-4-2, 2 KOs] of Reno, Nevada.

The Genesis of King Kong

2009-04-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

When Joseph Agbeko steps into the ring July 11th to defend his IBF bantamweight strap against Vic Darchinyan, he will do so as the heavy underdog. What gives this man who was born with the name King Kong a realistic shot at dashing Darchinyan's hopes of claiming gold in a third weight-class?

When July 11th rolls around, a bantamweight title tilt is set to take place when Ghanaian Joseph King Kong Agbeko [26-1, 22 KOs] defends his IBF 118-pound belt against two-division champion moving up in weight Vic Darchinyan. The bout is a Showtime Championship Boxing headlining-bout that is sure to provide a ton of fireworks, just in case you were longing for more following the previous weekend’s display of pyrotechnics courtesy of the Fourth of July. Read about this fight anywhere else and you might think that Darchinyan, who is the widely-considered favorite, already has the belt around his waist even though it is Agbeko who is champion.

Agbeko, along with manager Vinny Scolpino (whom also manages fellow Ghanaian world champion, Joshua Clottey) do not seem too fazed by this reaction and seem to welcome it gladly.

“I think it is an opportunity to prove that I am the best bantamweight in the world,” said Agbeko in a phone interview last weekend. “I am glad I have the fight with Darchinyan to prove myself. I don’t think he is that dangerous. I just want to be at my best and I think this fight is going to be more exciting than any of my fights. Darchinyan is nobody, he can punch heavy, that’s about it. I can fight him, I can box him, and I can punch better than him."

Agbeko is likely receiving a considerable less amount of money than Darchinyan even though he is the champion, as Darchinyan has built himself into an elite fighter mainly off of the prestigious airtime that Showtime has provided him over the past few years. Darchinyan is one of the rare few fighters who has stuck with Showtime even when he became recognizable with some of the casual fans as HBO hasn’t given a lot of time to the very lightest weight classes since Michael Carbajal and Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez plied their trade in the junior flyweight class and Johnny Tapia and Danny Romero battled it out at super flyweight more than ten years ago.

“I don’t really want to discuss numbers,” said manager Scolpino, “but we are happy with our deal. This is the fight Joseph has wanted since Darchinyan announced his planned move to bantamweight and we got it. We can’t be too disappointed with that.”

King Kong (yes, that is part of Agbeko’s birth-name given to him by his father and what he tends to answer to in his native Ghana) is expected to be a formidable opponent to Darchinyan, but not one that will pose any serious threat in thwarting his attempt at winning a third world title in as many weight classes due to Agbeko’s style that could leave him open to one of Darchinyan’s awkward but effective power shots.

Agbeko provides another side of the sweet science that we haven’t seen at this level yet against Darchinyan, and that is one that throws a high volume of punches and uses his offense in part to help defend himself as well.

Agbeko has compiled an impressive record, but many people scratch their heads when forced to name some of the top fighters he has fought. Agbeko first began boxing at the age of 12 in his native Ghana, compiling an outstanding record as an African amateur along the way. In beating two-division champion Luis Alberto Perez via seventh-round stoppage in perhaps one of the more exciting one-sided affairs in recent memory, Agbeko put the entire world on notice of what very few outside of Ghana were aware, that Agbeko can fight.

Perez was no pushover either, being favored by a two-to-one edge that could have been wider if not for the poor performance Perez gave in his last defense of his IBF super flyweight title against Dmitry Kirilov in a split-decision victory that many feel he was gifted in June of 2006. The odds were based heavily on the decline of Perez rather than any knowledge on what Agbeko brought to the table.

It would be the first time Agbeko fought a high-level opponent since losing a very questionable majority decision to Ukrainian bantamweight prospect Wladimir Sidorenko in a 12-round fight in Germany in May of 2004 when both fighters were undefeated. After viewing a copy of this fight as broadcast by Eurosport, I came away with a scorecard that had Agbeko winning 118-112 (eight rounds for Agbeko, two for Sidorenko, and two even) while the judges had it scored even at 114-114, 116-114 and a much too wide 117-111 in favor of Sidorenko. The solo commentator for the bout, who had Agbeko winning widely, seemed unenthusiastic in expressing his disdain for the decision, likely because of how common it was for the outside fighter to get jobbed against the local name.

Agbeko would fight once more before managerial disputes would keep him out of the ring for 29 months. After two more victories over opponents with a combined record of 10-5-1, Agbeko would hit the lottery and earn a shot at Perez in a televised opening bout on Showtime Championship Boxing’s undercard of Chad Dawson-Epifanio Mendoza.

Agbeko would seize the opportunity, providing lots of action for the crowd and stealing the thunder that night at the Arco Arena in Sacramento, California. Agbeko dished out a ton of punishment mainly behind his heavy assault of straight right hands, but took some clean shots in return for the game but outgunned Perez. With the victory, Agbeko became only the fifth world champion alongside David Kotei (WBC-126), Azumah Nelson (WBC-126, WBC-130 x2), Ike Quartey (WBA-147), and to a lesser degree Alfred Kotey (WBO-118). Nelson is the most memorable, compiling an outstanding record of 18-4-2 in world title fights after emerging from the African land virtually unnoticed before giving Salvador Sanchez all that he could handle before succumbing to a fifteenth-round stoppage that shot his stock through the roof.

Agbeko has similarly emerged from the unknown but was an unfortunate victim of a thirteen month layoff caused by reasons including his opponent’s lack of a visa that knocked out a fight in Puerto Rico and a case of malaria suffered in his homeland in preparation for a retry in Biloxi, Mississippi on the Campbell-Guzman undercard in September.

Following that long layoff, Agbeko would remind fans of who he is by successfully defending his crown against William Gonzalez, the man who he had delays of meeting four previous times, by majority decision on a December card televised by Versus. If it weren’t for the main event being the fantastic cruiserweight affair between Steve Cunningham and Tomasz Adamek, the Agbeko-Gonzalez fight would have stolen the thunder yet again. The card was regarded by many as one of the best televised sets of fights and it came from the unlikeliest of sources in the network that had handed us such gems as Hasim Rahman-Taurus Sykes and Tye Fields-Who Cares? (also known as Who Cares?-Who Cares?) before turning things around this past year.
Agbeko possesses a few tools that allow me to give him a fair chance in scoring the upset over Darchinyan. For starters, he throws a lot of punches and we haven’t seen how Darchinyan will react to a high-volume opponent (at this level of competition, at least) with a better than average beard. In the process of throwing that high count of shots Agbeko does leave himself open for incoming leather and has taken a fair amount of punches in his recent fights. One of the bigger questions heading into this fight is how Darchinyan will carry his power into a third weight class after having no issues with that question at 115-pounds, stopping two high-level opponents in Mijares and Arce.

While Agbeko carries a high number of knockouts in his ledger, I wouldn’t consider him a one-punch knockout threat as he is more of a wear-you-down kind of fighter that overwhelms his opponents into submission or into enough of a disadvantage in punch output to make a case for himself garnering a decision victory.

Going twelve rounds with Gonzalez is what prepared me for this next fight,” said Agbeko in response to what has him prepared for his biggest test. “Everything Darchinyan can do, I can do better than him. I’m going to beat him in any style I want,” Agbeko said confidently.

If Agbeko were able to pull off the upset, he has big names on his mind. The prospects at 118 and 122 pounds for future fights provide a lot of places that could be explored that would not disappoint boxing fans.

“I love competition, I want to fight the best guys,” reacted Agbeko to the question of who would be next. “Marquez, Vazquez, I would love to fight those guys.”

Despite the confidence Agbeko has displayed in discussing his prospects of victory over Darchinyan, I wouldn’t suggest that he is looking past his opponent and will be very ready for Darchinyan come fight night.

“I want my fans to come and watch this fight and support me,” said Agbeko when asked what he would like those that have become fans of his to hear from him. “This is gonna be the genesis of King Kong, this is gonna be the beginning, not the end. Those who are gonna be watching, be prepared for the best fight of my life.”

Kirkland-Angulo: As hot as it is going to get?

2009-03-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Also eight other matchups and whether they would come off better now or later
Mark Ortega

There are fights out there that quickly grasp the attention of the boxing public, sometimes a bit too early in time for it to be a realistic possibility based on where in their careers those two fighters are. That is one of the many things that make our sport intriguing, it is all in the timing. It isn’t like football or baseball, where they play basically the same set schedule with a few differences here and there. In boxing, you never can guess where you will be eight months from now; let alone two to five years from now.

With that said, in boxing, many times a fight will start building up heat and excitement even if it doesn’t make sense at that exact moment for that fight to come off. Promoters are always trying to build a fight up so much until both guys are at similar stages in their career, near their projected primes, so that it makes the most money. A lot of times, this has worked and many fights have come together that took years of build-up to produce. It seems that fights like Hagler-Hearns and Tyson-Holyfield, despite their numerous setbacks, were always meant to come together the way they did, and it served the winners in both of those fights much better based on the timing.

On the opposing side of things, let’s go to the end of 2005. Jermain Taylor had just dethroned long-reigning middleweight kingpin Bernard Hopkins and then successfully defended his newly-gained unified 160-pound titles in a rematch shortly following. His stock would not be any higher, as in his subsequent title defenses he would fight three junior middleweights coming up and look unspectacular in each instance. Taylor would finally defend his titles against Kelly Pavlik, who had never fought more than a few pounds below the 160-pound middleweight limit. Two losses had Taylor out of the top-tier and his future in question.

Jeff Lacy, former Olympic teammate to Taylor, was also on top of the mountain at the end of 2005. He was coming off of his fourth straight title defense of his IBF super middleweight title in which he knocked out Scott Pemberton inside of two rounds. Lacy would also never reach a higher point in his career, soon after losing terribly to Joe Calzaghe in a 168-pound unification bout. Lacy has since not found his way back to the top, and it doesn’t look likely with how tough both 168 and 175 have become.

Now, at this point most people said that a fight between the two needed a little more time to develop. Hindsight is 20/20, but when this fight finally came off late last year it did not pose quite the level of excitement that it would have circa early 2006. Both guys were at a crossroads in their career rather than jockeying for position amongst the top of everybody’s pound-for-pound lists.

A fight such as that took place just a few weeks back, a lightweight battle between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz, arguably the best 135-pounders in the world. There is unquestionably no other time in either fighter’s career that this fight would have had as much heat as it did a little more than two weeks ago. It was that perfect situation where the winner gains quite a bunch in victory while the loser deteriorates very little in the eyes of the public.

There is a fight currently brewing at 154-pounds that is generating a high level of excitement that has people starting to wonder if its too soon to take place. It’s a fight that guarantees a Fight of the Year caliber performance, one between James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. Many are pressing for it, but is it too soon?

Neither fighter is a belt holder at this point in their careers, but how important is that? We already have gotten to a point where the titles don’t really carry much significance to the general public so why risk a big fight like this over trying to grab a belt? Getting a belt at 154 might be tough, and there aren’t very many faded fighters with names at junior middleweight for these guys to add to their ledger in the meantime. Both guys have glaring weaknesses in their defense and can be beaten by a slick boxer such as Sergio Gabriel Martinez. Both of these guys run the risk of being exposed like Lacy was by Calzaghe, so a fight between these two might not get any hotter than it is already.

There are quite a few other fights that sit in this exact situation. Let’s take a look at each one and weigh the options on which would be a better choice, if this fight happened immediately or if we gave it some time to marinate.

David Haye vs. Chris Arreola – heavyweight
Now or Later? Now. Haye is having trouble locking down a fight with Wladimir Klitschko currently, mainly due to the ridiculous demands coming from the Klitschko side of things. Arreola has a bout with Jameel McCline, his first real test, for the April undercard of Paul Williams against Winky Wright. If Arreola gets by McCline, these guys should just go straight at each other rather than wait for Wlad. Wlad would then likely be forced into a fight with mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, who at this stage in his career has more of the tools necessary for beating Wladimir Klitschko than either Haye or Arreola. Nobody can deny that a Haye-Arreola fight has a lot more excitement behind it than either guy going against Wlad. Haye’s shortcomings are his chin and stamina, Arreola’s are his defense and conditioning. Both fighters’ weaknesses play into each other’s strengths, and it would likely be a battle of who lands the first big punch. If these guys stick to the current path, there is a high risk of being beaten very badly by Wladimir and never recovering from that.

Tavoris Cloud vs. Yusaf Mack – light heavyweight
Now or Later? Later. Boxing fans are just starting to realize how good these two young fighters are, there is no sense in spoiling that by pitting the two of them against each other right away. Especially when you consider the fact that 175 is stacked at the top with veteran fighters who are on their last legs, some being tougher than they look with others being prime for the pickings. At some point, the group of fighters that includes Roy Jones, Jr., Glen Johnson, Antonio Tarver, Clinton Woods, and Julio Gonzalez have to hang them up and make room for the young talent that crowds light heavyweight. Cloud is currently the mandatory to the IBF title that Chad Dawson will likely have to vacate, meaning Cloud could be fighting for a vacant title in his next fight. Mack has just started to erase his two embarrassing losses at super middleweight with his most recent win over Chris Henry being his biggest win to date. A fight between these two would make much more sense once they tidy up their resume a little bit. Neither guy is seemingly afraid of anyone, and Cloud is one of the best young American fighters coming up. Cloud against Glen Johnson would be a fantastic battle that could give him the kind of publicity needed to gain the attention of the big money fighters at the top.

Andre Ward vs. Andre Dirrell – super middleweight
Now or later? Now. This is a very similar situation to that of Taylor and Lacy. Both guys were on the same United States Olympic team. Unlike Taylor and Lacy, though, these two have been brought along rather slowly and carefully, so it is unlikely that these two fight each other anytime soon. 168 is a difficult division without very many big names along the way for either fighter to try and add to their resume without much risk. Both guys have fallen out of favor with the casual boxing fan before, but are creeping up on everyone’s watch lists again. Dirrell looked unimpressive in his fight against Curtis Stevens but has grabbed our attention again after thoroughly dominating Anthony Hanshaw en route to a fifth-round stoppage. Ward has looked great in his last few fights but has lacked that spectacular finish to his fights that people tend to notice. A win against an opponent the level of Dirrell would do wonders for Ward’s career.

Victor Ortiz vs. Mike Alvarado – junior welterweight
Now or Later? Later. Ortiz has busted onto the scene with spectacular wins on HBO programming, but Alvarado is not known outside of die-hard boxing circles. Both guys would be better suited adding another recognizable name or two to their resume, or even trying to pick up one of the many available titles at 140. I would like to see either guy fight Juan Lazcano, who still carries a name and a good enough test to get an idea of how good these two fighters are. Juan Urango is a world champion that many would favor both Ortiz and Alvarado over, so he remains a good possibility. Andriy Kotelnik, the WBA champion, hasn’t fought outside of Europe so unless Ortiz or Alvarado are willing to travel overseas, coming by a belt might be hard at 140 in the immediate future. Still, this fight needs a little time to sizzle before it gets put together.

Vicente Escobedo vs. Antonio DeMarco – lightweight
Now or Later? Now. Neither of these guys are very big names at all yet, but both have potential to be serious threats. Escobedo was one of Golden Boy Promotions’ first young fighters, and they received a lot of harsh criticism for moving him along very quickly at the beginning of his career. Following his decision loss to Daniel Jimenez, Golden Boy has gone the opposite way with Escobedo, moving him along at a snail’s pace. His win over Dominic Salcido was the biggest of his career, and it’s hard to say he looked fantastic in that one. DeMarco is coming off of a huge win against Kid Diamond, which many considered a mild upset. If these guys were to meet now, the winner would immediately be put in line for a shot at one of the many belts while the other would take a step back to where they just were. Waiting on this fight leaves a lot of potential for one of these guys to suffer another loss and be out of the discussion entirely.

Robert Guerrero vs. Jorge Linares – super featherweight
Now or Later? Later. This may surprisingly be the fight I wish to see the most. Guerrero, 25, just got his first shot on prime HBO television and suffered a cut and some bad luck against Daud Yordan. Linares, 23, only fought once in 2008 and has fought just once inside of the United States. Linares has many die-hard followers that have had the luck to see him in action very excited and expect to see him get more in the mix in 2009. His bout with Oscar Larios on the Hopkins-Wright undercard had lots of people talking, but a lot of that buzz wore off after he was laid off with an injury for most of 2008.

Nonito Donaire vs. Brian Viloria – flyweight
Now or Later? That all depends on how Viloria’s title shot against junior flyweight champion Ulises Solis shakes out on the undercard of Donaire’s title defense against Raul Martinez. Donaire could also easily lose to Martinez, so there is a lot to consider come April. But what makes this fight very interesting is the history between the two fighters. Viloria beat both Donaire brothers during the Olympic Trials and the Donaire clan has long felt that they were robbed against Viloria in both fights. Neither brother have made positive comments about Viloria in the past, so you could guess there may be some bad blood there. If Viloria were to become victorious against Solis (a very slim possibility), a fight between two Philippinos with world titles would be a rather big fight for a couple of undersized guys.

Ivan Calderon vs. Roman Martinez – junior flyweight
Now or Later? Now. Not many people have seen Martinez in action, but they probably have heard a thing or two. I have had the luck of seeing footage of Martinez, and he has a very good set of skills. This might not be a bout featuring two young fighters, as Calderon is 34, but it is a bout that has a small window of being very meaningful. Calderon is getting closer to the end of his career while Martinez, at 21, is just beginning what looks to be a very long one. Martinez looked fantastic in disposing of former minimumweight champion Yutaka Niida in four one-sided rounds. He didn’t look stellar in a recent title defense but still carries a lot of momentum behind him. Calderon is the undisputed king of boxing south of about 120 pounds, having gone undefeated through 32 professional bouts. The only other fight that poses as much interest would be seeing Calderon fight Ulises Solis in a battle of 108-pound kingpins.

Kirkland takes Julio’s heart, title of biggest puncher at 154

2009-03-08T04:18:00.000-07:00

Crowd turns out in full force for first Bay Area HBO card in eight years
Mark Ortega

In an exceptionally well-matched card on paper, Golden Boy Promotions presented three equally intriguing bouts featuring some of their hottest young stars and seemingly had a can’t miss card. Unfortunately, anything can happen in the sport of boxing, and that includes three high-profile bouts being less than expected for reasons that were uncontrollable. The HP Pavilion lured HBO into their town of San Jose, California with a mission to prove that the city is a fight fan city, and the hometown crowd was successful in that mission as 6,765 people were reported in attendance. On this night, however, quite a few instances occurred that took some of the air out of the tires that was the three televised bouts.

Kirkland seeks and destroys Julio, puts 154 on notice
In the evening’s featured bout, scalding-hot James Kirkland [25-0, 22 KOs] impressively forced former mega-prospect Joel Julio [34-3, 31 KOs] to quit after eight rounds of a scheduled ten in a bout between two of the division’s punchers. Early on, Kirkland made his mission clear that he was going to walk through anything Julio offered as well as respond with four or five punches of his own. It became clear early on that one fighter wanted to trade punches and one fighter was looking for spots to counter-punch in between the wreckage. Julio, to his credit, offered to engage in many evenly-matched exchanges with Kirkland throughout the bout, but was not able to finish the fight as he had suffered terrible swelling above his right eye.

Kirkland would control the first round, coming forward with pressure and heavy hands while Julio sprinkled in a few solid right counter punches and right uppercuts. The second round saw Julio put himself into the bout with a straight right followed by a wild right hook that stopped Kirkland for a second. Julio would occasionally land big punches that Kirkland would show no effect to, and that helped frustrate the more experienced Julio. In the third round, a heavy exchange of hooks would occur that saw Kirkland emerge on the more damaging side of it, stunning Julio with a wide arrange of straight rights up top and to the body. Kirkland would continue his assault to the body in round four, but would run into a few good right counters in the fifth round. Julio began to clinch more around the early rounds, and it was during this time that Kirkland dug big shots to the body to further slow him down.

Kirkland, the Austin, Texas native who is just 24 years old, already seems ready to challenge for a world title as early as this year. The determination of both he and trainer Ann Wolfe should put everyone near 154-pounds on alert that he has indeed arrived, and is not going to let anything get in his way of becoming a star.

Ortiz scores “Vicious” knockout of former title challenger Arnaoutis
“Vicious” Victor Ortiz [24-1-1, 19 KOs] came away with his most impressive victory to date, stopping Mike Arnaoutis [21-3-2, 10 KOs] for the first time in his career in two rounds. After a first round that saw both fighters come out tentatively, Ortiz pressed the fight in the second and then staggered Arnaoutis badly with a huge left hand, following it up with a brutal combination that saw both uppercuts and hooks score until Arnaoutis’ gloves came down, forcing the referee to stop the bout.
Arnaoutis looked flat from the beginning, never throwing enough punches and when he finally did, they were slow and telegraphed.

Ortiz has a lot of options at this point, and his next bout that will probably take place on either the May 2nd Hatton-Pacquiao undercard or a June 27th HBO Boxing After Dark. An exciting evenly-matched bout with Ortiz would be one with undefeated Top Rank prospect, Mike Alvarado, who tonight also scored a 10th round stoppage of the tested Emmanuel Clottey. A more likely opponent would be someone like Juan Lazcano, who has a recognizable name as well as past dealings with Golden Boy that make it possible from a promotional point of view.

Guerrero suffers tough break, cut causes halt to bout with Yordan in second
In the opening televised bout, local Bay Area favorite and Gilroy, California native Robert Guerrero [23-1-1, 16 KOs] was forced to a no contest by Daud Yordan [23-0, 17 KOs] of Indonesia when Yordan and Guerrero clashed heads, opening up a gash directly above the right eye of the hometown fighter. Guerrero immediately responded to the blood, pawing at it with his glove, illustrating clearly that it was affecting his vision. The referee called the doctor over to take a look and it was during this exchange that Guerrero made it known that he could not see at all and there was nothing that could be done other than stopping the bout, ruling it a no contest due to the accidental headbutt. It was unfortunate for Guerrero, who for the past few years has seemingly been just one step away from becoming a big star until one thing or another sidetracks him for a period of time.

The first such instance occurred when Guerrero, then undefeated, started to appear on everyone’s radar as a serious prospect. He fought a tough veteran named Gamaliel Diaz with one good performance left in him while at the same time possibly not giving Diaz the credit he deserved and was tagged with a split decision loss in an exciting contest. Guerrero would avenge his lone defeat two bouts later by scoring a sixth-round knockout of Diaz in emphatic fashion, putting him once again on the road to the top. Guerrero would earn a title shot against Eric Aiken on Showtime, ultimately forcing Aiken to retire on his stool after eight rounds to claim his first world title, the IBF 126-pound belt. Guerrero would again be knocked down a peg after losing a decision to Orlando Salido, which was later turned into a no contest when Salido failed the post-fight drug test. Guerrero would still lose his belt, but would earn a chance to reclaim it in his very next fight.

Guerrero would travel overseas to Denmark to do so, laying waste to Spend Abazi in the ninth round to again become the IBF 126-pound champion. After achieving such a high, Guerrero would suffer a rough patch in his personal life when his wife, Casey, was diagnosed with leukemia just two weeks before his November 2007 title defense against Martin Honorio. Guerrero wound up sticking with the fight, and many picked against him thinking he would not be mentally ready for a championship-level bout with all of this happening around him. Guerrero would prove those doubters wrong, knocking out Honorio in less than a round. Guerrero would later defend his belt successfully a second straight time when he knocked out Jason Litzau three months later. It was at this point that Guerrero decided his promoter at the time, Goossen-Tutor, had taken him as far as they could and that it was time to make a change.

This would cause a layoff of nearly a year that would lead up to Guerrero’s one-round destruction of capable veteran Edel Ruiz this January, his first bout under the Golden Boy Promotions banner.
Yordan, an unknown commodity to all but those that attended the Casamayor-Marquez card last September, landed lots of good straight left hands in the opening round but was met with some wicked body shots courtesy of “The Ghost”, as well as a few left hands that wobbled Yordan if only for a second. Their heads were destined to come together as they fought in close quarters the entire time, and a headbutt from the lunging-forward Yordan caused the cut over Guerrero’s right eye midway through the second.

The fight with Yordan was expected to be Guerrero’s coming out party, and nobody felt that was the case more than he, who expressed lots of disappointment in how the bout came to an end, throwing his hands in the air as he made his way around the ring to the cheers of the local crowd.

“This sucks. I was cut and I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t see. I was here in front of my hometown fans, who turned out in great support, and this just sucks because I didn’t get to put a show on like I had wanted,” said Guerrero shortly afterwards.

Guerrero should be okay and is likely to appear on either the Hatton-Pacquiao undercard or the June 27th HBO date, either in a return bout with Yordan or against a new opponent.

Salinas native Perez finishes Garcia in four, eliminator with Salido in 2 weeks
Salinas, California native and Garcia Boxing stable-mate Eloy Perez [13-0-2, 3 KOs] scored a fourth-round knockout of Gabe Garcia [4-6-1, KO] in a scheduled six-round super featherweight bout. Perez, whose March 21st bout with Orlando Salido in an IBF eliminator at the Playboy Mansion looms just two weeks away, got through the bout without incident and looked strong in dominating every second of the bout.

Although Perez was fighting a guy in Garcia that is more than a few classes below the caliber fighter that Salido is, his power was surprisingly overwhelming and led to some scary moments in a bout that probably should have been stopped sooner. Perez dominated the bout from bell to bell, slicing the much slower Garcia with huge left hooks and uppercuts. In the second round, Perez landed a fantastic triple left-hand combination that staggered Garcia. The third round saw Eloy land a huge left hook that bounced Garcia against the ropes like a yo-yo, where he took more punishment until the referee finally decided to call it a knockdown. Eloy would close the show in the fourth round with an onslaught that could do nothing but convince the referee to stop the bout at 2:23 in the fourth round.

Mayfield edges Lozano in a battle of undefeated welterweight prospects
In a bout that had fans either booing or standing on their feet screaming, Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield [8-0-1, 5 KOs] of San Francisco, California overcame a slow start to win a unanimous decision over the formerly undefeated Mario Lozano [5-1, 4 KOs] of Chihuahua, Mexico in a rollercoaster six-round 147-pound bout. Mayfield, who seemed hesitant to throw any punches in the early goings, was consistently getting hit by straight and overhand rights of Lozano in the first two rounds. Lozano dropped Mayfield in the second round with a straight right, opening up a big early lead on the scorecards.

The third round saw a change in momentum as Mayfield, although not doing enough to win the round landed a few shots that moved his opponent for the first time in the fight. Mayfield still likely lost the round. Mayfield was able to keep it going into the next round, scoring a knockdown that caused much confusion to those at ringside.

Mayfield landed an overhand right that dropped Lozano, and then struck his opponent again while he was down on the canvas. Initially, many thought that a point had been taken away from Mayfield for hitting Lozano behind the head and that no knockdown was ruled, vastly changing the scoring on the round. It was cleared up by the commission that both a knockdown was ruled and a warning was issued to Mayfield, but no point was deducted. The fifth became a close round that saw both fighters open up more and therefore land at a higher rate.

The sixth round began with Mayfield trying to close the show big, and in the process he scored a knockdown that would ultimately determine the margin of victory in the bout. Judges at ringside had it 57-54, and 56-55 twice all for Mayfield by unanimous decision.

Huerta, Ramos bring So-Cal flavor to Nor-Cal card
Entering the night’s action, both Charles Huerta and Luis Ramos had fought exclusively in Southern California en route to becoming two of the lower half of the state’s most talked about prospects. Both fighters emerged victorious, with Huerta scoring a six-round split-decision victory over veteran Andres Ledesma in a bout that was not close at all and Ramos pounding out a four-round unanimous decision over the also experienced Anthony Martinez.

Huerta [9-0, 5 KOs], of Paramount, California followed Ledesma [15-12-1, 10 KOs] around the ring, occasionally landing a big punch or two along the way while his opponent felt the desire only to run and not exchange any punches. Huerta could have done a better job at cutting off the ring, as he seemed too willing to accommodate Ledesma on moving to his opponent’s right rather than taking a step to the right and firing a right-hand. That being said, there is no way possible that Ledesma won anything close to four rounds, as this was a clear one-sided bout. The buzz on Huerta is heavy, and he would be much better served to be in the ring with someone who is willing to engage him in a fight next time.

Ramos [10-0, 5 KOs], who hails from Santa Ana, California, was very impressive in totally dismantling former belt challenger Anthony Martinez [21-29-3, 9 KOs] in four one-sided rounds. Ramos tagged Martinez often with both left hooks to the body and right hooks to the head, nearly stopping his opponent numerous times. In the third round, Martinez absorbed a frightening amount of damage and ultimately should have been saved by the referee, but somehow he made it through the round. During the flurry of shots, the referee initially stepped in to halt the bout and then quickly changed his mind, allowing it to continue. Martinez would occasionally land an overhand right that would effect Ramos slightly, but never mounted anything close to a worthy offense. Golden Boy Promotions made it clear that Ramos was someone they were taking a close look at, and it was also his first appearance in the Bay Area.

“It gave me a lot of excitement, being here,” said Ramos following his victory. “I was so happy competing here for the first time, and my family came here to support me, so it was exciting.”

Promising heavyweights Jordan, Mitchell score devastating knockouts
Two heavyweights with a lot of weight behind them promotionally and managerially saw their stocks rise just a bit as both San Francisco, California’s Ashanti Jordan and Seth Mitchell of Brandywine, Maryland scored highlight-reel knockouts of overmatched opponents on the undercard.

Jordan [8-0, 7 KOs] ended a bout with battle-worn Willie Perryman [10-18, 7 KOs] of Clarksdale, Mississippi with a single left-hook to the chin that sent him down hard to the canvas. The bout was halted at 1:50 in the third round of a scheduled six-round heavyweight contest. Jordan is one of Golden Boy’s few young heavyweights, and they have put him on the undercard of many of these HBO cards.

Mitchell [10-0-1, 7 KOs] only needed 1:59 to dispatch his opponent, as he blasted Joseph Rabotte [3-5, KO] of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with an overhand right and followed it up with a devastating right hook to finish this bout much earlier than the scheduled six-rounds. Mitchell is managed by the well-known Shelly Finkel.

Dargan, no-contest round out Bay Area’s biggest card
In the card’s prematurely started opening bout of the day, Nazim Richardson junior welterweight project Karl Dargan [3-0, KO] scored the first knockout of his young professional career as he stopped Sergio Orantes [0-1] in the second round of a scheduled four with an overhand right that required no count before the bout was declared over. Dargan employed the Philadelphia style of turning your shoulder away from oncoming offense, being very effective defensively and in the process landing heavy leather as well.

The second bout of the evening was one between Newark, New Jersey’s Michael Perez [2-0, 2 KOs] and Andres Reyes [1-1-1] of Los Angeles, California that was ruled a no-decision when the two clashed heads, causing a cut above the eye of Reyes. The scheduled four-round lightweight bout came to an end at the end of the first round when the doctor decidedly halted the bout.

Golden Boy sees a future in the Bay
At the post-fight press conference all the figureheads of Golden Boy Promotions unanimously agreed that they would love to come back to the Bay Area after seeing the crowd of 6,765 people show up in full force. Even more surprising was that a lot of the crowd turned up in time to see many of the preliminary bouts, and that is something you don’t see on a lot of the big cards these days. It clearly points out that the average Bay Area fight fan is willing to show up early for boxing as long as the boxing is worth viewing, and the preliminary action certainly had a lot of intrigue to it.

De La Hoya referred to Guerrero, Ortiz, and Kirkland as their young hot prospects when in reality, one of the fighters has already claimed a world title and the other two are not close behind that pace. When posed a question on whether it would be in Golden Boy’s future interest to participate in small-scale shows around the Bay Area, De La Hoya seemed open to the possibility.

“We don’t just want to try and bring HBO here, we would love to be involved with some smaller-scale shows in the Bay Area now that we have seen the response to what we brought here today,” said De La Hoya.
It would make sense for Golden Boy to, at the very least, establish a working relationship with some of the club and regional promoters along the Bay Area so that they could have a heavier handful of scheduled dates to put their truly young fighters that have yet to establish themselves as anything more than young professionals.

Kirkland-Angulo, desired but not quite marinated
The one fight at junior middleweight that everyone has been clamoring for is one between Kirkland and fellow young undefeated 154-pounder, Alfredo Angulo. Angulo was in attendance for the night’s action, and has a close eye on Kirkland as a future opponent. Kirkland noted in the post-fight press conference that he knows Angulo very well and what he offers, and if they were to ever fight he imagines he would stop him. A fight between the two now would stir a lot of response from the die-hard boxing fans, but it is likely that if this bout ever happens it would be down the road when one or both of the fighters have titles.

The only potential roadblock in negotiations for this fight lies at the feet of Gary Shaw, who used to promote Kirkland and has made it clear in the past that he does not like to work with people who have burned him. Take, for instance, his comments following the Darchinyan-Mijares bout when Vic was pressed about a potential Darchinyan-Donaire rematch. He immediately broke into the conversation with the answer of “No way” and the fact that he doesn’t “reward unloyalty” as he put it. If that is just an excuse to keep Vic out of harms way or the actual truth, nobody knows. Kirkland has made it known that he doesn’t feel Shaw would get in the way of negotiations for a future bout, which is good news for those that believe that.

Ringside guests Jack Mosley and Andre Ward make note of current plans
The first big Bay Area fight card in years also brought out quite the array of those famous within the boxing circle. Along with Angulo, Jack Mosley was in attendance, as well as Oakland, California native and Olympic Gold-medal winner Andre Ward. Mosley assisted in the corner of Eloy Perez, as both he and son Shane Mosley have a long-time relationship with the Garcia family that manages Eloy.

Along with working with two heavyweights right now, Jack trains Shane, Jr., the 17-year old son of Shane who wishes to continue the family legacy of boxing. Jack also noted that his grandson would like to do something his father didn’t even do, and that is win an Olympic gold-medal. The eldest son of the Mosley children also plans on attending college.

Andre Ward said he will likely be fighting somewhere during the first or second week of May, possibly at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. Ward seemed enthusiastic in response to the turnout for this big local card on HBO, saying that it looks good for the future of boxing in the Bay.

Final thoughts
Although the main portion of the card was a slight let-down due to unforeseeable occurrences, I am fairly certain that the hometown crowd will turn out again in heaps for another boxing card that promises to deliver at this level. This may be wishful thinking, and many other local boxing staples who have many more years of experience than I have convinced me that it is, but maybe this is the spark that the Bay Area needed to start churning out fun, guaranteed action-packed cards with recognizable names and high intrigue. The fact that many followed the few So-Cal fighters that competed on Saturday night up to the Bay also helps convince you that people will come out to support fighters from California both north and south.

It is interesting to note that when Golden Boy first started up, one of the first places they promoted regularly was in San Jose, and they were the first behind the “Fight Night at the Tank” series that is still running. Even if Golden Boy isn’t interested in devoting the time to organizing these smaller scale cards anymore, there are a slew of promoters who haven’t been putting on their regular shows over the past few years that would be willing to basically do the work for them.

Northern California longs for the past days that saw many fighters on the way up make stops in the area on their way to greatness. Just the other day, I saw a clip from an old card of longtime Santa Cruz and Monterey promoter Jerry Hoffman from 1994 that featured a young “Sugar” Shane Mosley, an at-the-time world-ranked Hector Lizarraga, and a rematch between Maui Diaz and Felipe Garcia all on one card. More recently Hoffman was promoting shows that featured talent like Eloy Perez, Jose Celaya and female minimumweight champion Carina Moreno until he lost his sponsors following his last show in October of 2007.

In order for boxing to thrive in the Bay it needs more than just the big cards to do that, it needs the regional cards to make fans remember why they enjoy boxing and to also help develop the next era’s local stars.

All photos courtesy of Jason Pachura.

Mark Ortega can be reached at mark@ultimateboxingresults.com

Young Stars of Golden Boy Set to Rise

2009-03-07T03:46:00.000-08:00

Weigh-In Results, HBO Boxing After Dark Preview

Mark Ortega

Tomorrow night will mark the first time in a long time that HBO is televising boxing from California’s Bay Area, once regarded as one of boxing’s biggest pools of young talent. On both the televised and non-televised portions of the card, young talent harvested from this very stretch of land will be trying to leave a memory in the minds of Golden Boy Promotions, who is promoting this extravagant triple-header set to be televised Saturday night at 10PM ET on HBO’s Boxing After Dark from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. Considering that the expected turnout for this card far exceeds both what people expected as well as any card to take place in Northern California in nearly a decade, the pressure will be on all of these fighters to produce both great performances and exciting action.

It is interesting to note is that not a single fighter on the “A” side of any of the ten scheduled bouts is over the age of thirty save for one, 31-year old Golden Boy heavyweight prospect and Fairfield, California native Ashanti Jordan. This makes it clear that on top of snatching up the best already developed talent in the sport, Golden Boy is now starting to make a move towards developing their own fighters. In the past few years, Golden Boy has slowly developed fighters Vicente Escobedo, Abner Mares, Danny Garcia, Daniel Jacobs, and Rock Allen, who was slated to fight on this bill against Rogelio Castaneda, Jr. but pulled out after having some dental work done, from hot commodities into sure-fire prospects.

The three televised bouts make it just how clear they are about their commitment to their young talent, new and old. You could call this card the “Night of the Stolen Prospects” as James Kirkland (Gary Shaw), Victor Ortiz (Top Rank), and Robert Guerrero (Goossen-Tutor) all came from other promoters as little as six months ago. Note that in those six months, which began with Ortiz being the first to join Golden Boy, all three of these fighters have appeared on HBO television a tremendous three out of their four fights. The only fight not to appear on HBO’s was Guerrero’s tune-up bout against Edel Ruiz from the off-TV portion of Margarito-Mosley in January. Even if that bout was televised Guerrero would have received nearly the same amount of airtime as he finished Ruiz in 43 seconds. The point is, Golden Boy is committing to their young talent.

In the opening bout of the televised portion, you have Guerrero [23-1-1, 16 KOs], a fighter who had desperately been asking for a big bout on HBO near his hometown of Gilroy, California for years. He had fought in San Jose a few times before, even headlining, but not on a card the magnitude of tomorrow night’s. Golden Boy delivered in two fights what his previous promoter had been unable to do since taking control of Guerrero at the beginning of his career. At the same time, he was led to a world title and a subsequent second world title under this same guidance so you can’t dismiss them entirely. Guerrero will be taking on the unknown Daud Yordan [23-0, 17 KOs], the second Indonesian fighter to make their way onto HBO programming in the last two weeks, following Chris John’s impressive draw against Rocky Juarez on last weekend’s magnificent Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz card. Both fighters weighed in at the super featherweight limit of 130 pounds in this bout which is for the vacant NABO 130-pound title.

When asked if he thought he had an advantage, being the unknown commodity in the United States with only a few rounds of footage available, Yordan seemed hesitant in answering before admitting that it has to be a slight advantage at the least. Yordan feels he could come out with any kind of gameplan and fool Guerrero, and he plans on unleashing a few surprises along the way. Guerrero has said he is ready for the challenge, and won’t rely solely on the couple of rounds he was able to view of his opponent and will instead take it as he goes. Guerrero has widely stated that he feels no added pressure, but being the local draw on an HBO telecast is a big deal to his career, and he must know that. In trying to think of potential opponents in the future, Robert Guerrero has targeted the tough Humberto Soto, who currently holds the WBC 130-pound title. If Guerrero should win you can almost guarantee that he will again be on premium TV for his next bout in some capacity.

Following Guerrero-Yordan is a twelve round bout for both the NABO and the USBA junior welterweight titles between hard-hitting ESPN.com 2008 Prospect of the Year, Victor Ortiz of Oxnard, California, and former alphabelt challenger Mike Arnaoutis of Greece. Arnaoutis [21-2-2, 10 KOs] brings a lot of experience with him in the ring for a fighter who has yet to hit 30. He has taken on the likes of present and past belt-holders Kendall Holt (L UD12 to), Juan Urango (D12) and Ricardo Torres (L SD12 to), never losing more than a close decision. Although unsuccessful in two attempts at winning a “prestigious” belt from one of the four main sanctioning bodies, a win for “Mighty Mike” over Ortiz would put him right back in line for a third shot. With both fighters coming in at the junior welterweight limit of 140 pounds, questions about the preparedness of these two can fly right out the window.

Ortiz [23-1-1, 18 KOs] comes across as the Fernando Vargas of this next batch of young stars, but with an added twist. Ortiz likes to clown around and have a lot of fun while Vargas seemed to always be pretending whenever he was supposed to be having a lot of fun. The proof in the merit of Ortiz’ reputation lies in the fact that for this fight, which does not feature any one big name, loads of boxing reporters from Southern California are going to be in attendance thanks to the heavy So-Cal flavor in Ortiz, as well as a few undercard bouts.

In the night’s main event, a very closely matched bout between top contenders James Kirkland of Austin, Texas and Joel Julio of Monteria, Columbia will take place in a ten-round junior middleweight bout that promises to end early. Kirkland [24-0, 21 KOs] has made it clear he has worked hard for this bout and plans on running through Julio like a train. Surprisingly, Kirkland was not bashful in making it clear what his next target is should he emerge victorious Saturday night, equally-impressive junior middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo.

“That’s basically what we are building toward, now. This fight, and then that one,” Kirkland said in response to the name Angulo being thrown out.

“I just think he’s an average fighter. If we fight each other, I’m gonna crush him.”

A Kirkland-Angulo perspective bout has die-hard boxing fans salivating as it all-but-guarantees a Fight of the Year candidate between two hard-hitting young fighters that have so far looked unstoppable. The only roadblock, seemingly, is the fact that Gary Shaw promotes Angulo, and Kirkland just got away from Shaw before arriving at Golden Boy in October. Kirkland does not think that will pose a problem to future negotiations.

“We don’t have any hard feelings, Golden Boy should be able to get it done,” assured Kirkland.

Kirkland is expected to have his hands full with his opponent, Joel Julio, who is coming off of a decision loss to WBO 154-pound champion Sergiy Dzinziruk back in November of last year. Julio [34-2, 31 KOs] gave a solid account of himself in a losing effort, and has made it known he is going to bounce back by ending the young dreams of Kirkland with his heavy right hand. Many people don’t expect this fight to go the distance and a surprising number of people are giving Julio the best chance of scoring a huge upset on the night’s card. Julio weighed in at the junior middleweight limit of 154 pounds while Kirkland came in a half-pound light at 153 ½.

There are quite a few intriguing bouts on the stacked undercard, which features eight bouts in total.

A stand-out bout featuring Ashanti Jordan, one of Golden Boy’s few heavyweight prospects, against the experienced William Perryman is slated for six rounds. Jordan [7-0, 6 KOs], of San Francisco, California, came in at 220 pounds while Perryman [10-17, 7 KOs], of Clarksdale, Mississippi, outweighed him by only two pounds at 222. Jordan has a win over equally experienced John Clark under his belt, so don’t expect him to not know what to expect against a fighter who has been around long enough to learn a few tricks.

Another prospect on a few boxing watch-lists is young featherweight Charles Huerta of Paramount, California. Huerta will be fighting the experienced Andres Ledesma of Miami, Florida by way of Colombia, in a six-round junior lightweight clash. Huerta has been moved along rather quickly, with tomorrow night’s bout against Ledesma being the fourth time that he has taken on a fighter with more than twenty-five bouts under their belt as a professional. Huerta’s extensive amateur career has his people resting easy about this decision, and he will be getting into the ring with someone who has fought (and lost) against the likes of Jesus Chavez (TKO9 by), Mario Santiago (TKO4 by), Raul Martinez (TKO8 by) and Juan Carlos Burgo (UD8 to). His biggest win to date is a May 2007 fifth-round stoppage of once-beaten Gary Stark, Jr. Ledesma would lose a close unanimous decision in the rematch, and he has also lost six of his last seven bouts with his lone win coming against an opponent with one recorded victory. Ledesma came in heavy at 127.5 while Huerta came in at 125.

Undefeated San Francisco, California native Karim Mayfield makes his fifth appearance at the HP Pavilion in nine professional bouts when he meets fellow undefeated welterweight Mario Lozano of Chihuahua, Mexico in a six-round contest. Mayfield came in at 147 ½ pounds while Lozano weighed in at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds. Mayfield [7-0-1, 5 KOs] will be fighting a fourth undefeated foe in his last five fights, emerging from each of these situations as the fighter who was able to hold onto his “0”. Lozano [5-0, 4 KOs] will provide a tough test as he fits the blueprint of a tough Mexican fighter with plenty of heart and power but not much in terms footwork and speed. This fight could be determined by which fighter is in the better condition, and many expect it to be one of the bigger crowd-pleasing fights of the undercard.

Espinoza Boxing Club prospect Luis Ramos takes on 50+ fight veteran and former WBO title challenger Anthony Martinez in a six-round lightweight bout. Ramos [9-0, 5 KOs] of Santa Ana, California has been heavily watched in the So-Cal boxing scene and will now make his first appearance in the Northern California region on Saturday night’s card.

In Martinez [21-28-3, 9 KOs], Ramos has an opponent who has just come off of a February loss to another young fighter south of 140 pounds in Mike Dallas, Jr., losing a unanimous decision. Ramos could try and one-up Dallas by scoring a more emphatic victory, and he has two extra rounds to work with on top of that. Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer made note that Ramos was one of the fighters their company was looking closely at in terms of a potential new addition to their young stable of lions, so there is quite a bit on the line in this one. Ramos weighed in at 136 pounds and Martinez tipped the scales at 137.

San Jose favorite Eloy Perez will be taking a tune-up bout before his expected March 21st clash with Orlando Salido in an IBF featherweight eliminator, taking on Glendale, Arizona’s Gabe Garcia in a six-round super featherweight bout. Both fighters came into the bout weighing 130 ½ pounds. Perez [12-0-2, 2 KOs] also had the luxury of working with Robert Guerrero in sparring for the past two weeks before the fight. Guerrero suffered a loss to Salido that was later overturned to a no contest when Salido did not pass his drug test. At 22 years old, Perez would be receiving a tremendous opportunity should the bout with Salido come off, and Eloy does not plan on wasting it.

“Personally, I think I can beat Salido. I am ready for this fight, it’s my shot to be in the mix. I took this fight so that I can stay sharp because it has been awhile since my last fight,” said Perez at the weigh-in. Should a bout with Salido fall through, Perez still has plenty of time to worry about another opportunity in his young boxing career.

Garcia [4-5-1, KO] should be familiar with Perez as they have fought on a show together promoted by Jerry Hoffman in Monterey back in October of 2007. Both fighters came out of that card victorious, this time one of them will have to leave on the losing end.

Shelly Finkel managed heavyweight prospect Seth Mitchell of Brandywine, Maryland will be meeting Long Beach, California’s Jason Rabotte in the second scheduled six-round heavyweight bout of the night. Mitchell [9-0-1, 6 KOs] has either provided highlight-reel knockouts or very mediocre distance performances. Rabotte [3-4, KO] has a wide unanimous decision over a 3-0 fighter to his name and not much else, but should give Mitchell a round or two, hopefully.

Rounding out the card is Nazim Richardson project Karl Dargan of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania taking on Sergio Orantes of Carson, California, who is making his professional debut. Dargan [2-0] turned pro in December of 2007 but has only had two professional fights. Dargan is hoping that in 2009 he can stay busier and fight more than once every six months. Dargan weighed in at 138 ½ and Orantes weighed in at 137 ½ for this four-round junior welterweight contest.

HBO’s March 7th Boxing After Dark marks the first time they have covered a fight from Northern California’s Bay Area since a 2001 card that pitted Floyd Mayweather, Jr. against Jesus Chavez that took place in San Francisco. Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer has made it clear that if this show is a success they will make a conscious effort to make more big fights up north rather than letting them all get picked up by the casinos or southern California, which is great news for those who thought boxing was dying a slow death in those parts of the state.

Tickets for the event, promoted by Golden Boy Promotions, are available online at Ticketmaster.com.

Random Ramblings:
-The Rock Allen-Rogelio Castaneda, Jr. bout that was originally slated to take place on this card has been moved to the ARCO Arena card on March 26th due to Allen having some dental work done recently.
-Of the six fighters featured on the televised broadcast, only two fighters fight orthodox (Julio and Yordan).
-All three A-sides of these fights are American-born fighters and all three B-sides of these fights were born outside of the United States. Four continents are represented on this all-world card.
-Kirkland and Julio, the two guys in the main event, are the only two fighters to have fought on non-PPV HBO television in the past. The other four fighters are new faces to the regular subscribers to the channel.
-Aside from McGirt's work in Vernon Forrest's corner, can anyone remember the last time McGirt was in the corner of the winning side of a meaningful fight? That's bad news for Mike Arnaoutis, who brought McGirt in for his fight against Ortiz.

Photos courtesy of Mario Ortega, Jr.

Mark Ortega can be reached by e-mail at mark@ultimateboxingresults.com.

Paul Nave Weigh-In Results

2009-03-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

On the eve of the first HBO card to take place in the Bay Area in a little over eight years, another staple to the area will return to boxing as "The Marin County Assassin" Paul Nave returns to the ring following an equally long eight-year layoff to take on unheralded yet tested Mikhall Lyubarsky at the Marin Center Exhibit Hall in San Rafael, California.

Nave [15-8-2, 7 KOs], who is best known for his 1998 ESPN-televised conquering of former junior welterweight beltholder and Julio Cesar Chavez foe, Greg Haugen, is now 48 years old but still feels that he has enough left to get back in the ring. Nave fought Haugen three times, with all three wars taking place at the same venue he will be fighting at tonight. Although those bouts did not display the most tactical of in-ring skills by either fighter, they showed that Nave has world-class heart and will as he grinded out a win even though he was the much more limited fighter.

Lyubarsky [3-9. KO], of Hollywood, California by way of the Ukraine, flashes a very unappealing record as a professional, but in his last three bouts he has been in the ring with fighters that were at least a few classes above him in terms of skill. He has been in the ring with a few prospects such as Brian Mihtar and Donald Orr, failing to make it out of the second round against either.

Nave weighed in at a trim 152 pounds, while his opponent tipped the scales at 159 pounds. Nave showed no reluctance in accepting the bout anyways, which is fortunate since he is the main draw on the card, as well as the promoter.

In an intriguing bout at 159 pounds, former ShoBox participant Enrique Gutierrez will take on David Tabatadze in a battle of two fighters of vastly different experience levels. Gutierrez [10-3, 8 KOs] of Santa Rosa, California ran off ten straight wins to start his professional career, but has since suffered three straight losses, one of which came at the hands of Shamone Alvarez who is fighting tonight as well in an eliminator. Tabatadze [2-0, KO] of Reseda, California is only a few bouts into his professional career and is matched very tough in this one after his original opponent fell out. The bout was originally scheduled for four rounds, but with the addition of Gutierrez it makes much more sense as a six-round bout. Gutierrez weighed in at 157.5 pounds while Tabatadze came in at 159.

Also in action is junior welterweight prospect Alex Paracha [1-0, KO] of San Francisco, California against the always tough Dario Castillo [5-8-1] of Pittsburg, California. Paracha fought Castillo three times in the amateurs, so it is safe to say these two know each other quite well. Paracha weighed in at 140 while Castillo tipped the scales at 139 for this four-round bout.

Dario Castillo's brother, Daniel, will also be fighting tonight as he takes on Michaelangelo Lynks in a six-round welterweight bout. Daniel Castillo [2-4-1, KO], also of Pittsburg, has only lost by decision, with all but one defeat coming by majority or split decision. Castillo will be fighting a six-rounder for the first time in his professional career. Lynks [6-9-2, 2 KOs] has been scheduled for ten before and has gone as many as eight rounds in the past, so expect the Los Angeles, California native to be ready for the later rounds. Castillo weighed in at 147.25 while Lynks came in ready at 144.

Rounding out the card is a four-round middleweight fight between George Uberti of Navato, California and DeMarcus Stephens of Oakland, California. Stephens formerly worked in the gym with Olympic gold medal winner Andre Ward and will be making his professional debut tonight. He weighed in at 158, while his opponent, who is also making his debut, also weighed in at 158.

Tickets for the event, promoted by Liberty Boxing Enterprises, are available online at Ticketmaster.com.

Tales from the Tape: Castillo-Casamayor, Marquez-Diaz, and the Ring 135-pound title

2009-02-27T02:19:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

With this Saturday being the highly anticipated clash between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz for Marquez’ Ring Magazine 135-pound title (and now the WBA and WBO titles as well), I thought it would be an excellent chance to take a look back at a card featuring another fight for the 135-pound world title from a few years back between champion Jose Luis Castillo and Joel Casamayor. With Nate Campbell moving up to 140-pounds after failing to make weight a few weekends ago against Ali Funeka and Manny Pacquiao set to fight Ricky Hatton for the 140-pound world title, Marquez-Diaz has become a bout between the clearly two best fighters in the entire division.

Similarly, when Floyd Mayweather, Jr. moved up from lightweight in 2004, it made Jose Luis Castillo’s bout with Juan Lazcano not only for the vacant WBC 135-pound title, but for the vacant Ring Magazine title as well as Castillo and Lazcano were recognized as the #1 and #2 fighters in the division. Castillo won a close decision in a memorable fight, making him the recognized #1 fighter in the division. At the same time, Diego Corrales and Joel Casamayor, fresh off their rematch that saw Corrales awarded with a split decision victory, were both making the move to 135-pounds instantly making it one of the hottest divisions in the sport. A string of title would go off one after another between the likes of Casamayor, Castillo, Corrales, Acelino Freitas, and Julio Diaz. Add to that the emergence of the young and exciting Juan Diaz and you had a lot of excitement being generated in one of the premiere weight classes.

Showtime Championship Boxing was behind this series of fighters more than any network, airing most of the title fights that took place at lightweight. On this particular night, December 4, 2004, Showtime also put a couple of interesting supporting bouts underneath the Castillo-Casamayor bout showcasing two emerging fighters in heavyweight Samuel Peter and newly-crowned IBF super middleweight champion, Jeff Lacy. Peter would be taking on Jeremy Williams in the first bout, while Lacy would be making the first defense of his title against tough two-time world title challenger, Omar Sheika.

Jeremy Williams is a guy you always wonder about, how he would have done had his career been managed better or if he had focused 100% on boxing. If he had made the move to cruiserweight early in his career, many thought he could have been a force there and won a belt. In his one world title attempt, in 1996 to Henry Akinwande, Williams was knocked out in three rounds and never mounted a streak worthy enough to contend for one again. In fighting Samuel Peter, 20-0 at the time, Williams could make a serious move towards another shot at the age of 32. A win would not get him one instantly, but it would be impressive. One thing about Peter, is it is hilarious to think that people believe he was 24 at this time. I just cannot believe that this man is that young, he looks old enough to be my father. Throughout his career questions about his age have been raised on various boxing message boards, and for good reason.

The first round was a rather close one, with good action happening throughout, which is odd to hear considering that it was heavyweights who were fighting. Williams did a good job of boxing, but you could see flashes where he would leave himself wide open and nearly get blasted by a big shot. This offered some foresight to what would happen in the next round.

About twenty seconds in, Peter lands an absolutely brutal wide left hook that has Williams out before his head bounces off of the canvas. The announce team goes silent for what seems like eternity, and you instantly fear for the health of Williams. Medical personnel climb into the ring and start to take precaution. Williams is sitting up without speaking or moving for a few seconds, and then thankfully answers some questions asked by the staff.

In the post-fight interview, Samuel Peter makes absolutely NO sense. Just to show you what I mean, here is word-for-word what came out of Peter’s mouth.

“First of all, I want to give praise to the almighty God, because I know the joy of the lord is my strength. Um, well I was really prepared for this fight, you know. ‘Cuz I really know, I knock Jeremy Williams. I don’t watch his tape, I don’t know anything about him because I’m a man, a real man. That’s what I said from the beginning, a real man. I don’t watch anybody’s tape. You know when I was running, me and my coach, I told my coach, ‘When I’m on the street, I pick up two golf balls’, and I told my coach, ’I’m gonna knock this guy out.’ Ask my coach. And I said, ‘What does this mean?’ My coach has two balls and he said, ‘You see these two balls?’

Then Jim Gray cuts him off. So what I got from that at the end is that Peter has big balls, as in a lot of guts? I also love how he says he was really prepared for this fight, and immediately follows that with him saying he didn’t even watch any tape of Williams, nor does he ever watch tape because he is a real man. I think it would have served Peter some good if he watched some tape on either of the Klitschkos. When they show Peter the highlight of the knockout, he delivers again:

“Yeah the left hook is, you know, I didn’t plan a left hook. But you know, this is me, this is me, this is me. (the punch lands) That’s it, that’s what it all about. I believe he will be okay because the joy of the lord is my strength, as I was saying earlier. I want to fight Vertrilly Klitscko.”

Jim Gray looks dumbfounded and brings Jeremy Williams into the picture and asks him this brilliant question: “Hey I don’t know if you remember, were you unconscious before you hit the canvas?” He then, without hesitation, shows Williams the replay of him getting knocked silly. Jim Gray: a man of worth.
The next bout was a perceived showcase fight for emerging 168-pound force and former Olympian, Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy. Lacy had just won the IBF super middleweight title from Syd Vanderpool when he scored an eighth round TKO just two and a half months prior in only his 18th professional bout. Lacy was a belt holder who promised to be active, never sitting on his belts. He lived up to that billing, never fighting more than five months apart during his title reign. Following his loss to Joe Calzaghe he would only fight less than five months apart one time, looking unspectacular in each of those four bouts.

Omar Sheika, ironically, will be fighting in a little over three weeks against Roy Jones, Jr. in a surprising PPV-headlining bout. Entering the Lacy bout, Sheika was a winner of three straight over non-descript opposition following four straight losses (SD12 and TKOby10 to Scott Pemberton, UD12 to Eric Lucas, TKO4by Thomas Tate). Sheika had unsuccessfully challenged for a belt twice before, against Lucas and Joe Calzaghe. Lacy would be his third chance, and he promised not to waste it.

Tally another mark for fighters entering the ring to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” to two in these columns as Omar Sheika elected to make his walk to that song (Junior Jones also came out to that song against Marco Antonio Barrera in another Tales from the Tape).Sheika was proof that, in boxing, if you prove to be in exciting bouts you will get more than your fair share of opportunities (see: Arturo Gatti).

Oddly, both fighters were 27 years old. It is interesting because Lacy was on his way up and Sheika was perceivably on his way out.

Throughout the course of the first half of the fight, Sheika elected to fight in spurts, letting off four or five punch combinations and then tying up Lacy before he could do anything. Sheika was picking up a lot of the early rounds, and was landing big right hands at will. In the second round, Sheika stunned Lacy with a right hand and followed up with some left and right hooks that also got through. Sheika was also digging shots to the body, winding up as if he was throwing a haymaker in a video game. Sheika was winning his rounds big while Lacy was edging the rounds you could find for him. Through six, I had Sheika ahead 4-2 in terms of rounds.

From that point on, the fight changed momentum. Sheika was electing to trade more with Lacy rather than try and limit his output. At the end of the seventh, an insane exchange occurred that had Lacy landing the slightly better shots. Sheika wasn’t on sturdy legs to start the eighth yet was still engaging with Lacy and having his moments. Lacy edged the round again. In the ninth, Lacy started to mix his punches up and hurt Sheika. A double left hook by Lacy lands and the round again ends with an awesome exchange. At this point, Lacy had more behind his punches. The tenth round saw Lacy continue the assault, hurting Sheika but not being able to put him down. Sheika was absorbing an incredible amount of damage, which is interesting because he could not handle the same from Scott Pemberton a few fights before.

The twelfth round is the kind of final round you always hope for in close fights. Both guys came out with a complete disregard for defense, standing toe-to-toe in the middle of the ring exchanging power shots like it was the end of a Rocky film. Lacy had clearly won, but much credit was given to Sheika as well for giving a tremendous effort in the underdog role. The official scores, 115-113, 115-113, 117-111 tallied a unanimous decision for Lacy and Sheika had come very close to lifting a major belt for the first time. I had it 116-112 for Lacy as I thought he swept the final six rounds.

Joel Casamayor was coming off an incredibly boring decision victory over Daniel Seda, one of Showtime’s worst main events ever. The Seda fight was his first at 135 following his loss to Diego Corrales for the vacant WBO 130-pound title four months prior. For what he has done in the ring, Casamayor may be one of the most underappreciated elite fighters of the past few decades. He came to the United States from Cuba and quickly turned professional. He had to get to work quickly, as he did not start his pro career until he was 25 years old.

Casamayor would win the interim WBA super featherweight title against Antonio Hernandez in 1999 and pick up the full version of the WBA title almost a year later from Jong-Kwon Baek. After a few defenses of his belt, a failed attempt to unify them came when he unsuccessfully challenged Acelino Freitas in January of 2002, losing by unanimous decision. A controversial win over Nate Campbell on HBO put him back in the mix, and he would beat Diego Corrales on cuts soon after to put him in line for a title shot. Instead, he fought Corrales again for the vacant WBO 130-pound title, losing by split decision. Casamayor decided at this point to move up to lightweight, and a victory over Seda later he would challenge Castillo for the recognized world title at lightweight.

Jose Luis Castillo had just established himself as the best 135-pounder in the world, but it took him 57 fights as a professional to do so. Castillo turned pro at the young age of 16, losing four bouts early in his career before getting a shot at WBC lightweight champion Stevie Johnston in June of 2000. Castillo made the most of his opportunity, winning a majority decision in Ring Magazine’s Upset of the Year. Castillo proved his merit in the rematch which ended in a draw, allowing Castillo to hold onto his title. The rematch was originally announced as a majority decision victory for Johnston, but it was later discovered that Ken Morita’s scorecard had been added incorrectly and that the fight was a draw. Castillo would not be notified this until Johnston came into his locker room to give him the belt back.

Castillo would make a few pedestrian defenses of his title before meeting Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in April of 2002. Mayweather would win a unanimous decision, although many in the boxing community thought that Castillo did enough to hand Junior his first loss. They would rematch in December with Floyd emerging with a much more clear and concise victory than he had before. Mayweather would defend the titles twice and then make the move to junior welterweight, leaving a void at lightweight that would be cleared up in a bout between Castillo and Juan Lazcano, the #1 and #2 lightweights in Ring Magazine. In an entertaining battle, Castillo would be awarded the victory and the distinction as the best fighter in the division.

The fight began at a slow pace, with Casamayor winning most of the early rounds as he would move around the ring, occasionally landing a straight left hand that would make Castillo look foolish. For the first half of the bout, Castillo did not look to even be in the same league as Casamayor. He would follow “El Cepillo” around, attempt to get inside on him, and instead get tagged by a few power shots and not have enough time to land anything in return before Casamayor would disappear out of harm’s way. Through six rounds, Castillo had maybe won two of them. The sixth round was when Castillo turned the corner, landing some premiere body shots in an attempt to slow down Casamayor. The plan worked, and the second half of the fight was much more competitive.

Casamayor was holding a little too much, and in the clinch Castillo was doing great work, firing to the body and then coming back with left and right hooks to the side of the head. Casamayor would do well for early portions of a round and then Castillo would grind him down and do enough damage to justify being awarded the round. In the ninth, Castillo would start off strong, peppering Casamayor with some big right hands. Casamayor would then land two straight lefts that would snap back Castillo’s head. Castillo ate them gladly, and I scored the round even. The championship rounds is where Castillo made an incredible run, winning all three of them on each judge’s scorecards. Casamayor seemed more inclined to war it out with Castillo, which was a strategic nightmare on his part.

At the end of the tenth, both fighters were exchanging dangerous blows with Castillo landing the better leather. The eleventh round saw both fighters take the beginning of the frame to gain some energy back. Castillo would be the first to get his second wind, going up and downstairs effectively. Castillo ripped a shot upstairs and then to the body to end the round impressively.

Heading into the final round I had the bout 5-5 with the 9th round even, meaning the fight was on the table. Castillo would land some bombs in a six-punch combination that Casamayor answered with shots in between. The last twenty seconds of the round featured some incredible action that saw Casamayor getting strafed by power shots, mainly left and right hooks upstairs. A beautiful Castillo left uppercut would force Casamayor’s mouthpiece into the bright lights, putting an exclamation point on the round in Castillo’s favor.

No one on the Showtime crew could take a guess at who would be awarded the victory, it was that close. When it came time to be announced, to nobody’s surprise it was a split decision. The first score was 116-112, in favor of Castillo. The second score was 115-113, in favor of Casamayor. The third and deciding score was a much too wide 117-111 in favor of Castillo, allowing him to retain his title.

In the post-fight interview, Castillo called for a fight against Diego Corrales in May and Tszyu in September. Thankfully for us, that fight came together and both men delivered possibly the greatest 135-pound fight in history. Castillo would never get his chance at Tszyu, as the war with Corrales demanded a rematch. By the time Castillo was done with all of that Tszyu would lose his title to Ricky Hatton and retire from the sport.

This weekend’s Marquez-Diaz bout promises to provide a lot of intensity and some fireworks are likely. I favor Diaz by decision, but can see the fight playing out many different ways. In other words, this isn’t one I would bet on. In opening bout action, Chris John travels to the United States for the first time as he defends the featherweight title he won from Marquez against local attraction, Rocky Juarez. If Juarez can fight like he did at the end of the Barrios fight, this is winnable. If he decides to not fire any punches like he has done in all of his losses, you can chalk up a loss barring a hometown decision much like the one he nearly got against Barrios. Either way, Saturday promises to deliver a few fights worth viewing, and on free (well, sort of) television, no less.

Clottey the forgotten man at 147

2009-02-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

When Joshua Clottey lifted the vacant IBF welterweight title back in August of last year against Zab Judah, he thought it was his ticket to bigger fights and a chance to build a legacy. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, and the 147-pound champion, who hails from Ghana but has carved out a living in the United States since 2001, has gone without a fight since.

Clottey is unfortunately a man without a following. He is well-known in his homeland, but in the States he is just another fighter who is a hard sell to ticket buyers and potential opponents. He currently resides in the Bronx, New York, and would be easy to assume there is not a large Ghana population there. On top of that, Clottey does not necessarily have a crowd pleasing style, but it isn’t a boring one either. Since winning the title, Clottey has had a few fights rumored to be made, as well as one that was nearly signed, but he has yet to make a defense of his title.

Clottey’s first rumored fight was to be a welterweight unification bout with Antonio Margarito in December of last year, a rematch from their thrilling and close 2006 fight that saw Margarito claim a unanimous decision victory.

“I was in Africa when my manager asked me about the fight. I said I wanted the fight, and I was told that my promoters would get back to me about it. I didn’t hear anything about it after that,” said Clottey in a phone interview Tuesday.

After the Margarito fight went away, Clottey was slated to defend his title against Kermit Cintron, whom Clottey was the mandatory challenger to before Cintron suffered a second crushing defeat at the hands of Margarito. The fight was supposed to take place under the Miguel Cotto-Michael Jennings fight, but Cintron opted to take a fight with Sergio Gabriel Martinez for an interim version of the 154-pound title instead.

“Cintron is the coward in the division,” remarked Clottey. “He didn’t want to fight me when he was the champion, either.” That refers to a point where Clottey was the long-standing mandatory challenger to Cintron, and Cintron decided to pay the IBF to sanction Cintron-Margarito II as long as the winner agreed to fight Clottey immediately afterwards. Margarito won the fight and vacated the belt immediately to chase a bigger fight with Miguel Cotto instead. Clottey was not even offered any step-aside money and decided to get back in line, hoping his shot at a world title would come soon.

Clottey would get that chance in August against Zab Judah for the vacated title. At the end of a fight that was shortened due to a cut suffered by Judah, Clottey emerged victorious and became a world champion. But what exactly has it changed for Clottey?

“Winning a world title is a big thing. Even bigger was who I beat to win the title. It was Zab Judah, and we have a grudge between us. He pushed my trainer and I wanted to teach him a lesson,” said Clottey. “I took less money to fight Judah because I thought when I won I would get the big fights and a chance to unify the titles. Even with the title, those guys still won’t fight me. I didn’t make nothing off the Judah fight, and now I have been off for six months. It is just unbelievable. Why did I win the title if it didn’t change anything for me?”

Clottey’s desire for a big fight is obvious. He has claimed that if none of the top guys will fight him, he might just quit the sport. It is an understandably frustrating situation that he has found himself in. Why would any of the top fighters at welterweight choose to fight Clottey? He is a high-risk fight that offers little reward except for the trinket that he currently owns. He doesn’t sell tickets at the volume that many of the other top fighters do, either.

“When I won the belt, I thought I would be fighting every three months. Now it has been six months and all these fights are going by while I just sit back. It just feels like I am being neglected,” Clottey continued. “They are all fighting around me. I came here to fight, why aren’t they giving me a chance? Mosley is an old man that just wants the big fights for big money, Cintron is a coward, Berto would never fight me. I need to fight with these guys to prove how good I am.”

It can be discussed that Clottey does not even have a legitimate loss on his record. His first loss came at the hands of Carlos Baldomir by disqualification in a bout that Clottey was well ahead in. His loss to Margarito is now being questioned because of the controversy currently surrounding him concerning illegal hand wraps that were discovered shortly before his bout with Mosley. When asked what he had to say about that situation, Clottey had this to offer:

“I can’t say that he used it in all of his fights. Whatever the case may be, if he loaded his gloves then that’s bad. This is boxing, if he has been doing that for a long time, he should be banned. If he used that against me, against Cintron twice, against Cotto, then we don’t need him.”

It is interesting to see where Clottey can go from here. He currently is without a mandatory challenger, but once Miguel Cotto emerged victorious this past weekend he became a possible opponent for Clottey. Cotto is a fighter who has never ducked anyone, and that seems to be the only real possibility for Clottey to get a big fight.

“You know, even if I were sleeping and they called me to fight Cotto, I would take that fight. I need to fight the top guys, otherwise what is the point of being the champion? I am the number four guy in the world, I want my chance to prove myself.”

Hopefully, for Clottey’s sake, he gets awakened by a late phone call soon enough.

Diaz gives back!

2009-02-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Former unified lightweight champion of the world, Juan Diaz, who looks to regain that distinction this coming Saturday, took some time to give back to the community of Houston, Texas in the form of a $5,000 donation that was presented alongside Everlast to The Contemporary Learning Center.
The check was presented to the school in a ceremony that Diaz himself attended. An endorser to Everlast, Diaz was also a product of the Contemporary Learning Center and he has often made speaking appearances in order to motivate kids to thrive in education and fitness.

Look for Juan Diaz this coming Saturday as he takes on Juan Manuel Marquez in the headlining bout of HBO’s World Championship Boxing on February 28th to determine who the best 135 pounder in the world is. Also featured is a bout between Indonesian star Chris John and a fellow Texan to Diaz, Rocky Juarez for a John’s WBA featherweight title.

Interview with heavyweight Cedric Boswell

2009-02-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Today we chatted with IBF #13 heavyweight Cedric “The Boz” Boswell. Boswell [28-1, 22 KOs] is fresh off of his biggest victory to date, a second round TKO of then-undefeated Roman Greenberg for the IBF North American heavyweight title back in August.

Mark Ortega: First of all, thanks for taking the time to let us know how you are doing. What have you been up to since your huge knockout of Greenberg?

Cedric Boswell: Man, I have just been training really hard, waiting for a phone call. We have tried calling out a bunch of guys to fight me, but we haven’t had any luck.

MO: What fighters are you targeting in particular?

CB: Well, I know that Chris Arreola doesn’t have an opponent yet for April 11th. He says he is the best American heavyweight, he can prove it by fighting me. His last fight was against Travis Walker, who is on the same level as Roman Greenberg so it makes sense for us to fight each other. I don’t have a promoter or manager right now so all his people need to do is give me a call. I have called out David Haye and James Toney as well, but they rejected fights with me. I mean, I just want to fight Top 5 or Top 10 guys, whatever gets me closer to a world championship.

MO: Back in ’07, you called out Evander Holyfield and wanted a fight with him. Is that a fight you would still want, especially considering many people thought he got robbed against Valuev in December?

CB: Well, yeah, anytime you get to fight a legend like Holyfield, it’s a big thing. I mean, I would still take that fight, I thought he won against Valuev. We also are both from Atlanta, so we could do it out there on our home-turf and bring in some fans. It is definitely a fight I would consider.
MO: Back in ’03, you were going to fight Vitali Klitschko in a supporting bout on the Lennox Lewis-Kirk Johnson card. Johnson pulled out, and Vitali took his spot in the main event and you were without a fight. Looking back, was it worth it taking whatever money they gave you to give up your spot on the card, or would you have liked to fight Vitali?

CB: Looking back, I would have loved to fight Vitali. But I was in a sort of catch-22 situation. If I didn’t take the money, the fight with Klitschko probably still would not have happened.

MO: How ready were you for that fight against Klitschko?

CB: I was ready, man. I was working with Ronnie Shields and we were training really hard for that fight.

MO: Tell us more about the Greenberg fight. He was 26-0 at the time, and you had only fought six times since a three-year layoff. How did that fight come together and how confident were you coming into it?

CB: My advisor came to me about the fight with Greenberg and I thought it would be a great fight. I knew they were trying to boost him up without having fought a guy who is the caliber fighter such as myself, so I thought it would be a great opportunity for me. I also noticed that we fought a lot of the same guys early on, and I was getting rid of them quicker and easier, so that made me pretty confident. It was a perfect fight to help get me where I needed to be.

MO: Along with the win came your first professional title, the IBF North American heavyweight belt. How did it feel becoming a champion for the first time?

CB: It felt great. I had been fighting for a long time and I never had the opportunity to fight for a title. I mean, it’s just a stepping stone to a world title, I am hoping that now someone in the Top 5 or 10 will fight me. Basically my goal is to get a world title from any of the four major organizations, and winning this belt puts me a step closer.

MO: Your career has been hampered by two long layoffs. One of the layoffs was a nearly three year one due to promotional problems, and you took another three year break following the fight with McCline. Any comments on those situations?

CB: I guess before, I was kind of hard-headed. I wanted a title shot right then and there and I thought they were taking too long. I think that I just thought I was ready for a shot and they thought I needed some more time. I just wasn’t patient enough, and now it’s a bit harder to get that shot, but we will see. The other layoff, in the McCline fight I had actually injured my rotator cuff. I had injured it in training for the Klitschko fight, and when that fell through I got a call about fighting McCline three weeks later and I thought I could beat him so I took that fight. In the fourth round, I re-injured it.

MO: The McCline fight is the only blemish on your professional record. You got stopped in the 10th and final round in a fight that you were well ahead in. It looked as if you were just a bit gassed at the end. What did you learn from that fight?

CB: Well, from the fourth round on I was fighting with one arm. I had no right hand and that is my power hand. I kept faking it like it was okay but I couldn’t throw it. I did learn a lot in that fight, though. I gained some experience, learned to hold a lot more, drop your mouthpiece when you are hurt. He dropped his mouthpiece four or five times without getting warned. It was a dirty fight but my hat is off to him because he did what he had to do to get the win. I would love to get another shot at that fight if he got back into the Top 10, otherwise it would be a step back for me.

MO: You turn 40 later this year. Is it safe to say that your career is in make or break mode? How much longer do you plan on fighting and what is your plan?

CB: I only got two to three years left, if that. Fighting tune-ups won’t get me anywhere, but if that is all that is available then I will fight those fights. But honestly I am just looking for the big fights against the top fighters in the division, whatever gets me to a title shot. I got a late start in the sport. I played football in high school and college and didn’t pick up boxing until I joined the military (Navy).

MO: Is there anything else you would like to add?
CB: Yeah, they say Arreola is the best heavyweight in the States, why don’t we prove it. We should get together a round-robin of all the top young American heavyweights and determine who is the best, and give that guy a shot at a Klitschko or another champion. These promoters keep recycling the same heavyweights that nobody wants to watch, they aren’t giving any of the other heavyweights a chance. If any promoters or managers want to make these fights happen, contact me at bozboxing@aol.com.

Mark Ortega can be reached via e-mail at mark@ultimateboxingresults.com

LIGHTWEIGHT LIGHTNING PRESS RELEASE

2009-02-20T14:27:00.001-08:00

GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS PRESENTS
"LIGHTWEIGHT LIGHTNING"
PAY-PER-VIEW EXTRAVAGANZA
TO TAKE PLACE APRIL 4TH IN AUSTIN, TEXAS

SEVEN FORMER WORLD CHAMPIONS FEATURED
ON UNPRECEDENTED LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION EVENT
300 WINS, 220 KNOCKOUTS, 7 WORLD CHAMPIONS,
8 FIGHTERS, 4 FIGHTS, ONE NIGHT

LOS ANGELES, February 20, 2009 - Perhaps the most talent rich division in boxing, the lightweight class, will be on center stage at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas on Saturday, April 4th, as Golden Boy Promotions presents "Lightweight Lightning," an unprecedented four bout, lightweight pay-per-view event that will feature eight elite 135-pounders in four pivotal match-ups that will undoubtedly re-arrange the hierarchy of the highly competitive 135 pound division in one night.

In the "Lightweight Lightning" main event, revered and undefeated knockout artist Edwin Valero (24-0, 24 KOs) from Venezuela returns to the ring to face hard-hitting Colombian warrior Antonio Pitalua (46-3, 40 KOs) in a 12-round championship bout for the vacant WBC Interim World Lightweight crown.

One of the co-featured bouts prior to the main event will be a 10- round clash between former two-time World Champion and Olympic gold medalist, Cuban-born Joel Casamayor (36-4-1, 22 KOs) against the talented former World Champion and California native Julio Diaz (36-4, 26 KOs). As their records reflect, these two evenly matched pugilists, with similarly impressive knock-out ratios, will vie for dominance in what many pundits anticipate to be a barn-burner of a fight.

The third co-featured bout sees Austin's own Jesus Chavez (44-4, 30 KOs), a crowd-pleasing former Lightweight World Champion who is looking to capture a victory at home when he faces rugged and relentless Australian Michael Katsidis (24-2, 20KOs) who will look to give fight fans the type of "Arturo Gatti-like" performance that have become his trademark.

Rounding out "Lightweight Lightning" will be the always charismatic and entertaining Argentinean Jorge Barrios (47-4-1, 34 KOs) against another Lone Star State fighter, former World Champion Carlos Hernandez (43-7-1, 24 KOs), in a 10-round match-up that will open the pay-per-view telecast that evening.

"We have never done something like this before, pitting eight of the world's best lightweights against each other on one card," said Oscar de la Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. "It's exciting, it's innovative and I can't wait for the opening bell to ring. The lightweight division is going to be shaken up on April 4th and every one of these fighters knows his career can only advance if he comes out victorious that night...a loss for any of them would be devastating."

"Lightweight Lightning," which is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Southwest Airlines, will air live on pay-per-view beginning at 9pm ET / 6pm PT with a suggested retail price of $39.95.

Tickets, priced at $200, $100, $75, $50, $35 and $25, go on sale on Friday, February 27th, and may be purchased at the Frank Erwin Center box office, by phone at (512) 477-6060 or 1-800-982-2386 or online at TexasBoxOffice.com. Tickets are also available at Texas Box Office Outlets including select H-E-B stores located in Austin and surrounding areas.

One of the hardest punchers in boxing, pound-for-pound, Venezuela's Edwin Valero is making the leap from 130 pounds, where he held the WBA World Championship title for over two years, to the lightweight division where he hopes to win another world championship. A 27-year old southpaw, Valero won his first 18 bouts via first round knockout, making him an instant fan favorite. On April 4th, he will be looking to make a statement in the lightweight division.

"I look forward to extending my knockout streak for my American fans," said Valero. "Moving up to another division in the hope of capturing my second world title gives me all the incentive I need to train hard. As always, I'm hungry for a knockout, so on April 4th everyone can expect a victory by knockout over Antonio Pitalua."

A native of Monteria, Colombia who now makes his home in Mexico City, 38-year-old veteran Antonio Pitalua has been on an unstoppable hot streak over the last seven years having registered 14 fights without a loss over that span. Fresh off a devastating sixth round knockout victory over highly-touted Jose Armando Santa Cruz last September, Pitalua promises that he will make good on his first world title shot since 2000.

"I don't think it's any secret that when the bell rings April 4th, the fight with me and Valero is going to be a war," said Pitalua. "We both have great punching power, but unfortunately for him, I know I can take his punch and I don't think he is going to be able to take mine."

The finest Cuban fighter of the modern era, Joel "El Cepillo" Casamayor has captured the imagination of fight fans for almost two decades. A 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist, the slick southpaw went on to win junior lightweight and lightweight world titles, beating the likes of Diego Corrales, Michael Katsidis, Roberto Garcia and Nate Campbell along the way.

"I've had a nice little break, but now it's time to get back to work," said Casamayor. "My title is waiting for me and I'm going to take it back in 2009. First things first though, I have to take care of my business with Julio Diaz."

A member of the fighting Diaz family, Julio "Kidd" Diaz is hoping to celebrate his 10th year as a pro with another world championship in 2009. The 29 year-old former IBF World Lightweight Champion from Coachella, California has won six of his last seven bouts, including four by knockout and is expecting a war from Casamayor on April 4th.

"This is a great night for boxing and it's going to be a great night for me," said Diaz. "Casamayor is one of the best in the world and beating him is going to put me right back on top...I can't wait."

One of boxing's most inspirational figures, Austin's Jesus "El Matador" Chavez is two wins into his comeback after rehabbing a serious knee injury. A Former World Champion at 130 and 135 pounds who owns wins over Tom Johnson, Carlos Hernandez and Leavander Johnson, Chavez is coming off a ninth round TKO of Andres Ledesma last September.

"I'm happy to have the opportunity to make another run at a world title," said Chavez. "Katsidis is an exciting young fighter and I know he will come prepared, but April 4th is going to be my night to shine, as I am going to be fighting for the whole state of Texas and all of my hometown fans who will be there to support me."

The pride of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, 28-year-old Michael Katsidis is one of the rare fighters who has been able to carry his popularity overseas and to the United States. An all-action, blood and guts warrior and former WBO World Lightweight Champion whose only pro losses have come in competitive bouts against Juan Diaz and Joel Casamayor, Katsidis recently got back in the win column with a ten round win over Angel Hugo Ramirez. He now looks to add to his victory total with his trademark exciting style against Chavez on April 4th.

"I miss holding a world title and I know the road back goes through Jesus Chavez," said Katsidis. "He's a great fighter and champion, but on fight night, I will walk through fire to make sure my hand is raised in victory."

An Argentinean warrior from Tigre, Jorge "La Hiena" Barrios never leaves the ring without giving all he's got. A Former WBO World Junior Lightweight Champion who defended his title twice, Barrios is now in search of bigger game at 135 pounds and is looking forward to making Hernandez his first victim.

"I think 135 pounds is going to be the best weight for me," said Barrios. "I'm hitting harder than ever as a lightweight and I know Hernandez won't be able to get past the sixth round with me on April 4th."

The greatest fighter to ever come out of El Salvador, national hero Carlos "Famoso" Hernandez wants to give his countrymen something to cheer about again on April 4th. Now living in the Lone Star State, "Famoso" has been working with Texas great Jesse James Leija to prepare for this upcoming challenge. Hernandez made a triumphant return to the ring in August of 2008 after nearly two years away with a win over Hector Alatorre and it's clear that Hernandez still has plenty in the tank for a title run.

"It was great getting back in the ring last August and since then, I've been living in the gym," said Hernandez. "My timing is where I want it to be, I feel faster and stronger than ever and Barrios is going to be in for a surprise when that bell rings on April 4th."

Please visit www.goldenboypromotions.com for more information.

CHAMBERS-PETER PRESS RELEASE

2009-02-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

HEAVYWEIGHT BLOCKBUSTER:

SAM PETER TAKES ON

DANGEROUS CHALLENGER

EDDIE CHAMBERS

HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OPPORTUNITY MOTIVATION FOR BOTH TOP WORLD RANKED FIGHTERS ON MARCH 27 AT

NOKIA THEATRE L.A. LIVE

Los Angeles, CA (February 19, 2009) – Big time heavyweight boxing will be played out on March 27 when #3 World-ranked contender Eddie Chambers and #5 World-ranked and former WBC World Heavyweight Champion Sam Peter collide in a monstrous heavyweight battle scheduled for 12-rounds on a special edition of ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights” (10:00 pm ET/7:00 pm PT) at Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles.

"It has been a great pleasure working with Dan (Goossen) and Dino (Duva) and their respective fight teams to bring this exciting and meaningful bout to ESPN's Friday Night Fights. We are equally excited by the opportunity to produce and televise this inaugural boxing telecast from AEG"s state of the art Nokia Theatre" stated Doug Loughrey, ESPN-Director Programming Acquisitions.

Goossen Tutor Promotions will present the marquee night of boxing and entertainment, and the Chambers-Peter Heavyweight Bout is being promoted in association with Duva Boxing. The ESPN special extravaganza will be the first ever boxing event staged from the world-class 7,100-seat Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE, which is the centerpiece of L.A. LIVE, a 4-million square foot / $2.5 billion downtown Los Angeles sports, residential and entertainment district adjacent to STAPLES Center.

“This is undoubtedly the biggest and most anticipated heavyweight fight that does not have a world title attached to it, stated Dan Goossen, but the winner of this bout will once again be earning their right to fight for the prestigious World Heavyweight Championship.”

Chambers knows the power that comes with a win.

“I can’t wait for the big night,” said an ecstatic Chambers, making his third appearance on ESPN, the giant cable sports network, on word that Peter accepted his challenge. Known as “Fast Eddie” for his tremendous hand speed, Chambers (33-1, 18 KOs) beat Ross Puritty and stopped Derric Rossy in his two previous bouts on ESPN.

“Pro basketball, football and baseball all on ESPN, and now “Fast Eddie. I’m in great company. I will beat Sam Peter, and do it convincingly, to get in position for my well-deserved World title shot. Peter is a big man, and a powerful puncher with both hands, and I give him his respect. But come March 27, he’ll find out about my power and speed. This is a big fight for me and I promise an exciting fight for the fans. It’s major heavyweight boxing.”

The 26-year old Chambers was in the process of making a meteoric rise in the heavyweight division when he lost a decision in January 2008 against Alexander Povetkin in an IBF Heavyweight Title Elimination bout in Germany. A native of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, now fighting out of Philadelphia, he was 29-0 when he stepped up to garner a split-decision over top contender Calvin Brock to earn the shot against Povetkin.

Now trained by the experienced and knowledgeable Rob Murray, Sr., Chambers has reeled off three straight wins: TKOs over Raphael Butler (for the USBA title) and Livin Castillo and, most recently, a unanimous decision victory over the gargantuan 6-4, 268-pound Cisse Salif two months ago in Cabazon, California.

Known as “The Nigerian Nightmare,” Peter (30-2, 23 KOs) is a 6-1, 250 pound knockout machine who is no stranger to fighting in Los Angeles, having recorded the first of his two big wins over James “Lights Out” Toney at STAPLES Center in September 2006 and has a decisive weight advantage over Chambers who weighed 221 pounds for his last bout.

“I’m coming home to LA. I love the city of Angels,” exclaimed Peter to the tune of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” theme and added a little message to Chambers, “Eddie, you better be ready for the Nigerian Nightmare.”

Promoted by Dino Duva, managed by Ivaylo Gotsev and co-trained by Manny Massom and Shadeed Suluki, Peter, 28, was 24-0 and holder of the NABF Heavyweight Title before sustaining his first defeat as a pro in September, 2005 to current World Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko while knocking Klitschko down three times during the bout.

The powerful Nigerian went on to post five more wins (including two over Toney) before getting his opportunity at a World heavyweight title belt. In March 2008 Peter stopped Oleg Maskaev in the sixth round and claimed the WBC Heavyweight Title. Seven months later, in his first title defense, Peter relinquished the crown to the other Klitschko brother – Vitali – when he could not answer the bell for the ninth round.

So both Peter and Chambers will be looking for the opportunity to immediately get back into the World title picture on March 27 at Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE.

The boxing industry is giving Peter and his team credit for taking on what most experts consider a 50/50 fight against the dangerous Chambers. “Goossen has two fighters we want back-to-back, Chambers and (Cristobal “The Nightmare”) Arreola. First, Sam will knock Chambers out cold,” said a confident Duva, “and then the World Title or we may comeback to Los Angeles and do the same thing to Arreola.”

“Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE and everyone at AEG are incredibly thrilled to host our first ever-boxing match on March 27^th,” said Lee Zeidman, General Manager STAPLES Center, Nokia Theatre and L.A. LIVE. The theatre was designed to host a variety of events and now we can add World Championship boxing to that list, and are looking forward to a history making night.”

“Matching two of the world’s top heavyweights is only part of the story on March 27,” Goossen stated. “The opportunity to bring this event to the amazing state-of-the-art Nokia Theatre is the other star. I believe an expanded and younger fan base will be attracted to this event and it will be the place to be that night, in part because of the extraordinary L.A. LIVE, and bringing the first ever boxing event to Nokia Theatre. The fans will definitely be treated to a World-class event at a World-class entertainment center.”

The night is sure to be a knockout come March 27 --- the only question is who will it be?

Ticket information and other televised and undercard bouts will be announced shortly.

WILLIAMS-WRIGHT PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES

2009-02-18T14:48:00.000-08:00

QUOTES FROM WRIGHT VS. WILLIAMS PRESS CONFERENCE

Winky Wright, Former Undisputed Junior Middleweight:
“I get a lot of people asking me why I’m not fighting. I tell them it has nothing to do with negotiations, it’s because no one wants to fight me. No one wants to fight Winky Wright. They say it’s about the money, but it isn’t that. I wanted to fight Pavlik and Calzaghe, I’d go to England to fight him if he wanted, but the fact of the matter is, no one wants to fight Winky.”

“I’m looking forward to the challenge, I want to show I’m more than a defensive fighter. Yeah I’m a defensive fighter, but I’ve never seen a boxer win a match without throwing punches. I’m definitely gonna need my defense against Paul, because he throws a lot of punches. I don’t go for the knockout, boxing is a sport and it takes more than that.”

“I’ve never been known to quit and Paul’s never been known to quit, but someone’s gonna have to and it’s not gonna be me.”

Paul Williams, Two Division World Champion:
“I’m blessed to be here, and I’m ready to fight Winky.”

“He’s a big name in boxing and I’m gonna try my best like in my past fights.”

“I don’t do a lot of talking, I do my talking in the Ring. I just want to work hard and have a good time.”

Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions:
“There is no question that these two are the most avoided and feared fighters in the sport today.”

“There are reports out about Winky Wright not being able to negotiate, being stubborn and hard to work with, but this is simply not true. Winky was willing to fight anyone, anywhere. He was willing to fight Felix Strum, anywhere, he was also willing to fight Abraham anywhere and these were all reasonable deals. It was about these guys being scared and I am putting my full credibility behind these claims.”

“This is a fight boxing needs. It’s the first big fight of 2009 in Las Vegas and we’re glad to be back at the Mandalay Bay.”

“Like I said after Bernard and Shane won their matches earlier on, this is the year of the legends. Winky is one of the true legends of the sport. He’s on a mission, just like Shane was on a mission, and just like Bernard was on a mission. I like that he’s the underdog.”

Dan Goossen, President of Goossen Tutor Promotions:
“I know that there hasn’t been a challenge that Winky has turned down. The proof is in the pudding; look at what he’s done and who he’s done it to.”

“Winky is the most avoided man of the past decade because of what he’s done in the ring. Paul is not avoided, but definitely the most feared and it’s a big reason why we’ve moved across several weight divisions.”

“This is a big fight and we are really concentrated on showing just how great Paul Williams is. The challenges he puts himself through are unparalleled.”

“We feel Paul Williams will do what he does best. He will be all offense and some great defense. The proof will be in the pudding on April 11th.”

“This is the fight Paul wanted. What Winky’s done in the last 10 years is remarkable. It’s the big name that Paul has been looking for.

Chris Lighty, CEO of Winky Promotions:
“We have a great fight happening. Paul has come up through the ranks, grinding, just like Winky did when he was coming up.”

“We will entertain, we have had some great fights in the past and we will continue to bring that to you. “

“Winky’s had some great fights in the past 5 or 6 years, and although we didn’t agree with the results, they were still great fights.”

George Peterson, William’s Trainer:
“One fighter is an offensive fighter, while the other is a defensive fighter. Statistically these are great fighters, so it will be exciting to see what will go on in the ring.”

Tony Walker, Director of Affiliate Relations, HBO Sports:
“HBO’s World Championship Boxing is very proud to present this fight on April 11th.”

“These guys always take the risky fights and they always come prepared.”

“Boxing has some great momentum at the moment,and on April 11th, Winky and Paul will definitely continue that push.”

Bob Halloran, Director of Sports, MGM Mirage:
“These champs have fought the best.”

“This is going to be Winky’s 6th fight at the Mandalay Bay; he’s had some great battles here. I know Paul was featured on the undercard of a Mayweather fight, so this is going to be his second fight with us. “

“Tickets for the show are affordable; you can get a great room and check out a great fight.”

“I just recently checked the lines on the fight and Paul is the early favorite and I don’t remember the last time I saw Winky as the underdog but it should make for a great fight.”

# # #

Tickets for the explosive matchup, priced at $300, $200, $150, $100 and $50 are now on sale and available for purchase at all Las Vegas Ticketmaster locations (select Smith’s Food and Drug Centers and Ritmo Latino). Ticket sales are limited to eight (8) per person. To charge by phone with a major credit card, call Ticketmaster at (702) 745-3000. Tickets also will be available for purchase at www.mandalaybay.com or www.ticketmaster.com.

Wright vs. Williams, a 12 round middleweight bout which is presented by Golden Boy Promotions, Goossen Tutor Promotions and Winky Promotions and sponsored by Southwest Airlines. The bout will air live on HBO World Championship Boxing beginning at 10:00pm ET / 7:00pm PT.

Golden Boy to finally feed veteran lightweights to the wolves

2009-02-14T01:29:00.000-08:00

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.

Ward shuts out Buchanan!

2009-02-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Former Olympic gold medalist and rising super middleweight Andre Ward [18-0, 12 KOs] of Oakland, California passed his latest test on his way to a world title Friday night with a workmanlike unanimous decision over Henry Buchanan [17-2, 12 KOs] of Capitol Heights, Maryland in the main event of the ShoBox: The New Generation telecast.

Ward went twelve rounds for the first time in his career, winning every single round on all three judges scorecards to a tune of 120-108. Each round followed a similar pace, with Ward doing an excellent job cutting off the ring in order to keep Buchanan on the outside of his range. Buchanan was willing to give Ward openings by planting his feet to attempt to mount an offense, and that was when Ward would fire off three or four punch combinations and pile up points while Buchanan was still preparing to throw a punch. Ward snapped Buchanan’s head back nearly a dozen times, mainly off of counter right hands and left hooks. Buchanan was mainly looking for one big shot, and Ward never gave him a chance to land anything close to a significant punch.

Ward is expecting to fight again in either April or May, preferably at the Oracle Arena in his hometown of Oakland, California. “People around the neighborhood are starting to give me grief about that, not fighting in Oakland. I think it’s time, and that is what we plan on doing,” said Ward following his impressive victory. Super middleweight is an exciting division that offers a variety of possible opponents for Ward to face, including Allan Green and Edison Miranda. Ward wanted to make it clear that there were many fights offered to him in the months leading up to his most recent victory, and they were all accepted on his side of things. One fight in particular was a proposed fight between Ward and former unified middleweight champion of the world, Jermain Taylor. It has been made very clear that Ward is looking to seriously step up his level of competition in 2009, and that could include a challenge for a world title.

In the co-featured bout of the evening, as well as the opening bout of the televised portion of the card, red hot lightweight prospect John Molina [15-0, 11 KOs] of Covina, California knocked out Joshua Allotey [16-7, 14 KOs] of Washington, D.C. in three rounds. Behind a heavy body attack, Molina was able to wear the Ghana fighter down. Molina dropped Allotey early in the third with a wicked shot to the liver that referee Dan Stell ruled a low blow. Allotey was given lots of time to recover, but it turned out to do him no good but delay the inevitable, which was to be stopped by a perfectly-placed left hook to the body. This was Molina's first bout under world-renowned trainer Joe Goossen. Molina is likely to return to the ring in either late March or early April, possibly for a fight on ESPN.

In the evening’s walkout bout, Watsonville, California’s Carina Moreno [21-1, 6 KOs] scored an eight-round unanimous decision over Sharon Gaines [11-12-1, 3 KOs] of Las Vegas, Nevada. As per her usual, Moreno clearly won nearly every round and has established herself as one of the best female boxers in the world. Moreno won on scorecards of 80-72 twice and 79-73. UltimateBoxingResults scored it a shutout, 80-72.

Following his previous fight, a six-round majority draw against Jose Alfredo Lugo in November, highly-regarded junior welterweight Mike Dallas, Jr. [6-0-1, KO] of Bakersfield, California said he felt sorry for whoever his next opponent turned out to be. Dallas lived up to his word, pounding out an easy four-round unanimous decision over the game but outgunned Anthony Martinez [21-28-3, 9 KOs] of Turriabla, Costa Rica. Dallas impressed the crowd with his top-flight hand speed that he showcased in his five and six punch combinations. In the fourth round, Dallas threw fifteen consecutive punches without a response from Martinez that drew the crowd to their feet. In his last fight, Dallas seemed to gas out with two rounds remaining, and in this contest he seemed to have more than enough energy to go a couple more rounds if he needed to. “I was ready for six, so I kinda was fighting at a six-round pace,” remarked Dallas following his victory. Dallas is likely to return to the ring in the next few months.

Heavyweight Manuel Quezada [26-4, 16 KOs] of Wasco, California, extended his win streak to fifteen with an impressive fifth-round knockout of Eric Boose [14-4-1, 8 KOs] of Puyallup, Washington in a rematch of their April 2006 four-round bout that saw Quezada win a decision. Boose started off fast, winning the first two rounds on volume alone. Boose worked heavily behind the jab, but Quezada did an excellent job picking it off and countering with straight rights. At the end of the fourth, Quezada buzzed Boose with a one-two combination that sent him into the ropes. There wasn’t enough time left in the round for Quezada to follow it up, but he finished what he started in the following round’s opening with another great straight right hand. The official time of the stoppage was ten seconds into the fifth round.

Quezada will now attempt to move up the rankings and is possibly in line for a fight against former heavyweight champion of the world, Riddick Bowe. Quezada’s next bout will either come on Goossen-Tutor’s HBO date headlined by Paul Williams-Winky Wright on April 11th or a few weeks later in a return to the Tachi Palace.

Local lightweight fan favorite Poppies Martinez [2-0, KO] came away with a close victory in a four-round majority decision over Oakland, California’s Yonas Gebreegziabher [1-3]. Martinez, the former PFC Lightweight champion, is slated to return to action at the Playboy Mansion in March.

In another rematch, 44-year old former cruiserweight champion Arthur Williams [46-15-1, 30 KOs] came out on top in a ten-round majority decision over Dewey Cooper [17-3-3, 10 KOs] in a return bout to their October clash at the Tachi Palace. Cooper began with an early advantage, opening up a cut above one of Cooper’s eyes in the first round. Williams fought a smart fight and used his edge in experience to control the pace of the fight. Williams would pepper Cooper with right hands all night. The eighth round provided the fight’s best action when both fighters landed big shots that had their opponent stunned. Cooper made a comeback in the middle rounds but didn’t do enough in the final frame to get a draw, losing by scores of 96-94, 98-92, with a third card being even at 95-95. UBR scored the bout a draw, 95-95. Following the fight, Cooper said he is likely done with boxing and plans to dedicate himself full time to full-contact fighting.

In his first bout in over three-and-a-half years, Ruben Cuellar [3-1, KO] of Tulare, California scored a six-round split decision victory over James Ventry [7-7-1, 4 KOs] of Niagara Falls, New York. Ventry overcame a first-round knockdown to put himself in the thick of the fight, but didn’t do enough to earn a victory. The official scores were 59-54, 58-55 for Cuellar and 57-56 for Ventry.

Oakland, California’s Tony Hirsch overcame a seven-month layoff, the longest of his career, to win every second of every round against the overmatched Anthony Cannon [4-11, KO] of Saginaw, Michigan in a four-round middleweight bout. Hirsch had his way with Cannon, especially near the ropes where Hirsch was able to fire at will against an opponent who seemed to only know how to play defense. Cannon had his earmuffs on for most of the bout, and would occasionally try and answer Hirsch with comic-book style left hooks and straight rights that Hirsch saw coming. The bout was originally slated for six rounds, and neither fighter knew that had changed until the fourth round was over, a slightly odd fact.

Paul Mendez [1-0, KO] of Oakland, California won his professional debut over the Lemoore native Justin Wines [0-1] in a four-round middleweight contest. Two left hooks dropped Wines in the second, who managed to get to his feet. Referee Marcos Rosales put a stop to the bout officially at 2:21 of the second round.

Boxing and mixed martial arts will return on April 23rd at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino. Tickets will be made available online at Tickets.com, and will be brought to you, as always, by Goossen-Tutor Promotions in cohesion with Palace Fighting Championships.

Mark Ortega can be reached via e-mail at mark@ultimateboxingresults.com

All photos by Jason Pachura.

Mosley vanquishes Margarito!

2009-01-27T00:21:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

In perhaps the biggest in a string of upsets, Shane Mosley pulled off a ninth round knockout over Antonio Margarito to capture the WBA welterweight title in front of a record crowd at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

In what will be known as "The Battle for LA", Margarito surprisingly lost nearly every second of the fight. His defeat is further spurned by accusations that Margarito had plaster in his glove. The threat was serious enough that before the fight, Margarito's hands were rewrapped three times. Mosley trainer Nazim Richardson spotted the fallacy and asked that it be checked out. Once it was further investigated something was found and an investigation should be launched.

Margarito was slowed by Mosley's surprising onslaught of body work in the early rounds. Margarito would tag Mosley good a few times a round but was never able to follow up on it. Mosley was landing mostly in combination, although early on you could not tell that Margarito was stunned.

Margarito went out in a way that most champions today do not opt for, the going out on one's shield. Margarito went down violently to end the eighth round, and if anybody was Antonio Margarito's friend the fight should have been stopped there. Margarito made it through the round, and when his corner threatened to stop the fight he demanded they allow him to continue. Still on wobbly legs, Margarito walked into some incredible shots from Mosley, stunning the "Tijuana Tornado" badly enough to stagger him and force him to rest a hand on the ropes to keep his balance. A dozen or so clean power shots or so later and the referee finally calls mercy to the bout.

Talks of a Mosley-Mayweather bout that has been intriguing for decades have begun, and if that bout came to fruition then 2009 may be the best year of the century. Margarito was said to be headed for a Cotto rematch win, lose, or draw but after such a one-sided beating he may need a soft touch or should just hang up the gloves for good. And that is the opinion of this writer, one of Margarito's biggest supporters.

Margarito-Mosley Pre-Fight Preview

2009-01-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Tonight's fight between Antonio Margarito and "Sugar" Shane Mosley is an interesting one for a number of reasons. Each fighter enters the ring with a chance to answer many questions that have been raised about them. For Margarito, will he be a different fighter now that he is on top? How much did the war with Miguel Cotto take out of him? For Shane Mosley, how will personal issues, namely with his wife and manager Jin as well as the surrounding aura of BALCO, affect him in the ring?

Margarito is a 4-to-1 favorite for this bout but has many questions that need answering. For one, will the inactivity since his war with Miguel Cotto help or hurt him? Margarito's most sluggish performances have come in fights that came off of a long layoff. Also, Margarito has absorbed all sorts of punishment over the years but never in the way that he was abused by Miguel Cotto in that brilliant fight last July. Cotto landed at will but was unable to hurt Margarito, but who knows how all that punishment will affect him in the ring tonight. Also, a rematch with Cotto is on the table regardless of the outcome of tonight's bout, as long as Cotto gets by Michael Jennings next month. Could Margarito be looking past Mosley? Those in Antonio's camp say that there is no way that is possible and that he worked as hard as he ever had in training camp, and judging by his weight (under 146 pounds), it would be hard to deny that. You have to remember that when Margarito opted to defend his title against mandatory challenger Paul Williams two years ago, a fight with Cotto was on the table should he win. He lost a close fight and many thought that was going to be his last chance. Margarito got his shot and didn't waste it, so it is my opinion that Margarito comes ready tonight.

With Mosley, there is the question of when will Shane Mosley finally turn old? He showed glimpses of being a shot fighter in his last bout against Ricardo Mayorga, but many gave him some slack due to the awkwardness of his opponent. In his bout against Cotto a little over a year ago he looked fantastic in defeat, and nearly closed the gap on Cotto's lead in the second half of the bout. Shane is going to need that second wind against Margarito, who also picks up his game in the second half of bouts. Will all of the outside annoyances, some of which had Mosley directing questions at press conferences to a lawyer, keep him off of his game? This is highly doubtful as well, as there are very few people who prepare for a fight as good as Shane Mosley, and with Bernard Hopkins' trainer Nazim Richardson in his corner for this one it would be hard to imagine Shane coming into the fight with anything but his best. The biggest question will be, at this stage of his career, is the best Sugar Shane Mosley better than this Antonio Margarito?

Either way, it should be a helluva fight, an early Fight of the Year candidate that could either send one man on the way to superstardom or enhance the legacy of another.

Solo Boxeo returns!

2009-01-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Boxing is still absent from Telefutura, but it has recently been announced that the new boxing series that will be promoted exclusively by Bob Arum's Top Rank as well as Fernando Beltran's Zanfer Promotions will also be called "Solo Boxeo" but will be aired on Azteca America.

The first card has been announced for February 6th and will be headlined by Jesus Soto Karass against Carson Jones in a ten-round contest. A bout that has been proposed for a future card is bout between Cesar Canchila and Giovanni Segura, a rematch pf a fight that was the highlight of the Cotto-Margarito undercard last July.

Boxing Betting Special: Margarito-Mosley

2009-01-23T01:11:00.000-08:00

With Saturday night's welterweight clash between Antonio Margarito and "Sugar" Shane Mosley less than days away, let's take a look at what the betting odds are for all the possible outcomes of this fantastic bout. Also included is a favorable wager on the off-television bout between Robert Guerrero and Edel Ruiz.

Odds:
Antonio Margarito: -400
"Sugar" Shane Mosley: +275
Draw: +2000

Over 10.5 rounds: -140
Under 10.5 rounds: even
Additional odds:
Margarito via decision: +110
Margarito via KO/TKO/DQ: +140
Mosley via decision: +500
Mosley via KO/TKO/DQ: +1000

Official pick(s): In my opinion, there is no value in taking either fighter straight up. If you are leaning towards Mosley, you might as well take him by decision at +500 and get nearly twice as much value as just picking Shane to win. I don't see Shane winning this fight, although I see it being competitive through the first six rounds or so.

There is an interesting dynamic to this fight if you take a look at past performances. In Mosley's past two fights, he has turned it on in the second half of fights. Against Miguel Cotto, he fell behind early but rallied in the mid-to-late rounds to make it a close loss on the scorecards. In his fight against Ricardo Mayorga, it took Mosley many rounds to adjust to Mayorga's awkward style before he finally figured it out and gutted out a last-second knockout to win the fight. In that fight he also started to take over in the middle of the fight and was ahead on two scorecards heading into the final round. There are very few fighters in the world that can make adjustments mid-fight the way that Mosley has done throughout his career. In his two fights against Oscar De la Hoya, he likely won all four of the championship rounds. Also note that Mosley has a class-A level chin, so the likelihood of a clean knockout from Margarito is very unlikely. Couple that with Mosley's heart, and the only way he is getting stopped is if the referee or Mosley's corner steps in to hault the bout.

On the other side of things, you have another stupendous second-half fighter in Antonio Margarito. When Margarito doesn't score an early knockout, he usually grinds his opponents down with a high volume of punches once they start to show signs of slowing down. Although Margarito does not have the one-punch knockout power that you would imagine someone with his reputation would have, it's hard to think of anyone that Mosley has faced in the past that is a better all-around puncher.

Margarito may also be one of the best finishers in the sport, as he is good at recognizing when his opponent is hurt so he can then swarm them with a high volume of power shots. This will be the second bout in a row where Margarito is fighting a man who gives him a run for his money in the body punching department. In his fight against Cotto, his opponent did not go to the body enough to try and slow Margarito down. It's hard to give Cotto much grief for that considering he was landing at will upstairs through the duration of the bout, but when your attack is having no effect on the opposition you should probably try something new. If Mosley attacks Margarito's body early on, it will be interesting to see the effect that could have on him in the late rounds, where he usually goes to another level.

At this point in Shane's career, I just cannot see him getting past the late surge that Margarito will undoubtedly stage in the latter part of the fight. I will be risking 5 units on Margarito by KO/TKO/DQ, with my official prediction being Margarito TKO11 Mosley on a corner or referee stoppage. I don't think it is likely that we see Mosley taste the canvas, but I do expect him to take a very bad beating in a fight that he is very much in at the point of the stoppage.

Also will be risking 3 units on the over (5.5 rounds) in the untelevised undercard bout between Robert Guerrero and Edel Ruiz to win 6.9 units. My basis for this pick: Guerrero has been off for nearly a year and he will also be moving into the super featherweight class for the first time. Guerrero was never known as a big puncher before, compiling 15 of his 22 wins by knockout. He has only stopped two of his last eight opponent inside of five rounds, and although Ruiz has been stopped early before (KO3 by Jhonny Gonzalez, KO1 by Mario Santiago, KO3 by Eduardo Escobedo), I expect Guerrero to try and get some rounds before thinking about finishing his opponent.

Bets for this weekend:
5x to win 7x on Margarito by KO/TKO/DQ
3x to win 6.9x on O5.5 in Guerrero-Ruiz

Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank.

Merchantism - January 23, 2009

2009-01-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

Larry Merchant has said some unforgettable things over the years in his many decades of experience as a ringside analyst for HBO Boxing. Each weekday we will post one of his quotes. It may be a quote that is insightful, it may be a quote that is hilarious, it may be a quote that is just plain odd.

The following Merchant quote comes from one of the better HBO Boxing After Dark telecasts. It was one that was headlined by Hasim Rahman being knocked out of the ring by Oleg Maskaev. Somehow, that wasn't even the best knockout of the night as Derrick Jefferson brutally finished Maurice Harris in the opening bout of the televised portion of the card. And with that, came one of Larry Merchant's funnier phrases.

"Derrick Jefferson...I LOVE YOU!"

Interesting note: When "Sugar" Shane Mosley finished Ricardo Mayorga with no time left in their September bout last year on HBO World Championship Boxing, Merchant said, "Shane Mosley...I LOVE YOU!"

Hatton-Pacquiao is back on!

2009-01-22T23:35:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Philboxing.com is reporting that Manny Pacquiao has agreed to a deal to fight Ricky Hatton that would guarantee him twelve million dollars as well as a 52/48 PPV share favor. How the deal came together is peculiar.

Pacquiao, who was insisting on a 60/40 split for the past few weeks, agreed to the new deal after friend Rex Salud helped convince him. Pacquiao agreed to do it only if Salud, who doesn't drink, agreed to quickly drink three bottles of beer. Salud held up his end of the bargain, and with that Pacquiao will likely be fighting Hatton May 2nd as originally planned.

Bob Arum, head of Top Rank and Pacquiao's promoter, has said that a contract has yet to be signed.

"Ghost" to headline HBO card in March?

2009-01-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

It cannot be any more blatantly obvious than it is now how much pull Golden Boy Promotions has with HBO. With Robert Guerrero not even one fight into his new life under Golden Boy, it has been widely reported he will be headlining a HBO Boxing After Dark telecast from San Jose, California.

Guerrero, who had never even appeared on HBO television except once on an HBO-PPV undercard against Orlando Salido, a fight he lost, would go from fighting mainly on ShoBox and in co-featured bouts on Showtime Championship Boxing telecasts to getting a big fight on HBO in the Bay Area, where he is originally from.

Also mentioned was that the show would be a triple-header, featuring other Golden Boy prospects James Kirkland and Victor Ortiz in separate bouts. This proposed card would be the biggest in the Bay Area since Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fought Jesus Chavez and Manny Pacquiao fought Agapito Sanchez on an HBO Boxing After Dark telecast back in 2001.

There are many possible opponents should Guerrero get past Edel Ruiz this Saturday off-television in the main supporting bout to Antonio Margarito's clash with Shane Mosley in Los Angeles at the Staples Center on HBO World Championship Boxing. None were specifically mentioned, but these are the main fights that could be put together and be an exciting one to watch:
vs. Humberto Soto [46-7-2, 29 KOs] - This bout makes sense for both sides. It is a respectable headlining bout, Soto has a world title at super featherweight. Even though Soto is promoted by Top Rank, I don't think either side would have problems coming to an agreement for this fight. Soto fought in December in a tough rematch against Francisco Lorenzo and would be available in March. He is at a point in his career where he needs to be fighting these kinds of fights. Even though he is only 28 years old, Soto has boxed 364 rounds over 55 professional bouts and hasn't always been the hardest guy to hit. For Guerrero, its a bout that would be a dangerous one but one he could definitely win. Stylistically, this bout favors Guerrero because he has a tremendous chin (never knocked down in a professional bout) and superior boxing skills to the plodding Soto. It's more of a question of whether Soto could wear down Guerrero much the way Antonio Margarito wore down Miguel Cotto back in July.

vs. Jorge Linares [26-0, 17 KOs] - Linares is an intriguing matchup but not one that would have a lot of recognizition with the casual fans. Linares has only made one appearance on HBO, in a bout against Oscar Larios (which he won by 10th round TKO) on the HBO-PPV undercard of Antonio Tarver against Bernard Hopkins. That undercard also featured a great fight between Michael Katsidis and Czar Amonsot. Linares, like Soto, is a world champion at super featherweight. This bout also guarantees exciting two-way action. It would be a bout for the hardcore fans, but if HBO is going to deliver on giving us the best matchups instead of the biggest names, this would be a step in the right direction.

vs. Jorge Rodrigo Barrios [47-4-1, 34 KOs] - Many considered Barrios to likely have been a shot fighter heading into his September bout with Rocky Juarez. But Barrios gave Juarez everything he could handle and was ahead on many observers' scorecards before Juarez badly busted up Barrios' lip and scored an 11th round TKO. Barrios doesn't have a belt, but this is a decent test for Guerrero in his first serious fight at 130 and another one that would promise good moments of action. Guerrero could score a fantastic knockout over a decent name as well.

vs. Urbano Antillon [25-0, 18 KOs] - Not a big name yet but he has made many appearances on SoloBoxeo over the course of his career and is from Maywood, California, which is a little over 300 miles away from San Jose. It would be a decent-sized bout for California and Antillon is undefeated, albeit a bit green. A risk for both fighters, but a good bout.

If Guerrero would be willing to go back down to featherweight again for a big fight, throw in the names of Steven Luevano [36-1, 15 KOs] of La Puente, California, Mario Santiago [19-1-1, 14 KOs], and Oscar Larios [63-6-1, 39 KOs] into the mix.

To contact Mark Ortega, e-mail mark@ultimateboxingresults.com

Merchantism - January 22, 2009

2009-01-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Larry Merchant has said some unforgettable things over the years in his many decades of experience as a ringside analyst for HBO Boxing. Each weekday we will post one of his quotes. It may be a quote that is insightful, it may be a quote that is hilarious, it may be a quote that is just plain odd.

The following quote was from the HBO World Championship Boxing broadcast headlined by "Sugar" Shane Mosley against Antonio Diaz from November 2000. The undercard was a bout between Hector Camacho, Jr. and Joe Hutchinson. It was Junior's first appearance on HBO, and his entrance was a bit delayed. Merchant had this gem to offer:

Can you tell me what's going on here, is this some kind of long distance dance? What are we waiting for? Junior time runs very slowly...

Junior was pretty well-hyped by HBO at this point even though this was his first appearance. He never reached the next level and has since been a huge disappointment. A fight between Camacho, Jr. and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., which was being discussed last year, would still draw a helluva crowd and should be put together still.

Hatton-Pacquiao is off!

2009-01-21T20:10:00.001-08:00

Mark Ortega

Almost as soon as Manny Pacquiao stopped Oscar De la Hoya on his stool last month a proposed fight between Pacquiao and 140-pound king Ricky Hatton was agreed to on both sides of the deal. Unfortunately, it looks as though the fight is indefinitely off due to the money not being right, and it surprisingly is coming from Pacquiao's side of things.

A 50/50 deal was supposedly agreed to by all parties involved, but it has been discovered that Manny Pacquiao has insisted on a 60/40 split in his favor. Pacquiao was guaranteed twelve million from promoter Bob Arum for the proposed bout, easily the biggest purse of his career. There is even more money to be made considering the buys that will be done in the United Kingdom as well as the Hatton faithful willing to travel to Vegas for the bout.

Most people don't understand what Pacquiao is thinking, as there is only one fight that could potentially be bigger, one against the currently retired but probably soon-to-return Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Even fights with 147-pound champion Antonio Margarito or a third fight with heated rival Juan Manuel Marquez could not match what Pacquiao stands to make off of the Hatton fight. Even Pacquiao's own promoter Bob Arum does not understand where Pacquiao's head is, calling the move "bizarre".

Where Pacquiao goes from here is anyone's guess. There are many bouts out there that would please the fans that could be put together quickly. Bouts against Edwin Valero or Humberto Soto could be put together in a flash with both fighters also having worked with Top Rank.

Hatton is another story. A rematch with Mayweather, Jr. would only be interesting if it is at the 140-pound limit where Hatton has more of an advantage, and even more interesting if the bout was held in Manchester this time. Hatton's ineffectiveness at 147 in his previous attempt leaves him pidgeon-holed into fighting at junior welterweight for the remainder of his career. A bout against Timothy Bradley or Kendall Holt would be acceptable routes. The main difference with Hatton is that he could get big money for nearly any fight he takes, especially if its at home.

Either way, there are very few fights that could be made that would have excited the general public more than a bout between these two pound-for-pound fighters. It is unlikely that the mess will be resolved.

Merchantism - January 21, 2009

2009-01-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

"Angelo Dundee, a famous trainer, once said of a Muhammad Ali opponent, 'He's human, my guy ain't.' In the land of boxing, not being considered human is the sincerest form of flattery. And I think tonight we found out which fighter was human, and in boxing terms, which fighter wasn't human."

This basically sums up what I think is going to occur this Saturday night on HBO World Championship Boxing. Shane is one of the greatest fighters of the past few decades, but I just think the timing of this bout for him is all wrong and I expect him to be stopped in the late rounds by the man who is not human, Antonio Margarito. I fully expect Shane will make it a battle and he might be ahead going into the last portion of the fight, but at this stage of his career I cannot see him making it the distance against the volume of Margarito.

Official prediction: Margarito TKO11 Mosley, via corner stoppage or referee stoppage.

Zuniga headlines All Star Boxing card January 23rd!

2009-01-21T02:13:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

On the night before the welterweight super-fight between Antonio Margarito and “Sugar” Shane Mosley, All-Star Boxing will present its first show of 2009 at the Quiet Cannon in Montebello, California.

Headlining the card is an eight-round super middleweight bout between Fernando Zuniga [27-9, 20 KOs] of Downey, California and originally from Esmeraldas, Ecuador taking on Daniel “Danny Zee” Jevic [8-14-3, 4 KOs].

This will be Zuniga’s first fight since scoring his biggest win to date in an upset split-decision victory over prospect Carlos De Leon, Jr. in February of last year. Over his thirteen-year career, Zuniga has been in the ring against the likes of William Joppy (L10), David Lopez (TKOby6), Sam Soliman (L10), and Ricardo Cortes (LDQ3). In his win over De Leon, Jr., Zuniga gutted out a late-rally which included a seventh round knockdown to seal a split decision victory over eight rounds. Zuniga’s ability to build off the win was hampered when he injured his elbow, prompting him to opt for surgery and finish him for the rest of the year. He is getting an early start in 2009 with this bout, his second at the Quiet Cannon.

Danny Zee’s record does not look intimidating on paper, but if you look closer at his résumé you will see that he has taken on very tough opposition since returning to the ring following a more than six-year layoff in 2004. Danny Zee has proven to be a great test for many prospects including James McGirt, Jr., Alfredo Angulo, Gabriel Martinez, Francisco Santana, Tarvis Simms, and Brandon Gonzales. Zee has also held his own against veterans such as Marco Antonio Rubio (L12), Juan Valenzuela (D8), and Saul Roman (TKO4). In his last fight against the undefeated Brandon Gonzales on Telefutura’s SoloBoxeo, Zee suffered an awful cut near the top of his forehead early in the first round. The cut prompted Zee to open up, and seconds later he caught Gonzales with a huge right hook that forced him back. Zee was unable to finish the job and the fight was stopped at the end of the first round when the cut could not be cleaned up.

The undercard bouts that have been matched look to support the main event nicely. Ten boxing bouts are featured with more than a handful of young undefeated fighters appearing.

The main supporting bout is one between Jesus “Pollo” Hernandez [7-0, 2 KOs], of Los Mochis, Mexico now fighting out of East Los Angeles, in a six-round featherweight bout against the experienced Manuel Sarabia [16-27-9, 10 KOs] , also of Los Mochis, Mexico. After going the distance five straight fights to begin his career, Hernandez has stopped his last two opponents. Hernandez last fought an eight-rounder against Noe Inzunza, stopping him in five rounds. Sarabia last fought in September against another promising prospect from East Los Angeles, Rico Ramos. A fight down the line between Hernandez and Ramos would be an exciting one for the area. This is the third appearance from Hernandez at the Quiet Cannon.

Undefeated heavyweight Joe Hanks [4-0, 3 KOs] of Orange, New Jersey will meet Shidevin Brown [2-4, KO] of Denver, Colorado in a bout scheduled for four rounds. Hanks’ last victory came at the last Quiet Cannon card of 2008, where he stopped Leo Bersier in the first round.

Former #2 amateur lightweight and current undefeated prospect Stan Martyniouk [4-0, KO] of Antelope, California, is set to appear in a four-round bout against an opponent still to be determined. Martyniouk was a highly regarded amateur that has flown under the radar as a professional so far. Since a rocky performance in his professional debut against Gerardo Robles (W SD4), Martyniouk has not lost a single round in his past three bouts.

Local Los Angeles light heavyweight Tyrell Hendrix [1-0, KO] looks to stay undefeated in a scheduled four-round bout against Lancaster, California’s Ryan Davis [0-2].

Adura Olalehin [1-0] of Nigeria, now fighting out of California, will meet Alex Conte [2-3-1] in a four-round cruiserweight bout. Olalehin gave a good account of himself in representation of his home country of Nigeria in the 2006 Commonwealth Games when he lost a close fight 23-19 to Kenny Anderson of Scotland in the finals.

Two fighters search for their first victory in a four-round middleweight contest between Elliot Seymour [0-1] of Pasadena, California and John Dunham [0-2] of Stockton, California.
Mixed martial artist Natu Visinia of Carbondale, Illinois makes his professional boxing debut in a four-round heavyweight bout against Mike Goins [1-2, 1 KO] of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hugo Ramos of Palm Springs, California will make his professional debut in a scheduled four-round super bantamweight fight against Jose Pacheco [0-4-5] of Cudahy, California, originally out of Guanajuato, Mexico.

Also making their professional debut is Seth Colebrook of Bakersfield, California against Mike Finney [1-3, KO] of San Jacinto, California in a heavyweight contest. Finney began his career with a victory but has since been stopped three consecutive times.

Doors open at the Quiet Cannon at 6PM, with the first bell scheduled at 7:30PM. Tickets are still on sale. For information, contact All Star Boxing at (323) 816-6200 or (323) 781-4871.
The Quiet Cannon is located on the grounds of the Montebello Country Club, off the Garfield Avenue exit, south of the 60 Freeway. The address is 901 Via San Clemente in Montebello.

Official order of bouts:

6 rounds – featherweights
Jesus Hernandez [7-0] vs. Manuel Sarabia [16-27-9]

4 rounds – super middleweights
Tyrell Hendrix [1-0] vs. Ryan Davis [0-2]

4 rounds – middleweights
Elliot Seymour [0-1] vs. John Dunham [0-3]

4 rounds – cruiserweights
Adura Olalehin [1-0] vs. Alex Conte [2-3-1]

MAIN EVENT
8 rounds – super middleweights
Fernando Zuniga [27-9] vs. Danny “Danny Zee” Jevic [8-14-3]

SWING BOUT (may go before the main event if bouts 1-4 go too quickly)
4 rounds – heavyweights
Joe Hanks [4-0] vs. Shidevin Brown [2-4]

4 rounds – lightweights
Stan Martyniouk [4-0] vs. TBA

4 rounds – heavyweights
Natu Visinia [pro debut] vs. Mike Goins [1-2]

4 rounds – super bantamweights
Hugo Ramos [pro debut] vs. Jose Pacheco [0-4-5]

4 rounds – heavyweights
Seth Colebrook [pro debut] vs. Mike Finney [1-3]

Margarito-Mosley Conference Call Transcript

2009-01-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a transcript of the conference call for this Saturday's mega-fight between Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley for Margarito's WBA 147-pound title. The bout will be aired live on HBO World Championship Boxing. Monica Sears: Thank you. I’d like to welcome everyone today to the Margarito and Mosley conference call. We have a great site lined up for next week and at this time I’d like to turn it over to Chief Operating Officer of Golden Boy Promotions, Dave Itskowitch.

David Itskowitch: Thanks a lot Monica. Thank you everyone for joining us. Again, January 24 at Staple Center we’ve got a great fight which will be live on HBO is World Championship Boxing, 10 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm Pacific. If fan interest is any indication of what kind of a fight this is going to be, it’s going to be a great one, tickets are going fast. I urge you all if you’re going to write about the fight to tell everyone to get their tickets as soon as possible because they’re moving quickly and they start just at $25.

It’s great again to be working with Bob Arum and Top Rank and of course Cerveza Tecate, our title sponsor for the show. Without any further ado I’d like to turn it over to Nazim Richardson, trainer of Shane Mosley to say a few words about how things are going in camp. Nazim?

Nazim Richardson: How’s everybody doing? I’d like to thank everybody for having Shane and again I’d just like to point out from early ongoing that working with Shane there have been no surprises. It’s just been a pleasant confirmation on the fact that the things I assumed about him turned out to be true. That his work ethic is exceptional and his knowledge of the sport is staggering.

It’s just been pleasant working with this guy because everything you ask of him he produces or he makes his best attempt at it until he gets it the way you want it and you have to appreciate that from an athlete. And for a guy to have such a world of experience and knowledge, for him to still be so open he just made camp a pleasant experience and I look forward to the fight next week.

David Itskowitch: Thanks a lot Nazim. As Nazim alluded to Shane Mosley is a champions champion, he’s a people’s champion, one of the great fighters of our era and without any further ado I’d like to turn it over to the four time world champion in three different weight divisions, Sugar Shane Mosley. Shane?

Shane Mosley: I’m definitely excited for the fight; ready to go in great condition. My camp has been great. Nazim has been great. Everybody, the sparring partners are great, everything is running according to plan, according to schedule and the only thing left now is to get in the ring and fight. So I’m ready to go and I’m excited and let’s get it on.

Q: I’ve noticed that guys either forget to or they’re unable to attack Margarito’s body. Now from you we haven’t seen quite as much bodywork over the years. How will you address this on fight night?

Shane Mosley: If Margarito’s body is open and he’s giving it to me then I’m going to take it. We definitely worked on that, and when you fight guys like Margarito you have to work on everything, you can’t just work on boxing and movement, you have to work on punching as well, and targeting different spots of the body, different parts of the head, different parts positioning. I think that’s what Nazim is very good at — pinpointing different spots of the body and (giving me shots). So I think it’s going to be, well I know it’s going to be, a great night.

Q: You ended the Mayorga fight quite spectacularly. I’m sure even you’d admit to maybe looking a little sluggish prior to the knockout. My question is, why were you sluggish in that fight and what can you do to prevent that in the Margarito fight?

Shane Mosley: Well the first thing I’ll do is make sure that I have the proper shoes on and I won’t have blood blisters on the bottom of my feet. That’s what happened in the Mayorga fight, from about the fifth round on I was swishing around and my blister on my right foot. And also you know, when Mayorga, he’s kind of a great to have a fighter where you don’t know where the punches are coming from.

He was like ten pounds heavier than me and I was basically fighting him out of my weight class — I’m 147 pounder –, kind of gave him the advantage to kind of wrestle me a little bit and I wrestled back with him so, it will have to put a stop, a lot more snappier, more crisper, a lot more like the the old Sugar Shane that everybody used to see.

Shane Mosley: I’m great man.

Q At this stage of your career to bring a new trainer in, and you’ve got the fundamentals down, what does Nazim bring or what could he do in just lone training camp to help you?

Shane Mosley: Well, he’s not trying to change me or trying to switch up, just recreating all the stuff that I already know. You know with Nazim, he trains fighters that are amateurs and professionals. So he has both backgrounds and sometimes when we turn pro we start forgetting different things about some of the things that got us to where we were at as the champions, to start lagging on different things.

And I think that with his knowledge of training fighters on both sides of the spectrum he has a broad view of everything. He sees a lot of different things, he watches a lot of films, watches a lot of fighters fight, like I said amateur and professionally. So I think that kind of rejuvenated me, bringing me back to life.

Q: And speaking of changing trainers, obviously you went with Nazim and you left your dad as the trainer in terms of the training and you went with Nazim and then you, I know you’re not going to talk about this, but you have the steroids thing and maybe some other personal things. It seems like that there are a lot of distractions right now from the outside. Is that the case? And if so, how are you dealing with that?

Shane Mosley: I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on outside of boxing, you know, if you do what I’m doing right now as far as my fight’s concerned then that’s what I’m going to do. The other stuff I’m not really paying attention to it until after the fight and I just block it out. (Unintelligible) it’s all about training and winning the fight and being the best.

Q: Nazim. what can you bring…you come in for one fight, what is it that you try to do in such a short period of time?

Nazim Richardson: My thing is I stay in my lane and I understand the fact that our job is not to teach Sugar Shane Mosley how to fight. He already knows how to fight, he’s known how to fight at an exceptional level for years.

My job is to point out flaws in Antonio Margarito’s arsenal and to help Shane to devise a plan to exploit those flaws in the fight. I stay in my lane and I focus on that task at hand. I help him break down Antonio Margarito and hope to exploit those small mistakes that he makes.

And Shane being a student of the game he adjusts, he adjusts so quickly so it’s not about trying to change him or have him do a bunch of different things.

Q: Did you see the Cotto fight and what did you think of the way he fought Margarito.

Shane Mosley: Yes. I (unintelligible) pretty good, I mean the first was (unintelligible) he fought pretty good and he was landing shots and stuff and actually was leading in the fight he just I think had a little mental break down the fight and Margarito caught up to him. He was dinging him with some body shots, caught up to him and sealed the deal in the last two rounds, so I mean he fought all right. He was winning up until that point.

Q: What is it about you and your style that makes you think you’ll be more successful in surviving his constant pressure than Cotto was?

Shane Mosley: Cotto was not familiar with what Margarito brings to the table and I’m familiar with it because I’ve been brought up in California where I fought a lot of Mexican fighters and I know that type of style. I know how to pace myself, how to win rounds. I’m basically a California fighter myself, I’m basically a California fighter, I know how to go to the body as well.

So you know, Margarito (unintelligible) get body shots itself, so you know, maybe if he’s (unintelligible) myself then we’ll both (unintelligible) first, perhaps with a thick coat I know how to fight, you know, I don’t just box I can fight too.

Q: Would you say that’s the number one challenge, being able to stay away from his constant pressure?

Shane Mosley: I’m not particularly trying to run away from his pressure, I’m trying to get my shots in too. But when I want to get them down, not when he says oh, you know, we want to fight now. Maybe I don’t want to fight in that second, maybe I want to turn the corner and then fight again.

Q: I was talking to your father not too long ago and you know, your dad is still as you know, one of your biggest fans.

Shane Mosley: Yeah. And I talked to him yesterday.

TK Stewart: Do you talk to him much about the fight and about strategy, about strengths and weaknesses that Margarito has, I mean you guys have those conversations, or have you had them?

Shane Mosley: Yeah I mean you know, we’ll say a few things here and there about the fight and what he believes I should do and some of the things, I mean a lot of things that, you know, what’s great is that Nazim and my father both have the same type of philosophy basically, in the training. So it’s not far off…using jabs, controlling with the jab, I mean just different stuff that Nazim says and my father probably says pretty much the same thing and they’re not even in the same room.

Q: And then in terms of your future boxing career, do you have the sort of long-range plan as to what you’re going to do or are you just kind of taking it on a fight by fight basis right now?

Shane Mosley: Yeah, I kind of take it on a fight by fight basis, but I can see myself going for another four, maybe five years….2013, 2014, something like that.

Q: So you’d be 40-41 years old.

Shane Mosley: Around 40 years old, 39, 40, somewhere in there.

Q: I was surprised to hear the answer to that last question, kind of caught me a little off guard. You want to fight another four or five years?

Shane Mosley: Yeah, I feel great right now. I feel good and I’m ready to go. And if I’m feeling like this from my fights, you know, the way I feel right today for my fights then I can go on for more.

Q: Wow. Okay. I just remember earlier in your career I heard you say many times you wanted to have a long career and a hall of fame career, accomplish all kinds of different things, which you have done certainly, but that you would maybe not want to hang around into your 40s.

But you hang out with Bernard Hopkins and you see how he fights and now you’re working with Nazim, his trainer and you see the old guy Bernard, who’s going to turn 44 I think in a few days still at it and fighting in a very high level. Does that enter your mindset when you think about where you are in your career and how much longer you may be able to go?

Shane Mosley: Well you know first of all Bernard’s I think birthday was maybe two weeks (unintelligible) he was 44 but…

Q: Actually you know, what, today is Bernard Hopkins’ birthday, January 15.

Shane Mosley: January 15, yeah. So yeah you know, he’s 44 but that really has not crossed my mind, it’s the way I feel. Everybody’s different, everybody fights different. Bernard’s different. I’m different (unintelligible) I mean everybody feels a different way. Fernando Vargas is barely 30 and he’s retired because his body just doesn’t feel good anymore and you have to feel good when you get in the ring.

When I start feeling good I felt something, oh my god this is a chore, I can’t really do it. When (counts) start entering my mind then that’s when I’ll start thinking about retiring. I don’t really like to, because a lot of people a lot of times you know, you start listening to, you know, the media and different people around, oh man when he get like 31, 32, oh you know, you’re getting oh, you need to start retiring.

I’m listening to I’m watching some of these Sportscenter games and you know, down in that, (unintelligible) now says he’s 32 years old and he’s talking about he’s getting old and there’s another guy that’s 37 that’s the quarterback for the Falcons or no for the Cardinals and you know, they’re saying that he’s getting old, you know like wow. But they’re still playing, they’re still both getting ready to go to the Super Bowl.

Q: Exactly. The other thing I wanted to ask you about if you take a look at the records of Antonio Margarito, here you have a guy who beat Cotto and knocked him out, stopped him. Cotto has a win over you. I’m sure he’s aware of that obviously.

And there’s the fact that maybe he’s celebrating that huge victory that he had, that really big, that you know, his victory against Cotto sort of did for Antonio kind of like what your first victory against Oscar did, you know, even though we all knew that he was a good fighter and won titles, put him on the map so maybe he’s a little bit been celebrating about that. And then of course it took him a little bit of time to finally come around and make the deal for this fight. A lot of people thought maybe he didn’t really want to fight you.

I wonder do you think that there’s a chance that because of all the things I just said, you know, plus you know, it was mentioned earlier you look a little bit sluggish even though you scored a spectacular knock out against Mayorga, that maybe Margarito for whatever reason might be just taking it a little bit lightly?

Shane Mosley: That could be the case, I mean that could be the case. I don’t know. I don’t really take it for granted. I don’t, I’m not training where I think oh he’s just taking me for granted and I’m going get a victory. If he does that’s his problem, that’s his loss and maybe he might just get hurt in there if he takes it lightly so you got to be totally prepared, I’m ready to go.

But you know, a lot of times, you know I really don’t worry about what the other fighters thinking or what the trainers are thinking and what they’re thinking about doing or what I’m going to do and I’m going to execute. So whatever he’s thinking that’s totally on his side.

Q: This fight is going to be at Staples Center. It is the site of your greatest victory in your career. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. You have a lot of good memories I bet going back to that arena to have this big fight. You are the underdog here but do you feel, how comfortable do you feel about going back to a place where you had the greatest win of your professional career?

Shane Mosley: You know I probably even feel more confident and comfortable than I did when I fought Oscar the first time. I feel comfortable and I’m confident that I’m going to do my job. I’m confident that I’m going to look spectacular. I’m confident that I’m going to be at my best. I’m confident that the fans around the world are going to be surprised and they’ll be shocked. So I’m just very confident and I’m trying not to be too confident and trying to keep my level head before I get into the ring.

Q: There’s a lot of talk that Margarito can face Miguel Cotto in the summer in a rematch. Do you feel that’s disrespectful to you? If you win would you like another chance at Miguel in the future?

Shane Mosley: I don’t think it’s disrespectful to me because it just lets me know how great of a fighter I am where people just really don’t want to fight me. And Margarito thank God he stepped up, I can get this victory on Margarito and then after, you know, after we fight then if Miguel Cotto and Margarito want to fight that’s fine with me, maybe I, you know I stepped too, you know, Pacquiao and you know, Ricky Hatton, I mean see what happens with them.

So there’ll be somebody out there to fight and I just want to keep myself busy. I want to have a terrific year in 2009 so I consistently train and keep myself in great shape until the next victim comes along.

Q: You would like another chance at Miguel?

Shane Mosley: Of course. Yeah after the fight when I fought him the first time I wanted a rematch but it didn’t happen so maybe the rematch will happen sometime in the future. But like I said, I’ll be the one victorious when I fight Margarito but if they want to fight each other first and (unintelligible) the two fights next that’ll be great too.

Q: I was just wondering why you decided to make the change switching, trainers, why you decided to switch from your father to Nazim?

Shane Mosley: Oh I just needed a different look and me and my father were butting heads a little bit. I just needed a different change of pace and stuff and I think that has worked out very well.

Q: Do you feel that you’re sort of refreshed with a different trainer, that you hear maybe a different sounding voice and the information sort of sinks in a little bit better?

Shane Mosley: Oh, I mean that could be the case. (Unintelligible) it’s just a little, it’s a different twist, different change and I think it’s refreshing. I believe that it’s working out very well. I’m looking good, looking sharp.

Q: I was just also wondering, you said that with all the distractions and everything you just sort of put them aside and for, you know, for most of us that’s just sort of difficult to do. How do you do, I mean how do you put that aside? How do you put all the stuff that’s going on aside and just concentrate on boxing because it’s a 24-hour day, you’re not, you know, you’re not involved in boxing 24 hours a day?

Shane Mosley: I’m in Big Bear 24 hours a day so I keep myself away from all the drama.

Tim Smith: Yeah but the drama sort of also invades you though…

Shane Mosley: No.

Q: I mean you’re getting phone calls from people you’re…

Shane Mosley: No. I don’t get phone calls from people. I don’t do that. I put them in the box and shut them out and that’s it. I don’t mess, I don’t think about that, yeah. I’m that type of person where I don’t really you know, the calls they have something that’s on the Internet or something that’s going on, I don’t look at the Internet, I look at (unintelligible) fight post and stuff, I don’t do that. When I’m focusing (unintelligible) on the boxing it’s strictly boxing. I’m in, I watch fight films, I sit and stretch, you know, everything is about the fight and I kind of put everything else aside.

Q: So all this stuff with steroids you haven’t, you haven’t…?

Shane Mosley: No. Actually I put that stuff aside since 2004. People want to bring it up and I don’t even listen, I don’t listen to it I put it all aside. Judd [Burstein] doesn’t even call me about any of that stuff. You know if I have to sign something on that that’s it, but I put that in my shelf, that’s somewhere in another field. I don’t even, actually I don’t even know nothing about what’s going on right now about that, I don’t even listen to it. My whole thing is Margarito, I don’t even care.

Q: Nazim, one of the things that I’ve looked at, looking back at Margarito and his fight with Joshua Clottey and one of the things that really stood out for me was watching Clottey’s speed be a factor in that fight, even, well obviously before he injured his hands. Is that something that you think will play out in this fight or can play out in this fight?

Nazim Richardson: Well one thing you have to take into account is that when you’re dealing with Shane Mosley speed is always going to be a factor. You know I don’t care who you face is they’re going to have to deal with the speed of Shane Mosley. But the other thing is that people have a tendency to be fast but it’s how you use your speed and where you use your speed at what times. So that’s some of the things we had to concentrate on, but yeah I think Shane Mosley brings several weapons to the table and he’s going to be (unintelligible) to find an answer to deal with all of those weapons whether he’s using them properly.

Q: Margarito has pretty good height for a welterweight. Are you prepared to deal with that and having, and what other fighter can you say hey they had that kind of height advantage and how will you be able to deal with that?

Shane Mosley: Well Margarito I think (unintelligible), when we did the first press conference if you’ll notice we’re both looking eye to eye and that’s not just the picture, that’s really us being the same height. My arms are well, they say on the record that they’re a little longer than his so (unintelligible) think we’re pretty much maybe the same height.

He’s going to come in there you know, he is a little taller, maybe I think an inch and a half taller but that’s not very much. Oscar de la Hoya is the same way, he’s like an inch and a half taller than me too. So I don’t see any problems with that.

Q: One of the things that he seems to have problems with is hand speed, especially guys with fast hands who are busy. Is that something that you think you can make him have to deal with and adjust to?

Shane Mosley: I definitely can exploit him on that. Some people have good hand speed and don’t have good foot speed. I do have good foot speed. So I’m going to exploit him with the hand speed and the foot speed, I’m not saying I’m moving away from him and running and trying to get away from him, I’m not trying to really get away from him, I’m trying to you know, like I always do, I try to get my shots in.

Q: When you’ve broken down Margarito, I mean was it something that you saw immediately that let you know that you were going to match up well against this guy or is it something that has happened during the course of training?

Shane Mosley: Oh man, I’ve seen him fight many times and I knew his style, I know it’s a difficult style and you have to be in great shape, in tremendous shape to fight him and you have to be on top of your game to fight him but it’s a style that my style can beat, you know, be on top of my game. Go ahead.

Q: And obviously it sounds like you’ve got great plans for a long career, but you know, as you’ve seen, I guess you’ve seen it from both ends with Bernard, you know, at 44 it looks like he’s got a couple fights left in him at least. With Oscar after his loss it looks like he may be finished. If you lose, worse case scenario, have you thought about, has that entered your mind and what you would do if that scenario plays out?

Shane Mosley: Actually I haven’t thought about losing, so I don’t know. But it could happen.

Q: Shane if we compare Paul Williams and Margarito’s fight, Margarito’s fight with Cotto, we can analyze that (unintelligible) two different fights you know, because certainly we look at Margarito’s more nice shots against Cotto, more briefly that Williams fight so definitely I think it’s obvious that the fight body to body to Margarito is not the way to win a fight against (unintelligible). What has been about that two fights Williams and Cotto fights against Margarito?

Shane Mosley: Well honestly (I haven’t) seen the Paul Williams, Margarito fight. I’ve see seen the Cotto, Margarito fight. But I would think that you know, with Paul Williams I can’t really equate that to me that he’s 6’4”, 3”, whatever, arm span of a heavyweight and it’s just a different type a fight.

With Cotto, I mean he did very well. He just broke down the last couple rounds and he let Margarito accumulate too many body shots early on in the fight where he couldn’t sustain it and (unintelligible) to fight to 12, but before then I think Cotto was ahead, but even watching the first couple of rounds I felt in my head that Margarito was going to get him because of the way Cotto was fighting him, he was rushing the shots and he was throwing a lot of punches and he was on his heels a lot giving Margarito (unintelligible).

With Paul Williams you know, he’s tall so he’s probably was sticking his jab and you know, keeping Margarito at bay and turn twist and turn them some. That’s probably why he got the victory.

Q: Can we expect the same style from you in terms of boxing in your fight (unintelligible) with Margarito?

Shane Mosley: Well I mean I’m not going to stand around in front of (unintelligible) basically expect me to be throwing a lot of fast shots, snappy and fast shots and you know, I definitely will have you know, I have good punching power so there’s going to be some fire on some of those shots too as well.

Q: Since 2001 you’ve had two bouts every year. If Margarito had signed any earlier do you think this bout would’ve taken last year? And since you only did have a single bout last year are you okay with that going into this one?

Shane Mosley: I’m definitely okay going into this one because what happened was I was getting ready to fight Zab Judah before and it fell through like in May, so I was in training camp for a long time and then I fought, and then I went back to training camp to fight Mayorga and now I’m back in training camp. So I was actually training all the time. I wasn’t really laid off.

Q: Do you have anything good to say basically about Margarito going into this?

Shane Mosley: Oh yeah, I mean Margarito he’s definitely a tough fighter, he’s a warrior and everything that he’s got he’s earned. He’s fought very hard all through his career to get this type of respect and to get this type of claim and finally he achieved it. He took the long road up, the hard road up. He fought everybody he could and battled everybody. But he’s definitely a tough competitor.

Q: Yeah, you just mentioned that you think you have the right style for

Margarito. Could you maybe get a little bit more specific? What is it about your style that you think makes this a good match up?

Shane Mosley: Well it makes a good match up because I have good hand speed, good power, hand speed, power and I’m very durable. I take good shots and I can go, I can stay in the fight when it’s tough. I don’t have to move around, move away and be afraid of being in an exchange. I think some fighters, they’re just fast.

Some fighters are just strong and some fighters are fast and strong but they can’t take a punch, they can’t take it in the inside. They just can punch hard.

I have experience, I have everything. I’ve got the total package for somebody like Margarito. Margarito is one dimensional where he comes right at you and he throws all these shots and punches but he throws them hard and he breaks a lot of guys down with his heart and his will, but I have a big heart and big will too so you’ve got two guys with a big heart and big will, but one’s a little faster and one hits probably a little bit harder and can move better.

Q: What was Cotto lacking then? What was the missing ingredient for Cotto?

Shane Mosley: The grit, I mean what happened with Cotto I think, and maybe that’s why Cotto wants to fight Margarito again is for all his career, the whole career, he’s been used to going forward and walking guys down and for somebody to come and do the same thing to him it kind of rattled him I think a little bit in the later rounds, it rattled him and he started getting hit with shots and he just couldn’t take the pressure then, but I think that him being in the ring with Margarito he knows what to do so it might be a different fight the next time they fight.

David Itskowitch: All right. Thank you everybody for joining the Mosley portion of the call. Thank you Nazim. Thank you Shane. I’m going to turn things over now to Lee Samuels of Top Rank so he can continue on with the Margarito portion of the call. Lee?

Lee Samuels: Great call. Thank you Shane. Thank you Dave and Monica from Golden Boy, really appreciate it.

Lee Samuels: We have the champion on the line with us. He’s been training in California for weeks getting ready for this big fight at the Staples Center and my boss, the Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum is on the line as is Sergio Diaz, the co-manager of Tony and we have Ricardo Jimenez with us also.

So I’m going to turn it over to Bob and he has some remarks and we’ll introduce Tony. Bob?

Bob Arum: Welcome all to the call today. I’m not needed at this point to really sell anything because the fight has been sold out for about a week now. We’ve opened the balcony and those tickets are going extremely fast and they’ll be sold out probably by the end of the week, beginning of next week.

So essentially this fight is a huge, huge box office success and demonstrates how vital and alive boxing is. If you give the public the right kind of matches at the right prices and this championship match between Antonio Margarito and Sugar Shane Mosley is something that has piqued everybody’s imagination. The celebrity turn out is going to be enormous being of course Los Angeles, and everybody is excited including myself.

And I think it’s a tribute to the champion, Antonio Margarito that coming off this great victory against Miguel Cotto he has cemented his status as now being a big box office attraction which is wonderful for Antonio and it’s a real tribute to him. He’s a great fighter and it’s really an honor and pleasure for Top Rank to be promoting him.

Lee Samuels: Okay. Sergio, some remarks about Tony and his training and getting ready for Shane?

Sergio Diaz: Well first I’d like to thank Bob Arum for putting us in this position. The other day I was speaking to my partner Francisco on which promoter has sold out the Staple Center and the only one, Bob Arum. Bob Arum has done a tremendous job with Antonio’s career and we are happy, happy to be part of this Top Rank family and Antonio is proud to be defending his title here in Los Angeles and we’re looking forward to making Top Rank happier and looking forward to continue work with them in the future.

Antonio Margarito: I’m ready to get up into the ring. I trained very hard for this fight. I expect a difficult fight. He’s a very experienced fighter but I put in the work and I’m ready to go in there and put on a good show.

Lee Samuels: Great. And thank you Antonio and (Felicia) we’re ready for our first call. Would you give instructions please?

Q: We saw Manny Pacquiao defeat Oscar recently and he’s become kind of the talk of boxing, I just wondered if Antonio wins this would he like to fight Manny?

Antonio Margarito: I heard about the fights that may be out there for me but I’m not really that interested right now. All I’m thinking about is Mosley, beating Mosley and then Bob will tell me what’s out there for me. I’ll put my hands on what they decide for me to do.

If they think that’s a fight I should do then I’ll do it but right now my mind is just on Mosley and getting over that fight and winning.

Q: I wanted you to talk about what you believe is your ultimate advantage in this fight against Mosley. Where do you match up best? And then secondly do you see any signs that his skills are deteriorating through age or whatever?

Antonio Margarito: I really don’t see that I have any advantages anywhere against him, I just think that my preparation, the way I work, the way I always come prepared for fights, that will carry me over. I know what I need to do to win fights and I always come to do that. They say Mosley is old and all of this I really don’t see it. I think he’s a great champion, I think he’s a great fighter and I’m not going to underestimate him. I know what he’s done and I’m coming in prepared because I believe this is my moment, this is my time to shine.

Q: Antonio you were already a very popular fighter before you beat Cotto but I’m wondering in what way has your life changed just as far as your popularity, that kind of stuff because any time you come into a fight, like at the Home Depot Center, nobody even pays attention to the fight, everybody starts mobbing you and I’m just wondering if you have become even that much more popular since beating Cotto, especially with the Puerto Rican and Mexican rivalry.

Antonio Margarito: Without a doubt, you know everywhere I go now it seems like I’m coming up to people everybody wants my autograph, everybody wants to take a picture with me. I think it is more people coming up to me and I think you can see that reflection on my popularity with the way the tickets are selling. I think without a doubt I’ve taken another step in my career.

Q: Would you like to fight in Mexico, you really have done all your career in the United States. Would you be interested in fighting in Mexico some day due to your popularity, the way you are right now?

Antonio Margarito: If there’s an opportunity to fight in Mexico, it’d be great.I haven’t fought in Mexico in a long, long time so that would be something that I would like to do. if it comes up it’s great, if it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t.

Q: There’s already talk about maybe you fighting Cotto after this.

Antonio Margarito: Right now I’m not thinking about anyone. I’m happy that people are talking about me, about big fights, but I’m just concentrating on Mosley right now and winning this fight.

Q: You fought Cotto when everybody thought he was invincible and now you’re fighting a future Hall of Fame fighter, how do you feel about that at this point in your career?

Antonio Margarito: I have always wanted to fight the best fighters in the world and I have the opportunity now to fight them and the important thing is to do well and beat Mosley. I know how important this fight would be to my career if I do win.

Q: Mosley has never lost to a Mexican fighter. His quickness, his speed is that something that concerns you?

Antonio Margarito I’m always going to fight the same way, I’m always going to try. I’m always going to depend on my training the way I train, the way I get prepared for fights, that’s what wins me fights.

Q: For this fight they said that you didn’t want to fight him, there was a release put out that you said that they said that you were afraid to fight Mosley and that you really didn’t want to fight Mosley that’s why you didn’t sign. What did you think when you saw something like that or you heard about it?

Antonio margarita: I just laugh. I knew that I’ve been waiting to fight Mosley for the last three years. The opportunity never came up, it just never happened but now that it’s here I’m going to take advantage of it and like I said, I’ve wanted to fight him for a long time.

Q: Some people think that the way that you beat Cotto and the way that Cotto beat Mosley that maybe you’re not taking this as seriously as you should. A challenge from Mosley they think that maybe you’re not going to be up for it.

Antonio Margarito: No. That will never happen to me. I’m not going to say it’s going to be an easy fight, I just know that how difficult it is. He’s got a lot of experience and I’m not going to underestimate him at any time. In the ring anything can happen and I’m going to be ready for anything and everything.

Q: Do you consider the Cotto victory the biggest of your career? And obviously you’ve had trouble with tall fighters, guys that can box. Do you think that that’s the problem you might have with Mosley like you had with Paul Williams and Santos fought you?

Antonio Margarito: I don’t think so. Without a doubt the Cotto fight was the best win of my career because he was at the time probably the best welterweight in the world. So my beating him obviously was the biggest fight because now I’m the best one. The other thing about boxing and speed and all that, that’s why we get ready for a fight. We get ready to fight. You prepare for all styles and the preparation is what will make you a winner.

Q: With your new found fame, new found popularity since the Cotto fight, has that forced you to adjust your lifestyle and are there any potential distractions because before the Cotto fight you were always one of the most accessible guys. I’m just wondering how much of a difference that has been for you and how much have you had to adjust to that?

Antonio Margarito: Obviously between fights there have been a lot of things to do, a lot of people wanting me to do things. But I always take two months for every fight, I’ve always done that. I stay away from everything for those two months and I just concentrate on fighting. That’s not going to change. When it’s my time to train that’s all I’m going to do, train.

Q: You have one of the greatest chins that I’ve ever seen quite possibly the best chin of this particular era. Is that just your belief that you can’t be hurt? Where does that come from?

Antonio Margarito: You know I think it’s something I was born with. I really don’t have any other answer other than the fact that I get prepared very well for every fight, that my preparation allows me to take some punches, not that I like to take punches. I’d rather not take as many …in every fight I really would like to take less but you know, I think that I do have a good chin and do prepare myself.

Q: Awhile back there was a I think it was on HBO on the 24/7 episodes they showed a picture of you and Julio Cesar Chavez and I was wondering if when you were a kid and now that you’ve grown up, so as a kid is being a champion everything that you thought it would be and is this life that you’re living the life that you always thought it would be?

Antonio Margarito: You know when I was eight years old when I started fighting, that photo that you saw was when I was nine years old and I never thought about that, you know, about being a champion, getting into boxing, I mean at that level I never thought about it. It wasn’t until I turned into professional and I started winning some fights that I even thought, you know, maybe my dream would be to win a championship but you know, the way I obtain and the ways things have developed I think it’s been great for me.

Q: Usually everyone figures that Mosley’s going to depend on his speed to beat you, would it surprise you if he came in and changed and was looking for a fight?

Antonio Margarito: I don’t know what his strategy is going to be, if he fights, boxes me, I’ll box with him, I’ll figure him out and I’ll get him. If he comes to fight well, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll just fight.

***************************************************

Remaining tickets, priced at $300, $150, $75, $50, and $25, are on sale now at all TicketMaster outlets, by phone at 213-480-3232 and online at www.ticketmaster.com, and at STAPLES Center Box Office.

Margarito vs. Mosley is promoted by Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Cerveza Tecate. The 12-round world championship fight for Margarito’s World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight title takes place on Saturday, January 24 at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles and will be televised live on HBO’s World Championship Boxing beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.

2008 Year in Review: Rating HBO Boxing

2009-01-01T00:58:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

HBO, whose moniker is “Building legends one round at a time”, has been under heavy scrutiny by a large portion of the boxing press and demographic for at least the past few years. What better way to give an honest assessment of how good or bad of a job they did than to look back at each telecast they offered up to their subscribers (and with PPV, non-subscribers) the previous year?

Breakdown:

The year will be broken down into four quarters with each quarter being given a certain number of *s up to five. Each telecast will also be rated on a scale of 1-10 on the basis of a number of things. The most important factor will obviously be the level of competition presented in each fight as well as how equal the level of competition (both on paper and in the ring). Each fight will also be assessed on a * rating from one to five. Telecasts that were distributed by HBO but not covered by them will not be included (such as the Casamayor-Marquez PPV that was run by Golden Boy Promotions).

Without further to do, here is the analysis on HBO’s boxing programming in 2008. First Quarter (January to March) *** ½

January 19th, 2008
HBO-PPV – over 500,000 buys
Don King Productions
Roy Jones, Jr. UD12 Felix Trinidad ***
Andrew Golota UD12 Mike Mollo ***
Devon Alexander UD12 DeMarcus Corley **
Luis Collazo TKO10 Alex Bunema *
7.5 rating

As a fight fan I remember sighing after reading the announcement of this proposed fight. The main event featured a guy who had not fought in almost three years against a guy who had not fought an opponent with a pulse in that same amount of time. It turned out to be a huge success and one of the better PPV cards of the year. The main event was one-sided but a decently entertaining fight. The crowd was into the fight, and I remember people talking about it the next day at work which is something that doesn’t happen in boxing too many times a year. The undercard was far from bad, with an entertaining heavyweight scrap between Golota and Mollo leading into the main event. Putting an up-and-comer like Alexander in with a recognizable name like Corley was smart matchmaking by Don King. Collazo-Bunema was forgettable, but still a better matchup than some of the fights that were co-featured on many of HBO’s telecasts later in the year. The card was a good start for HBO that many feel wasn’t followed up very well. Don King deserves some credit for using his limited HBO time incredibly, as King is not a favorite of HBO’s to deal with.

January 26th, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Goossen-Tutor/Sauerland
Alexander Povetkin UD12 Eddie Chambers ** ¾
6.5 rating

Televised from Germany was this great heavyweight matchup that is a throwback to the good ol’ Boxing After Dark days. Two young undefeated heavyweights fighting each other rather than taking easy opposition all the way to the top was something that we have missed over the past few years. I don’t feel that Chambers is given enough credit as a solid heavyweight considering how closely he fought Povetkin. Povetkin was only fourteen fights deep into his professional career when he made his premium cable debut on this broadcast. Also televised was a replay of Jones Jr.-Trinidad, but when HBO does this they need to limit only airing one live bout like they have done so many times. Ten years ago, HBO would air two live bouts and then replay the previous week’s PPV main event. More slots for fighters on live shows would be a big plus to HBO’s boxing programming.

February 9, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Goossen-Tutor
Carlos Quintana UD12 Paul Williams ***
Andre Berto TKO6 Michel Trabant *
4.0 rating

The main event was an unintentionally good fight that was one-sided on paper. Quintana had only fought once since being brutalized by Miguel Cotto over a year earlier, and that was an eight-round bout against a non-descript opponent off-TV. Quintana was a more than 3-to-1 betting dog leading into the fight, but fought exactly the right fight to get a close decision over the undefeated Williams. Andre Berto’s fight was absolute garbage, and I personally would have rather seen the untelevised Chris Arreola-Cliff Couser bout instead, because at least that fight only lasted about a round. In Trabant’s only fight since losing to Berto, he dropped every round to a 7-7 fighter.

February 16, 2008
HBO-PPV – 250,000 buys
Top Rank
Kelly Pavlik UD12 Jermain Taylor II *** ½
Cristian Mijares SD12 Jose Navarro ** ¾
Fernando Montiel KO4 Martin Castillo ***
Ronald Hearns TKO8 Juan Astorga * ¾
7.0 rating

This PPV was not terrible by any means, but was a bit of a letdown. This time it is hard to lay blame to anyone involved in the matchmaking, as it featured three well matched bouts on paper as well as an up-and-comer in a showcase bout. Many people feel that showcasing prospects in big-time television spots is incorrect, but in certain instances I think it is great. A four bout card can get away with a mismatch in an eight rounder, especially when the rest of the undercard is superb and has enough rounds. What isn’t right is co-featuring a showcase bout where one fighter stands no chance of winning (think Juarez-Hernandez from the De la Hoya-Mayweather debacle). So for what it was, Hearns-Astorga was alright. Montiel-Castillo was a great bout on paper that had die-hard fans excited. Nobody could know that Martin Castillo just didn’t have much left. Mijares-Navarro was a world championship bout that was fairly one-sided despite the split decision verdict. The judge who scored it for Navarro, Doug Tucker, had it 120-108 in his favor and for that should be banned from judging professional fights for life. Pavlik-Taylor II was a good fight, but it did not come close to matching the excitement of the first fight from the previous year. Either way, it was a solid matchup that helped establish Pavlik as a new star in the sport.

February 23, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Wladimir Klitschko UD12 Sultan Ibragimov *
3.0 rating

It was the first heavyweight unification bout since 1999, but other than that the fight was a total joke. I don’t know if there has been a more boring unification bout in heavyweight history. Klitschko failed to throw a right hand for long stretches of time, yet still easily won this fight. For the first WCB card of the year, it was a huge failure. The only good thing that came from it was eliminating a heavyweight champion from the picture, and even better, we likely will never have to see Sultan Ibragimov on HBO or premium cable ever again. The fight was held at Madison Square Garden, and is the second time Wladimir has blown a guy out or stunk out the joint in the historic venue in less than two years. The fight was paired with the replay of Pavlik-Taylor II, but it would have been cool to see HBO air John Duddy-Walid Smichet which turned out to be a good fight.

March 8, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Don King Productions
Samuel Peter KO6 Oleg Maskaev ** ¾
Nate Campbell SD12 Juan Diaz *** ½
8.5 rating

This was easily HBO’s best free show of the first quarter, and that may have been unintentional. The opening bout was a candidate for Upset of the Year with Campbell coming into the fight as a more than 3-to-1 underdog against the undefeated Diaz. Diaz was coming off the best wins of his career, stopping both Acelino Freitas and Julio Diaz to pick up two more alphabet belts. The fight was fought on even terms early on, but once a bad cut was opened up by Campbell, he dominated the second half of the fight. Maskaev-Peter was a fight that had been postponed many times before, forcing Peter to pick up an interim title by barely getting by Jameel McCline at the end of 2007. It was a competitive fight until Peter caught Maskaev in the sixth and picked up a world heavyweight title.

March 15, 2008
HBO-PPV – 400,000 buys
Top Rank/Golden Boy Promotions
Manny Pacquiao SD12 Juan Manuel Marquez II **** ½
Steven Luevano UD12 Terdsak Jandaeng **
Abner Mares TKO2 Diosdado Gabi **
David Diaz MD10 Ramon Montano *
6.5 rating

The main event definitely delivered, with Pacquiao’s narrow decision over Marquez being one of the best fights of the year. It was as highly anticipated a rematch as any in reent memory, with Pacquiao trying to avenge a draw he got against Marquez after dropping him three times in the opening round years earlier. It lived up to the hype and delivered a close and controversial decision, as many experts thought Marquez did enough to win. The undercard was not quite at that same level. Luevano fought a guy that had never beaten anyone in the Top 20 let alone the Top 10. Mares-Gabi was a decent fight on paper, as Gabi gave a good account of himself in a loss to Vic Darchinyan earlier in his career. Diaz-Montano was a pointless bout, especially since Diaz was a lightweight champion at the time and this was a non-title bout. The only thing that came out of that matchup was getting some exposure for Diaz before feeding him to Pacquiao later on in the year. The PPV did more than 400k buys and was a record for PPV cards headlined by a bout in a weight class lower than welterweight.

March 22, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Golden Boy Promotions
Joel Casamayor TKO10 Michael Katsidis **** ½
Librado Andrade TKO8 Robert Stieglitz ** ½
8.0 rating

Yes, I gave Casamayor-Katsidis a higher rating than JMM-Pacquiao II, only because it had more ups and downs throughout the fight. Casamayor dropped Katsidis twice in the opening round with straight left hands, but Katsidis brawled his way back into the bout. Katsidis scored a knockdown in the sixth that put Casamayor out of the ring, and many thought that was the end of it. Casamayor got to his feet (this was the first time since Benn-McClellan that I saw someone get knocked out of the ring and continue in the fight) but fell behind on points. He was deducted a point for a low blow in the ninth, then caught Katsidis with a picture perfect shot to finish him and pull off the dramatic victory. Andrade is a guy I would like to see on TV more. He is the light heavyweight version of Antonio Margarito, being able to absorb unreal amounts of punishment until he wears you down later on. I had never heard of Stieglitz before this bout, but he had a solid win over Alejandro Berrio in an eliminator. There was good action in the fight, but Andrade was obviously highly superior to Stieglitz, scoringa late knockout. It was a good way to close out the first quarter. March 2008 was one of the best months in boxing history, so it serves correct that HBO should have one of its best months in recent memory.

Second Quarter (April to June) * ¾

April 12, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Top Rank
Miguel Cotto TKO5 Alfonso Gomez *
Antonio Margarito KO6 Kermit Cintron II ** ½
5.0 rating

Unfortunately, HBO’s first show following their great March was a WCB featuring two huge mismatches. Leading into the Cotto-Gomez fight, everyone was talking about how one-sided it would be. Saying that, it somehow was more than a mismatch than anyone could have thought. Cintron-Margarito II was a great action bout that ended much the same way the first encounter did. Cintron was in the fight the whole way, but everyone watching was just waiting for the moment that Margarito would land that perfect shot to the body, and in the sixth he landed as brutal of a shot to the body as you will ever see. Although the two fights were hgue mismatches, it did build towards the Cotto-Margarito slam-dunk for the middle of the year. Unfortunately, not many saw this card as it did a 1.1 Nielsen rating, the worst any HBO WCB has ever done.

April 19, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Golden Boy Promotions
Joe Calzaghe SD12 Bernard Hopkins ** ¾
6.0 rating

Hopkins-Calzaghe did not fare much better than Cotto-Gomez in the ratings, but it was a much more competitive matchup. It was a big fight, but both fighters stunk it out after an interesting opening stanza that saw Hopkins drop Calzaghe. It was also nice to see them stick this fight on regular HBO rather than make a dozen or so people pay $49.95 for it.

May 3, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Golden Boy Promotions
Oscar De la Hoya UD12 Steve Forbes * ½
4.0 rating

If there was any fight not deserving of a Countdown show, it was De la Hoya-Forbes. For HBO to almost not make a Countdown for Cotto-Margarito, it makes you wonder why this fight got one. Look, I am glad that Forbes got the fight, he is as nice of a guy as you will encounter in boxing. This fight had no business being as hyped as it was. I know that it was to build towards Mayweather-De la Hoya II (why?), but what a waste of a premium cable date.

May 17, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Gary Shaw
Yuriorkis Gamboa UD10 Darling Jimenez ** ½
Alfredo Angulo TKO5 Richard Gutierrez *** ¼
James Kirkland KO1 Eromosele Albert ** ½
6.5 rating

This was a great BAD card in my opinion. It featured three young prospects in against experienced fighters. Angulo-Gutierrez was very exciting, with both fighters having their guy hurt and nearly out. Kirkland’s one-round KO was fantastic, and Gamboa was in tough with an experience veteran and simply outclassed him. It was a good coming-out party for all three fighters and big things are expected from all in ’09.

June 7, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Top Rank
Kelly Pavlik TKO3 Gary Lockett ¾
Juan Manuel Lopez TKO1 Daniel Ponce de Leon ***
5.0 rating

It was not a terrible plan to give Pavlik a soft touch after his fantastic 2007 (wins over Zertuche, Miranda, Taylor), but picking someone who had fought on American television or someone with a pulse would have been a good idea. Lockett was outgunned from the start, and that fight went pretty much as expected. Lopez burst onto the scene with his surprising vanquishing of Ponce de Leon, much the way the Ponce de Leon knocked off Rey Bautista. On paper, it was an evenly matched fight.

June 21, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
DiBella Entertainment
Andre Berto TKO7 Miki Rodriguez *
Chris Arreola DQ3 Chazz Witherspoon ***
4.0 rating

Berto continued much the way he started the year, getting an easy opponent. Only this time, it was for a vacant world championship. Does anyone recall an easier road to a world championship than the one Berto has taken? Arreola-Witherspoon was a fun fight for how long it lasted, and it helped establish Arreola as potentially the best American heavyweight in the world, which isn’t saying much these days.

June 28, 2008
HBO-PPV – less than 200,000 buys
Top Rank
Manny Pacquiao TKO9 David Diaz ***
Francisco Lorenzo DQ4 Humberto Soto * ¼
Monte Barrett KO1 Ty Fields *
Steven Luevano D12 Mario Santiago *** ¼
6.0 rating

Pacquiao’s win over Diaz was another step towards all-time greatness for Pacquiao, as he easily picked up a world title at yet another weight class with his one-sided demolition of Diaz. Luevano-Santiago was one of the best PPV undercard fights of the year. Barrett-Fields started out earning zero stars since nobody likes watching Ty Fields, but it quickly earned a star after Barrett knocked him silly early in the first round. Soto-Lorenzo was an action-packed bout that loses a star for the terrible decision made by referee Joe Cortez on disqualifying Soto for hitting Lorenzo after the bell. Lorenzo’s display of sportsmanship when he acted like those blows did serious damage was disgusting. Overall, it was not as bad of a PPV as expected.

Third Quarter (July to September) ***

July 12, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Wladimir Klitschko TKO11 Tony Thompson **
4.0 rating

Thompson was in the fight early on, but it soon became apparent that he was no match for Klitschko. Wladimir again refused to open up and try and finish his guy early and continued with his cautious approach and took care of Thompson at the end of the bout. It was another one bout card for HBO, and another stinker on WCB. HBO needs to eliminate the idea that they need to televise the #1 heavyweight’s bouts, especially when the #1 heavyweight in the world doesn’t like to fight.

July 26, 2008
HBO-PPV – 450,000 buys
Top Rank
Antonio Margarito TKO11 Miguel Cotto *****
Cesar Canchila UD12 Giovanni Segura *** ½
Mike Alvarado KO4 Cesar Bazan ** ½
Bernabe Concepcion TKO3 Adam Carrera **
9.5 rating

Easily the best PPV of the year, Cotto-Margarito delivered on all fronts. The main event was HBO’s best televised fight of the year, and one they nearly did not even do a Countdown show for. Cotto showed brilliance early on, but he could not survive the late onslaught from Margarito and suffered his first career loss. The supporting bouts were all decent to great. Concepcion and Alvarado got some big-time exposure in showcase bouts. Alvarado-Bazan was fun while it lasted. Canchila-Segura was very exciting and will be getting a rematch in February of this year. It will be interesting to see what Cotto-Margarito took out of both fighters, and we will find that out in the opening months of 2009 before they are set to fight each other again mid-year.

August 2, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Top Rank
Joshua Clottey TD9 Zab Judah ***
6.5 rating

This was a good even matchup for a vacant welterweight title. Another one-bout card, HBO could have televised Anthony Peterson’s fight against former world champion Javier Jauregui and I would not have complained. A decent matchup on paper that translated to a close competitive fight that was unfortunately stopped early due to a headbutt. This fight was paired with a replay of Cotto-Margarito and would be HBO’s last effort until the end of the Olympics.

September 6, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Golden Boy Promotions
Juan Diaz SD12 Michael Katsidis ***
Rocky Juarez TKO11 Jorge Rodrigo Barrios *** ½
7.5 rating

After a long layoff from boxing because of the Olympics, HBO returned with a great card from the Toyota Center in Houston where two hometown favorites took on tough opposition. Diaz was a 3-to-1 favorite over Katsidis and lit him up with five and six punch combinations all night. Katsidis’ trainer deserves to be fired for his performance in the corner as well as his postfight comments, telling his fighter he was doing well when he was getting dominated and then crying robbery after a loss. The only robbery was one judge somehow scoring the fight for Katsidis. Juarez-Barrios started out as another typical Juarez fight where he failed to throw punches. The end of the fight was fantastic as Juarez busted up Barrios’ mouth terribly before flooring him in the 11th and scoring a comeback victory.

September 27, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Golden Boy Promotions
Shane Mosley KO12 Ricardo Mayorga ** ¾
Andre Berto UD12 Steve Forbes **
6.5 rating

Mosley-Mayorga was a fun but pointless matchup. Mosley didn’t look very good against the incredibly awkward Mayorga, but scored a knockout after the final bell to come away victorious. Berto again fought an overmatched opponent in Steve Forbes, who fought his second straight fight in a weight class that he is not at his best in. Not the worst that HBO had offered all year, especially on WCB.

Fourth Quarter (October to December) ** ½

October 4, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Gary Shaw
Yuriorkis Gamboa KO2 Marcos Ramirez **
Alfredo Angulo TKO10 Andrey Tsurkan **
Sergio Gabriel Martinez TKO8 Alex Bunema **
5.5 rating

Another excellent idea putting these three young fighters on the same card, but the fights weren’t matched as well as the first time around. Martinez took the spot of Kirkland, picking up an interim junior middleweight title against a guy that does not belong on HBO. Angulo was in against a similarly overmatched opponent in Tsurkan, and that fight went on much too long. In fact, the HBO announce team was concerned for his health and was calling for the fight to be stopped. Gamboa easily dispatched his opponent as well.

October 11, 2008
HBO-PPV – less than 200,000 buys
Top Rank/Golden Boy Promotions
Bernard Hopkins UD12 Kelly Pavlik *** ½
Steven Luevano UD12 Billy Dib * ¾
Marco Antonio Rubio SD12 Enrique Ornelas ** ¼
Daniel Jacobs KO1 Tyrone Watson * ½
6.0 rating

The main event was an unexpectedly exciting fight, with Hopkins turning back the clock to easily beat the much younger fighter. Hopkins even threw many more punches than before and vowed to fight this way the rest of his career (will believe it when I see it). To this point it is the most amazing thing I have seen in the sport, as I thought Pavlik would likely brutally beat Hopkins. The undercard left much to be desired. I think I am in the majority when I say I never want to see Billy Dib on television of any sort. Rubio-Ornelas was a decent scrap, and putting Daniel Jacobs on television wasn’t a terrible move.

November 8, 2008
HBO-PPV – less than 225,000 buys
Joe Calzaghe UD12 Roy Jones, Jr. ** ½
Zab Judah UD10 Ernest Johnson * ¾
Francisco Figueroa SD8 Emanuel Augustus **
Dmitriy Salita UD12 Derrick Campos *
5.0 rating

I won’t lie, I was pretty excited for this fight. Likely it was because I grew up on Roy Jones, Jr., as well as I bought into the 24/7 hype hook, line and sinker. Roy deserves credit for finishing the fight like a man after suffering a terrible cut that could have been grounds for an mid-round stoppage. The undercard stunk except for the Augustus fight, and that lost a star for seeing him once again get a well-deserved victory taken away from him. I don’t ever want to see Salita again taking a valuable PPV slot unless it is against someone in the Top 5 or 10.

November 15, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
DiBella Entertainment
Jermain Taylor UD12 Jeff Lacy ** ¾
6.0 rating

A decent matchup on paper, but Lacy was a huge underdog as he had not looked good since before he was blown out by Joe Calzaghe. Both fighters were on the rebound and this was a make or break fight for each. Also interesting was the storyline that developed into this fight, with these guys being roommates on the Olympic squad. This was paired with a replay of Jones, Jr.-Calzaghe, but it easily could have featured a supporting bout as well. Deontay Wilder made his professional debut off television, and that was something many would have liked to see.

November 22, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Golden Boy Promotions
Ricky Hatton TKO11 Paulie Malignaggi ***
James Kirkland TKO8 Brian Vera *
5.5 rating

Hatton-Malignaggi was a good matchup since many considered it the two best 140-pound fighters going against each other. I gave Malignaggi a fair chance at winning this fight heading in, but early on in the fight it was obvious that he did not have much of a chance. A guy like Brian Vera should never appear on a WCB card, there was no excuse for that.

November 29, 2008
HBO Boxing After Dark
Goossen-Tutor Promotions
Paul Williams TKO8 Verno Phillips **
Chris Arreola TKO3 Travis Walker ***
6.0 rating

Both opponents were sizable underdogs, but there was intrigue involved in both bouts. In Arreola-Walker, you had two heavyweights who could crack, so at the very least it was going to be over early. Walker was in the best shape of his career while Arreola came in a little heavy, so you knew there was a chance Walker was going to catch Arreola unexpectedly, and he did that in the second round. Walker was unfortunate in that it sparked Arreola and he went on to knock him out. The second round was one of the best rounds of the year. Williams was moving into yet another weight class by fighting Phillips, and was the first guy in almost twenty years to stop him. An unexpectedly good BAD card.

December 6, 2008
HBO-PPV – 1.25 million buys
Golden Boy Promotions/Top Rank
Manny Pacquiao TKO8 Oscar De la Hoya ***
Juan Manuel Lopez TKO1 Sergio Manuel Medina ¾
Victor Ortiz TKO2 Jeffrey Resto *
Daniel Jacobs TKO2 Victor Lares ¾
4.5 rating

Pacquiao-De la Hoya was a circus attraction that actually delivered. For the first time in his career, Oscar De la Hoya was at no point in the fight he was in. Manny Pacquiao established himself as the next star to carry the sport after Oscar hangs them up. The undercard was as atrocious as it gets, featuring less than ten minutes of actual boxing. Lares and Medina have no business being licensed professional fighters. Medina cried that he was told to take a dive or something was going to happen to him, but it looked like he just wanted out of there.

December 13, 2008
HBO World Championship Boxing
Wladimir Klitschko TKO7 Hasim Rahman ½
2.0 rating

This fight earns half a star on the basis that I will hopefully never have to see Hasim Rahman on television ever again. This may have been the worst main event televised by HBO all year.

A look at the final numbers:

HBO-PPV: 8
WCB: 11
BAD: 9

Number of bouts televised by HBO: 66
Number of bouts televised on HBO-PPV: 32
Number of bouts televised on WCB: 16
Number of bouts televised on BAD: 18
Number of undercard bouts televised on HBO-PPV: 24
Number of one-bout live cards shown on HBO: 7
Klitschko headlined WCB cards: 3
Number of stars combined for the 3 Klitschko headlined cards: *** ½
Number of stars for Cotto-Margarito: *****
Number of stars combined for three supporting bouts to De la Hoya-Pacquiao: ** ½
Shows that were assigned a 5.0/10.0 rating or less: 10
Number of headlining bouts that received less than three stars: 14

By lead promoter:
Golden Boy Promotions: 7.5
Top Rank Boxing: 7.5
Goossen-Tutor: 2.5
Don King: 2
Gary Shaw: 2
DiBella Entertainment: 2
Sauerland: 0.5

Tales from the Tape: HBO World Championship Boxing (Jones-McCallum/Barrera-Jones) [11-22-96]

2008-12-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Heading into 2009, HBO has made it known that they will no longer be airing bouts that are complete mismatches. Bouts that were denied by HBO for 2009 include Kelly Pavlik-Marco Antonio Rubio, Miguel Cotto-Michael Jennings, and Andre Ward against either Edison Miranda or Allan Green. With that news, hopefully some more evenly matched fights get put together instead of one fighter being showcased in one-sided demolition fights. It seems that HBO has finally learned their lesson, and on that note I would like to turn back the clock to an old HBO World Championship Boxing card that had two well-matched bouts televised.

Aired on November 22, 1996, it featured an extraordinary two-fight card consisting of two world title fights (sort of). In the opening bout, Marco Antonio Barrera [43-0] puts his WBO super bantamweight title as well as his undefeated record on the line against the veteran and former world champion, Junior Jones [42-2-0]. The main event is Roy Jones, Jr. [33-0], who is universally recognized as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world at this point in history, moving up to light heavyweight for the first time in his career to take on the 39-year old future Hall-of-Famer Mike McCallum [49-3-1]. This is recognized as a title fight because the WBC made it for their “interim” WBC light heavyweight title.. It is interesting looking back what the reaction was to this, as interim titles are pretty prevalent in the sport today.

HBO commentators Jim Lampley had an interesting interaction on the subject:

Jim: Larry, what the hell is an interim light heavyweight championship?

Larry: Jim, the WBC is notorious for two things: larceny and making up the rules as it goes along. So who knows what it means?

As explained, Jones, Jr. wanted to fight for a title so he offered the WBC 100 grand to make it a title fight and the WBC obliged. What made this fight even more interesting was the fact that two sets of judges were scoring the fight. The WBC said they could not trust Florida judges to score the fight fairly due to Jones, Jr. being a native of Pensacola, Florida. The Florida State Athletic Commission considered that sentiment a slap in the face and insisted in putting their judges at ringside and their own referee in the ring. The WBC then paid for three judges to score the fight from the ringside seats instead of up on top of a judge’s perch. Many were wondering what would happen if the two sets of judges saw two separate winners for the fight. The FSAC’s scores would matter on the records of the fighters but only the WBC can award title belts based on whatever scoring they want so their judges would decide the champion. This is interesting because when Nate Campbell was going to defend his lightweight titles against Joan Guzman, the Mississippi insisted their judges score the fight and we nearly had the same controversy. Fortunately, they were able to settle things, but it did not end up mattering since Guzman pulled out and a fight never took place.

Barrera taking on Jones had a lot of intriguing things heading into the fight. Barrera was the undefeated future of the little guys. His fight with Kennedy McKinney on the inaugural broadcast of HBO’s Boxing After Dark made Barrera a star. Junior Jones had been in that spot just a few years before, until a couple of knockout losses, one to a .500 level fighter, set him back. He had an impressive split decision victory over a good fighter in Orlando Canizales, although many thought he lost the fight. Barrera was supposed to look good beating him and putting a name on his already impressive ledger at only 22 years of age.

To many people’s surprise, Jones and his team went into the fight expecting to win. He ironically entered the ring to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”. His manager, Gary Gittelsohn, and his promoter, Cedric Kushner, gave their part of the purse (minus the cost of travel) to Jones because they expected a future that had more paydays to look forward to. HBO’s team wondered if they gave him their purse because they thought it would be the last payday Junior Jones ever received. Gittelsohn would later award his portion of the purse to Jones again, but it was following a loss to Erik Morales in Mexico later in his career.

The fight was destined to be a good one. Although Barrera was expected to win, he had never fought against a jab like Junior Jones possessed. Jones was recognized as having one of the best jabs in the sport at the time. Jones had an astonishing 35-0 record against Mexican fighters. He had just been in camp with Evander Holyfield, who was also trained by Tommy Brooks. He even had Lou Duva in his camp as a second assistant. There were a lot of wild cards going into the fight, many of them favored Jones.

The first round saw Jones throw fifty-four jabs and controlling the distance. Barrera tried stealing the round. Jones clinched anytime Barrera tried getting inside of him, which was a very effective way to control Barrera. The fight begins to get dirty in the second round when Jones hits Barrera behind the head and Barrera launches a few shots south of the border that are missed by the referee. Barrera wins the round. In the third they exchange in the center of the ring and Jones is the more effective of the two. When Barrera comes inside he doesn’t use any head movement and he is getting repeatedly tagged by Jones’ fantastic jab. Barrera is now switching it up and going to the body, which seems to be doing some good. Jones triples up behind the left hand. Barrera digs to the body before the bell rings. The fourth was a back-and-forth round that deteriorated both fighters.

Barrera begins the fifth round with a good left hook to the body. A brutal exchange leads to a bloody nose for Jones. Barrera’s left eye is cut and he claims it is due to an illegal butt. Towards the end of the round, Jones lands a picture-perfect right hook that drops Barrera violently. Barrera somehow makes it to his feet, but has still more than ten seconds before the round is over. Jones throws a violent flurry with Barrera leaning on the ropes, and the referee stops the fight, but seemingly after the bell has rung. There is mass confusion in the ring, but Jones’ corner is in the ring celebrating, selling the victory. It almost seemed like a tactic you would see in professional wrestling, and many credit Lou Duva with the idea to get in the ring and celebrate before they could figure things out. Either way; Barrera was out on his feet, and the referee cited that the corner of Barrera entered during the round, thus ending the fight. The ruling was announced as a TKO at 2:59 in the round, but the result would be changed to a disqualification later on.

While they got ready for the main event, the HBO broadcast team discussed the night’s matchup. Featured was the unofficial scorekeeper Harold Lederman’s second ever appearance on-screen. You would have to think in all the years he had been around by then he would have a few more appearances. After Lederman weighs in on the fight, Jim refers to him as the Dick Vitale of boxing, which is as close as you can peg Lederman in a few words.

They then show interview pieces with both fighters, and the most interesting story is how Mike McCallum, always one of the better fighters in the world, was avoided by so many others. His best years may have been in the mid-80’s, but neither Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, or Marvin Hagler ever gave McCallum a shot at a big payday. Interestingly, McCallum had always been smart about putting away his money, so he didn’t need the shot like many others did but he wanted a chance very badly.

He had run off a nice streak of wins to begin his career, knocking off undefeated Julian Jackson and elite fighters Milton McCrory and Donald Curry before unsuccessful challenging for his second world title against Sumbu Kalambay in 1988. He would later add the middleweight title to his junior middleweight crown when he beat Herol Graham by split decision for the WBA 160-pound title. He beat Steve Collins, Michael Watson, got revenge against Kalambay in a rematch, and drew with James Toney. Two fights later he would lose a majority decision to Toney. McCallum would later jump to 175 pounds and win a world title there in an “interim” WBC light heavyweight title, much like the one he would be fighting Jones, Jr. for. He would lose his world title to Fabrice Tiozzo before taking on the undefeated world’s best fighter in Jones, Jr.

Highlights of Roy’s career up until that point were convincing wins over Bernard Hopkins; who would go on to become perhaps the best 160-pounder of all-time, and James Toney; another all-time great multiple division champion. He would then fight softer competition for a few years before taking this fight that many considered a challenging one, even though McCallum was nearly forty years old at the time. There was a lot of mutual respect from both fighters heading into this fight.

Jones, Jr. began with his usual antics, entering the ring to a rap song recording by himself in preparation for the fight. It featured lyrics specific to his fight with McCallum, which was very egocentric, even for Jones, Jr.

The first round of the fight features a very interesting remark made by George Foreman, who was also doing commentary for the night’s action. He mentions something about Jones, Jr. moving up a few pounds to become heavyweight champion of the world to which Lampley responds, “You mean light heavyweight champion of the world?”

Foreman replies, “No, he can move up a few pounds. Every guy wants to be heavyweight champion of the world.”

“He’d have to go up thirty or forty pounds!” exclaimed Lampley. Foreman later goes on about if he is going to do it he should do it sooner rather than later. Roy wouldn’t become heavyweight champion of the world until 2003, when he outpointed John Ruiz for the WBA belt. As hard as it was to tolerate George Foreman sometimes on these HBO broadcasts, he was generally correct when he made bold statements.

As for the action in the first round, McCallum was doing very well behind his jab. It is also amazing to see how good Jones’ reflexes were at this stage of his career. Someone mentions that, sewn into Roy’s trunks is a microphone. They were unsure what the benefit of having this microphone was, but for about twenty seconds you can hear body shots a little bit louder was about it. For what it’s worth, the round was a close one that had a slight lean towards McCallum.

McCallum was being very effective, especially with hooks to the body whenever he had Jones on the ropes. Most of Jones’ shots were reach-in shots with little to no power on them. A right cross lands for Roy, maybe his biggest punch so far. They trade equally in the center of the ring. It was a close round that McCallum edged on aggressiveness. Roy Jones, Jr. was rarely losing rounds in his career, yet I thought he was two rounds behind in the second.

HBO also reminds you of some future boxing cards, and one that jumped out at me was a double-header featuring Montell Griffin taking on James Toney and Julio Cesar Chavez fighting Micky Ward. Unfortunately, a Chavez-Ward fight never took place, and we can only imagine what kind of war that fight would have been.

Jones started to take over the fight midway through. I gave three of the first four rounds to McCallum, who was being very effective with body shots and was pressing the action. Roy was, for the most part, potshotting his way through the first half of the fight. He started to pick up the pace at the end of round five, when he unleashed a classic Roy seven punch combination that both looks flashy and does damage. It was enough to steal the round and start building momentum for Jones.

Round six was a close round but Jones landed the better looking punches. McCallum was starting to slow down at this point of the fight. At the same time, Jones was starting to open up a bit more and he also started throwing lead left hooks..

Another interesting thing about this fight was that the HBO team could see the WBC judges’ scorecards throughout the duration of the fight. The WBC judges were in paid seats in the audience or at press tables. Someone was relaying scores to the HBO team, and the WBC judges had Jones way ahead. Merchant had the fight much closer, saying he though at one point McCallum was winning the fight but that he had seen a shift. Harold Lederman, HBO’s unofficial scorekeeper, had the fight more in line with the WBC judges. Even so, everyone agreed that the Florida state judges probably had Jones well ahead in the fight.

Rounds seven and eight were still close rounds but Jones was starting to pull ahead. Foreman mentioned that McCallum has no power up top with his right hand, which is odd. He was doing good damage with body shots, especially early in the fight, but he wasn’t hurting Roy against the ropes with anything he threw to the head. Once Jones felt he couldn’t be hurt you saw him start to gain control in the fight. Early on in the bout, the HBO team discusses how you can see that Jones has a lot of respect for McCallum. Jones wasn’t going after his opponent like he had against so many overmatched foes before this one.

Round nine was an interesting one to me. I thought Jones had absolutely dominated the round and it may have been one of his best rounds so far in the fight. Yet, two of the three WBC judges scored it for McCallum. I always wondered, if in fights that are pretty close but you have one fighter way ahead, you start scoring rounds for the fighter that is behind for no reason except to make the scores closer. I thought McCallum was in the fight, but I did not think he did anything to warrant being awarded the ninth round. Did those two WBC judges have doubt that Jones should be decisively ahead like their scorecards told them he should be? It is always interesting to me when we get to know how the fight is being scored.

The tenth round was close until a Jones quick right hand over the top knocked McCallum down with seconds remaining. It was a beautiful shot that McCallum just didn’t see coming.

The eleventh was another close round until about a minute left when Jones just unloads eight straight left hooks upstairs. The bursts of speed Jones had in this fight were ridiculous. I think I would favor this version of Roy Jones, Jr. slightly over a recent version of Joe Calzaghe.

In between the eleventh and twelfth rounds, Jones spoke to the camera and HBO, which is something that you would expect from him. McCallum was on his way to having a good round until Jones started firing off combinations and he even threw in a bolo punch for good measure. He hurt McCallum at the end of the fight, but he made it to the bell.

The Florida state judges did not score a single round for McCallum between the three of them. All three judges had Jones winning, 120-107. How you do not award a single round to McCallum is disgraceful. The WBC judges had it more in the right ballpark with scores of 116-111, 117-110, and 119-108 all for Jones. I had the fight 116-112 for Jones, only giving one of the final seven rounds to McCallum.

It was a good performance from Jones against an old veteran who had a good fight or two left in him. A few months later, McCallum would give one final good performance in a unanimous decision loss to James Toney. The fight was a rematch of a 1992 fight that saw Toney win by majority decision. Five years later, McCallum would put on another good performance against James. Two judges only had him narrowly losing a decision, while a third judge had Toney slightly further ahead.

We all know where Jones’ career has gone since this fight. Jones’ early career will always be the highlight of what he has done professionally. The only thing that compares with his early work was winning the heavyweight title, but even that was cherry-picked. After this fight, Jones would fight mandatory after mandatory on HBO, milking their budget to put on sparring contests for years to come. Two knockout losses in a row after moving down from heavyweight took Jones off the big stage for a few years before he returned with a win over Felix Trinidad on pay-per-view. Jones-Trinidad drew some of the best numbers for the year, making people think a Jones-Calzaghe fight would sell well. They were wrong, with that fight drawing not too many buys (especially not enough to warrant a 24/7 series) and souring Calzaghe on the sport altogether. Whether Jones will fight on is another question, although I personally hope he hangs them up. If Jones were to have beaten Calzaghe, I would have been very interested in a Jones-Hopkins rematch. Even still, if the fight was announced I am sure I would find a way to tune in.

Hopefully we see some of these types of cards in 2009 on HBO. Already we have some fantastic matchups with Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley taking place in Los Angeles in January. A week earlier, a great Boxing After Dark card featuring prospects Sergio Gabriel Martinez and Joe Greene in a good bout, as well as Andre Berto fighting a live body for once in Luis Collazo. Alfredo Angulo-Ricardo Mayorga and Nate Campbell-Ali Funeka should be a fun card in February. That’s a pretty good start as far as I am concerned.

"Anytime, anyplace, anybody"

2008-11-30T00:42:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

You used to hear the phrase “Any time, any place, anybody” a whole lot in boxing. For one reason or another that slogan hasn’t been applicable to the sport in quite awhile, but in newly-crowned WBO Interim Junior Middleweight champion Paul Williams and undefeated American heavyweight sensation Chris Arreola, Goossen-Tutor Promotions has two fighters that this moniker can be applied to.

Between the two of them, they fought eight times in 2008, seven of those bouts being nationally televised. Williams has even fought at three different weight classes this year alone, something that has been sight unseen in decades.

In how it has been so easy to keep these two fighters so active, Goossen-Tutor Promotions head Dan Goossen had this to say: “It takes two to come up with the decisions and that’s the business side of the fighters, meaning manager Al Haymon, the trainer in both Henry Ramirez and George Peterson, and then the fighters and ourselves.”

A case could be made that Arreola should be fighting that many times a year anyways since he has yet to reach the top of the hill, but Williams was in the ring four times this year after picking up a world title in July of last year when he knocked off the heavily avoided Antonio Margarito for his WBO welterweight crown. Williams and his team have to be commended for even fighting Margarito in the first place. As we have seen in the case of Andre Berto, there is a much easier route to a world championship than fighting a man whose last loss against an opponent at 147 pounds came in 1996, when Margarito was barely eighteen years old.

Considering the result of the fight, a unanimous decision victory for Williams, his team knew what they were doing in putting him in the ring with Margarito. The victory instantly catapulted Williams to elite status and put him in talks concerning who the best 147-pounder in the world was. Many thought his team was crazy for throwing Williams into a fight with Margarito.

“There comes a point where you take that next step towards your goal and the time was right to do it at that point,” said Goossen. “Paul proved us right and it’s one of the great things about great fighters is that they make us look like geniuses,” Goossen said.

Following the Margarito win, Williams had a bit of a letdown when he lost a unanimous decision to Carlos Quintana in February of this year. Williams was originally slated to take on Kermit Cintron in an IBF/WBO unification bout, but when Cintron hurt his hand in a November fight with Jesse Feliciano, Quintana became the opponent. Regardless of how the fight came to be, Williams dropped a tough decision, but did not hang his head for long. He was back in the ring again in June, against the only man to hand Williams a professional loss. Williams went right after Quintana and scored a thrilling first round knockout, completely erasing his lone professional defeat.

With everybody at the top either avoiding Williams or fighting each other, Williams took a tune-up fight, but it came with a twist. Williams stepped in the ring again in September, fighting two weight-classes above where he was a world champion. His opponent was a capable one in Andy Kolle, whose only loss came at the hands of another Goossen fighter, 2004 Gold Medalist Andre Ward. Williams blasted Kolle out within a round, leaving fans wondering where he could go next. Not many fighters open a door wide enough for themselves where they can say they can legitimately fight for a world title in three different weight classes, but Williams took advantage of this. In his most recent bout just this past weekend, Williams picked up the WBO Interim 154-pound title against Verno Phillips, and in the process became the first man to stop the rugged Phillips in twenty years.

The most important thing to take away from Williams’ busy schedule is that all four of his bouts this year were nationally televised. He fought on HBO twice, Showtime once, and his tune-up bout with Kolle was televised by Versus. In order for boxing to fully develop “stars”, this is something that needs to be done. Fighting four times a year, on national television, can only do positive things to increase the awareness of a fighter.

Just look at what it has done to the career of Chris Arreola. In 2008, he went from being called a second-tier heavyweight by some to being universally recognized as the United States’ best heavyweight. His two biggest wins, over Chazz Witherspoon (23-0 at the time) and now Travis Walker (28-1-1 at the time) were both on HBO’s Boxing After Dark. His fight against Israel Garcia (19-1) was on Versus. Arreola’s weight problems have been well documented in the past. In his own words, Arreola says he needs to fight four or five times a year, otherwise he gets lazy. In his fight against Garcia, he was heavily chastised by the press for coming in 258 pounds, a career high. The criticism only forced Arreola to drop down to 254 for his win over Walker this past weekend. Arreola has stated in the past that for a fight with the Klitschkos he knows he would need to come to fight in much better shape. His fight with Witherspoon has shown that he is capable of working hard for a big enough fight, as he came into that contest (which was almost a pick’em fight) weighing 239 pounds.

Arreola coming in heavy for the Walker fight did have people wondering, especially after the beating he took through one and a half rounds at the hands of the 12-to-1 underdog Walker, if it was a huge issue. Arreola seemingly enjoyed taking some brutal punishment, and in his words this was his way of studying his opponent. “I wanted to see what kinds of punches he threw, whether they were looping punches or good straight punches,” said Arreola in response to why his defense was so poor early in the fight. It seems to be a much tougher way to learn how your opponent fights; most fighters seem to study their opponent on film rather than waiting to see what they offer them in the ring. That Arreola dealt with adversity in being knocked down by Walker in the second, only to come back and floor him twice in the same round, drew a positive reaction to the crowd. Arreola’s camp is happy that the adversity came in a fight like this rather than in a big fight that could happen down the road.

“That’s what a fighter or any athlete needs. You got to know how to come back from being 15 points down in the fourth quarter, or 5 points down at the end of a basketball game or a few runs down in the 9th and the only way to do that is to overcome it,” says Goossen. He continued, “And the best place to overcome that is on the way there and not when you get there.”

Another reason why this fighter has become so popular is the excitement he brings with him into the ring. In 26 fights, the distance has only been seen once, and that was in a six-round fight coming off a layoff, where he “surprisingly” weighed 256 pounds. His win over Witherspoon was all but officially a knockout, as Witherspoon was in shape to continue but was ruled disqualified when someone from his corner entered the ring. Another win of Arreola’s came when his opponent was so afraid of him in the ring he was disqualified for holding excessively and hitting on the break. Other than that, Arreola opponents have come into the ring only to crushingly get knocked out.

Arreola is not quite yet for a fight against either Klitschko, but what is great about the guy is that there are so many fights out there for him that the fans would love to see. Fights against guys like Eddie Chambers [32-1, 18 KOs] and Malik Scott [31-0, 11 KOs] would help make Arreola’s case as the best heavyweight in the States. Fights against Lamon Brewster [34-4, 30 KOs] and Oleg Maskaev [35-6, 26 KOs] would provide fireworks regardless of who wins. James Toney [70-6-3, 43 KOs] and Hasim Rahman [45-6-2, 36 KOs] would be tough tests for Arreola as experienced heavyweights. Of course the fight that everyone would love to see is Arreola taking on the United Kingdom’s David Haye [22-1, 21 KOs], who just had his first true test at heavyweight after completely cleaning out the cruiserweight division. The important thing is, there are very few places that Goossen-Tutor could go with Arreola that would leave me disappointed.

They have the same “problem” with Williams. Now that he is an active fighter in three different weight classes (147, 160, and now 154), there are lots of options for him out there. Two of them have all but been officially nixed as bouts with Antonio Margarito [37-5, 27 KOs], the WBA welterweight champion, and Vernon Forrest [41-3, 29 KOs], the once-again WBC junior middleweight champion, have roadblocks that prevent them from happening. With Margarito, it has been made public that Bob Arum, head of Top Rank and Margarito’s promoter, does not want to have anything to do with Williams’ camp again after negotiations broke down between the two sides on a proposed fight between Williams and middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.. A fight with Forrest does not look likely because both he and Williams are managed by Al Haymon.

Both fights could be big if they were somehow to be made. A rematch with Margarito would without a doubt determine the best 147-pounder in the world. A unification fight with Forrest could be big if held in Georgia, the home state for both fighters. Even with those two fights having a limited chance of being made, there are still other places Paul Williams could go that would satisfy the fans.

By becoming the interim WBO 154-pound champion, Williams becomes the mandatory to the undefeated WBO champion from Germany, Sergei Dzinziruk [36-0, 22 KOs]. Dzinziruk stated that he would like to fight Williams, but after he gets a unification bout with the WBA champion Daniel Santos [32-3-1, 23 KOs], a rematch from 2005 that saw Santos lose a close decision in Germany. Dzinziruk even said he would come to America for a Williams fight. At welterweight, there are matchups with IBF champion Joshua Clottey [35-2, 20 KOs] and WBC champion Andre Berto [23-0, 19 KOs] that could help clear up the picture at 147-pounds while a Margarito rematch lingers. There are also guys in the top ten or fifteen that would give Williams a test (much like Verno Phillips did) that include former-titlists Zab Judah [37-6, 25 KOs], Kermit Cintron [30-2, 27 KOs], and Shane Mosley [45-5, 38 KOs].

“All of those fights are on the table with us and what we’ll do is take the biggest one. That is what we are doing is looking for the biggest fights,” said Goossen.

It will be interesting to see where these two fighters go from here, because there are so many paths they can take. What you have are two fighters that stay active, take on all comers, and that also have great personalities. Arreola is a writer’s dream and as quotable of a fighter as there has been in recent times. Williams is a very humble person with a quiet confidence of himself wherever he is. It has been awhile since there have been two fighters in a situation like this. Hopefully this time the opportunity does not get squandered, like it has many times in the past. But if 2008 was any indication of what is still to come, then boxing fans are in for a treat.

Williams, Arreola "heavy" favorites

2008-11-29T00:48:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Tonight’s HBO Boxing After Dark card features two intriguing matchups in the inaugural boxing show at Ontario , California ’s new Citizens Bank Arena. In tonight’s main event, Paul Williams [35-1, 26 KOs ] seeks his second world title when he takes on Verno Phillips [42-10-1, 21 KOs ] for the interim WBO Junior Middleweight championship. The co-featured bout is an IBF eliminator between undefeated Mexican-American heavyweight Chris Arreola [25-0, 22 KOs ] and Travis Walker [ 28-1-1 , 22 KOs ].

Williams and Arreola were both featured on the same Versus card at the end of September and both fighters scored exciting knockouts. Williams made his middleweight debut in a first round knockout of the game Andy Kolle while Arreola scored a third round stoppage of Israel Garcia. Williams is facing a much stiffer test tonight in the tough Verno Phillips, who made his professional debut back in 1988, when Williams was seven years old. Williams is also looking for his second world title in his second different weight class, as he is still currently the WBO Welterweight champion. Phillips picked up his second world title when he upset Cory Spinks for the IBF Junior Middleweight title in March of this year. Phillips has dropped that belt to pursue this fight for the WBO interim title and a fight on HBO. Phillips has rejuvenated his career with four straight victories including the upset over Spinks. Although Phillips has ten losses on his ledger, he was only stopped one time and that was in his fifth professional bout. Williams weighed in at 153.5 while Phillips came in at the junior middleweight limit of 154. Williams is a 9-1 favorite heading into the fight.

The opening bout of the televised portion of the card is the twelve round heavyweight attraction between Arreola and Walker. Arreola, the heavy favorite at 12-1, has come in heavy for the second straight fight weighing in at 254 while Walker has come in at a fit 231, the lightest he has ever been. Arreola is from nearby Riverside , California and will have the hometown crowd in his favor for tonight’s bout. The winner of this bout will become Wladimir Klitschko’s new IBF mandatory.

Also on the card tonight is a 2008 United States Olympian in East Los Angeles’ Shawn Estrada who is making his professional debut at junior middleweight against Lawrence Jones [2-1-1, KO] of Washington, D.C. Estrada weighed in at 163.5, while Jones came in at 159 for this scheduled four-round bout.

Also being featured tonight is Bakersfield , California ’s undefeated junior welterweight prospect Mike Dallas, Jr. [5-0, KO] in his first six rounder against Jose Alfredo Lugo [10-5, 5 KOs] of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico. Dallas was scheduled to take on Lugo twice before, with the most recent postponement being due to Dallas having surgery on his nose. Dallas weighed in at the 140 pound limit while Lugo came in light at 138.5.

Heavyweights Manuel Quezada [24-4, 15 KOs ] and Teke Oruh [ 14-1-1 , 6 KOs ] will do battle in the second fight of the night for Quezada’s WBC CABOFE heavyweight title. This is an interesting fight for many reasons, with one of them being that these two have been scheduled to fight each other on a number of occasions, but for one reason or another the fight never went off. Their bout was at one point going to be a headlining bout in San Jose , California until Oruh suffered an injury. This fight lives up to the slogan for tonight’s card of “At Last”, as we finally will get to see who the better heavyweight is. Quezada, who is out of Wasco , California weighed in 230 while Las Vegas , Nevada ’s Oruh weighed in at 249 for this scheduled ten round bout.

The opening bout of tonight’s show is a junior welterweight bout between Riverside , California ’s Josesito Lopez [22-3, 13 KOs ] and late substitution Alex Perez [23-31-4, 18 KOs ]. The scheduled eight-round attraction is Lopez’ first fight since his controversial majority decision loss to Edgar Santana on Showtime back in April, and is expected to be a bounce back fight for him. That was a bout in which Lopez dropped his opponent twice and still was given a raw deal on the scorecards. Lopez weighed in at 141.5 while Perez came in a half pound heavier at 142.

Tonight’s card is promoted by Goossen-Tutor Promotions and the televised portion of the card will begin at 7 PM Pacific time. The main event is scheduled to start around 8 PM .

Frankel decisions older Pacquiao!

2008-11-21T02:55:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Thursday night saw Robert Frankel [26-9-2, 4 KOs] of Denver, Colorado deliver a tremendous effort en route to a unanimous decision victory over Bobby Pacquiao [29-15-3, 14 KOs] of the Philippines at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. The fight turned out to be a worthy, although one-sided main event, with lots of back and forth action throughout. The final scores read 98-91 unanimously in favor of Frankel, who has now won his fifth straight fight in a row after dropping his first two of 2008.Yes, this was Frankel’s seventh fight of 2008, and it may have been the best year of his career.

Although Frankel entered this fight with only four knockouts in thirty-five professional bouts, it was apparent very early on that he was the stronger fighter. Frankel was able to snap Pacquiao’s head back on plenty of occasions, and he seemed to do more damage. Pacquiao had moments where he landed well behind the jab, but he left himself too open to straight right hands from Frankel to warrant being awarded very many rounds. Pacquiao has now lost three straight but looked better in this fight than in his last two defeats and can still deliver a watchable fight.

Following the bout, Frankel had this to say when asked what it as like to add a big name like Pacquiao to his ledger. “I take every fight like it is a big fight, no matter who it is,” explains Frankel. “That is Pacquiao’s brother, it is a good name to have [on my record,] but it is not Pacquiao. Not the big man. But I am ready for him.”

In the co-featured bout, Chika Nakamura [8-0, 3 KOs] of New York, New York scored a controversial unanimous decision over Tiffany Junot [4-2, 3 KOs] of New Orleans, Louisiana in an exciting six round female lightweight bout. Although Nakamura was coming forward, many felt that Junot was landing the more effective blows. Junot seemed to be throwing more in combinations and got stronger as the bout progressed, while Nakamura was throwing one to two punches at a time.

The difference may have been Nakamura started and ended strongly. The first and last rounds were here best, while Junot did better in the middle part of the fight. Although the scorecards of 58-56 across the board drew the jeers of the crowd, it would be incorrect to classify this as a robbery as each round was razor-thin close. UBR scored the bout 58-56 in favor of Junot.

The only complaint could be that nobody officially scoring the bout was able to find the fight either a draw or for Junot. This was a fight that drew lots of attention from the crowd and may have been the best fight of the night, and could possibly lead to a rematch. Following the fight, Junot mentioned that she wished that it was an eight round fight because she was ready to keep going, so potentially they could fight down the line.

Also featured on the card was a thrilling four-round super middleweight contest that saw Roberto Florentino [3-3, 3 KOs] of Indianapolis, Indiana knock out Jason “J.P.” Peterson [2-2, KO] of San Francisco, California in the third round. Both fighters came out quickly with Florentino setting the pace for this fight by throwing lots of punches, all with bad intentions on them. Peterson was happy to oblige Florentino and willingly entered into a slugfest. Florentino was the quicker fighter and landed at will for the most part. Florentino also did not fail to offer openings to Peterson who dropped some good right hands on the southpaw that Florentino took very well. Peterson did not take the punches quite as well and got hit by a huge shot that staggered him against the ropes and prompted the referee to issue a count. Peterson boldly rose to his feet but when he arose the referee asked him vital questions that Peterson did not respond to. The time of the stoppage was 1:48 in the third round. This will be Peterson’s last fight before he goes to prison for five years stemming from a drug charge from years ago.

In a circus-like attraction, five-foot-six Karim Mayfield [7-0-1, 5 KOs] of Daly City, California shut out the six-foot-fight Trenton Titsworth [2-6-1, 2 KOs] of Omaha, Nebraska in a four round welterweight bout. Although the fight was not very pleasing to watch, much of it can be hung on the huge size disparage between the two fighters and the fact that one fighter did not come to fight. Titsworth held for much of the fight, and at one point failed to launch a punch for over three and a half minutes. Mayfield had to try and land punches and his nearly foot taller opponent, which would give anyone some trouble. When Mayfield was able to land, he was effective and had Titsworth in trouble multiple times. Mayfield was originally slated to take on Abel Perry [9-2] in a six rounder, but an injury forced a new opponent and for the fight to only be a four rounder. This was Mayfield’s first bout back since his exciting March victory over Francisco Santana at a Fight Night at the Tank. The official scores of the bout were 40-36 across the board. UBR also scored the bout 40-36 in favor of Mayfield.

Welterweight Eric Garcia [3-0-1, KO] of Salinas, California scored a four round unanimous decision over Pueblo, Colorado’s Geoffrey Spruiell [7-7, 2 KOs]. The first round was fought pretty evenly with Garcia pressing the action. In the second, Garcia threw an accurate right hand that dropped Spruiell brutally. Spruiell somehow recovered from the shot and made it out of the round despite his opponent going for the kill. Garcia was not able to finish his opponent and had to settle for a unanimous decision victory in which all the judges scored the bout 39-36. UBR scored it a shutout, 40-35, for Garcia.

In a heavyweight four rounder, Yohan Banks [2-1-1, KO] of San Jose, California scored a brutal knockout over San Francisco, California’s Bernard Gray [2-3] in the second round. A pretty uneventful fight took a sharp turn when Banks threw a wild right hand uppercut that dropped Gray and prompted the referee to not even issue a count.

In the card’s opening bout, hometown girl Melissa McCorrow scored a four round unanimous decision over Gloria Salas of Cathedral City, California. McCorrow was very well received and had her own cheering section, but the rest of the crowd joined in when they saw what was happening in the ring. There was a lot of back and forth action over the course of all four rounds, with McCorrow throwing a great jab and landing good shots to the body that slowed her opponent down. Salas had her moments, backing McCorrow up a few times, but she was not the busier fighter. The official scoring of the bout was 40-36, 40-36, and 39-37.

This was the first Fight Night at the Tank promoted by Sycuan Ringside Promotions and 3,453 people attended the show. The Fight Night at the Tank will return to San Jose in 2009.

All photos taken by Rocky Widner.

Quezada shuts out Greeley!

2008-08-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark Ortega

On Thursday, August 21st, the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore , California saw Manuel Quezada win a ten-round unanimous decision over Andrew Greeley to headline an eight-bout boxing card promoted by Goossen-Tutor Promotions. The card also featured four MMA bouts following the night’s boxing action.

Quezada [ 24-4-0 , 15 KOs ] was the more active fighter for the duration of the bout while Greeley [14-23-2, 8 KOs ] fought in spurts. Quezada did his best work when he had his opponent against the ropes, ripping combinations of hooks to the body and head. Greeley was effective when he threw punches, but never did enough work to warrant winning a round. All three judges scored the bout, 100-90. Ultimate Boxing Results also scored the bout, 100-90.

Quezada hopes to now step up in competition and fight against someone in the top twenty or twenty-five in the heavyweight division. Names that Quezada mentioned following his victory included Chazz Witherspoon, Derrick Rossy, Teke Oruh, and Alonzo Butler. Oruh was named as Quezada’s opponent for this card, but has twice pulled out of fighting him. Greeley, who was a late substitution, defeated Joey Abell by knockout. Abell is the man who handed Oruh his lone professional loss in November of 2007.

In the co-featured bout, WBC Minimumweight champion Carino Moreno of Watsonville, California dominated Yahaira Martinez of Puerto Rico in a ten-round bout. Moreno [ 19-1-0 , 5 KOs ] was just a class above in every aspect over her opponent, using her superior boxing skills and smarts to win a wide decision. The three judges scored the bout 100-90, 100-90, and 97-93. UBR scored the bout, 100-90. The fight was originally planned to be for Moreno ’s title as well as a vacant belt, but Martinez [ 7-3-0 , 4 KOs ] came in over weight and was not interested in dropping the necessary weight to fight for the title. Moreno will likely fight next on October 23rd at the Tachi Palace Casino.

Las Vegas , Nevada ’s Dewey Cooper [ 17-1-3 , 11 KOs ] went ten rounds for the first time in his career, winning an uneventful unanimous decision over Galen Brown [ 30-9-1 , 19 KOs ] of St. Joseph , Missouri . Brown seemed content with clowning around for most of the bout, keeping his hands low and egging Cooper on. Cooper was the far superior athlete but seemed tentative in pressing the action, doing enough to just win rounds instead of trying to hurt his opponent. The tenth round was the most exciting of the bout, with Cooper hurting Brown and nearly putting him down before the final bell rang. All three judges scored the bout, 99-91.

Aaron Alafa [2-0-0, KO] of Visalia , California picked up his second professional win to begin his career when he beat Greg McDowell [0-1-0] via nineteen second destruction. Alafa finished McDowell with the first right hook he threw, and as soon as he went down the referee stopped the bout as McDowell had no idea where he was.

Junior welterweight prospect Mike Dallas, Jr. [5-0-0, KO] of Bakersfield, California scored the first knockout of his professional career in emphatic fashion when he disposed of Cincinnati, Ohio’s James Helmes [6-2-0, 2 KOs] in 1:45 seconds of the opening stanza. Dallas was patient in looking for openings, and even threw his opponent off with a bolo punch before landing a devastating right hook that put Helmes down. The hook came immediately after Dallas had rolled one of Helmes’ punches, and he then came forward with all of his power to knock Helmes out. Dallas has three fights on the horizon in the next few months, starting with a September 11th bout in San Jose at the HP Pavilion. Dallas was also making his debut as a Goossen-Tutor promoted fighter, having just signed a contract with the promotion days before the fight.

In a bout for the vacant WBC International Super Bantamweight title, Dominga Olivo [7-4-1] of Monticello, New York upset former amateur star Ana Julaton [4-1-1, KO] of Daly City, California in an exciting bout via eight-round split decision. The first round was a close one that saw Julaton’s superior boxing skills meet Olivo’s rough brawling tactics. Olivo built a lead by bullying Julaton on the inside, Julaton did her best work using her boxing ability and working from the outside with her jab, but too many times she allowed herself to fall into a trap and try and outwork her opponent from close range. Olivo slowed down a bit in the sixth and seventh rounds which allowed Julaton back into the fight, but then she won the eighth round wide to claim a victory. The judges scored the bout 79-73 and 77-75 for Olivo while one judge scored the bout 77-75 for Julaton. Julaton trainer Freddie Roach expressed that although he thought the decision was fair, he would like to see Ana get a rematch with Oliva as soon as possible.

Madera , California ’s Joaquin Marquez [4-0-1, 3 KOs ] scored a four-round majority decision over Loren Myers [ 6-4-0 , 2 KOs ] of Fresno , California in a super middleweight contest. Marquez was the bigger puncher, landing numerous bombs that had Myers hurt. An uppercut in the second round rocked Myers, who responded by clowning around.. The judges scored the bout 40-36 and 39-37 for Marquez while one judge had it a draw at 38-38. UBR scored the bout, 39- 37 in favor of Marquez.

In the card’s opening bout, Carlos Nevarez [14-16-1, 5 KOs ] of Denver , Colorado scored a minor upset over James Ventry [ 6-5-1 , 4 KOs ] of Niagara Falls , New York via six-round majority decision in a junior welterweight bout.

Boxing returns to the Tachi Palace , October 23rd in a Goossen-Tutor Promotions event.

Mark Ortega can be reached by e-mail at mark@ultimateboxingresults.com.

All photos taken by Jason Pachura.

Margarito-Mayweather: This era's Hagler-Leonard?

2008-07-31T02:05:00.000-07:00

Mark Ortega

When Antonio Margarito defeated Miguel Cotto in late July, it opened up a small possibility for a 147-pound mega-fight down the line between Margarito and the undefeated, and now retired, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Although many find it unlikely that Floyd would fight Margarito if he returned, there are many factors that lead me to believe that there is some potential for this fight happening sometime in the future.

When Sugar Ray Leonard initially retired in 1982, it all but killed any possibility of a fight with middleweight king Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Leonard had even invited Hagler to a ceremony in which everyone figured was Leonard’s way of challenging the 160-pound champion to a big money showdown between the two. Instead, Leonard said that although a fight between the two could be one of the greatest ever, it would never happen, thus announcing his retirement. Hagler went on to dominate the middleweight division for half a decade longer before finally luring Leonard out of retirement to fight him, and the fight only happened on Leonard’s terms. Although they competed in two separate weight classes, there are many similarities between the two sets of fighters. Margarito, like Hagler, was underappreciated for most of his career. His six-year reign as WBO Welterweight Champion went largely unnoticed by mainstream coverage, as Margarito was constantly being overshadowed by other names in the division including Zab Judah, Miguel Cotto, Ricardo Mayorga, Vernon Forrest, and Mayweather, Jr.

It wasn’t until Margarito completely took apart Cotto in their July showdown that he began to be mentioned as an elite fighter. Much was the same for Hagler, who until his three-round destruction of Thomas Hearns, was very much ignored in talks of who the top fighters in the sport were. The way that Margarito is built is a lot like Hagler. Margarito is undoubtedly the best chin in the sport, as well as one of the best conditioned fighters. He cannot be hurt and he never slows down. Hagler only was briefly wobbled in his fight against Hearns, who was the biggest puncher pound-for-pound in the sport at the time. Hagler also never slowed down and usually got better as the fight went on, which is something Margarito is known for. Those attributes were key to Margarito knocking out Cotto in July. With Mayweather now out of the sport and Cotto’s aura of invincibility dented, Margarito has taken center stage in the welterweight division and has a few potentially big fights on the horizon. If Margarito can run through the ranks at 147, there is a chance he could lure Mayweather out of retirement for a super-fight.

Much like Sugar Ray Leonard, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. was destined to be a world champion and a pound-for-pound great. His early bouts were televised, he made very good fighters look ordinary, and he didn’t lose. It was never a matter of if Mayweather would be a world champion, but a matter of when. He won his first world title in 1998 when he beat Genaro Hernandez, a good fighter, to win the WBC version of the 130-pound title. In 2001 he utterly destroyed an undefeated Diego Corrales, knocking him down five times during the bout before it was stopped in the tenth. He also scored two close, disputed wins over Jose Luis Castillo in his first bouts as a lightweight. For the first part of his career, he fought the best competition that was available, much like Sugar Ray Leonard..

Leonard won his first world title in 1979 when he scored a victory over Wilfred Benitez, who at the time had never lost a fight. Two fights later, he fought and lost to Roberto Duran by decision, but five months later made Duran quit to regain his belt. Less than a year later, he knocked out the undefeated Thomas Hearns in a welterweight unification bout. On top of his stellar career, Leonard was also by far the most famous boxer in the United States , maybe even the world. Leonard used that fame to then fight less than stellar competition when there were more important bouts out there. Leonard fought against guys like Larry Bonds and Bruce Finch when there was potential to fight a rematch with Benitez, or a rubber match with Duran instead of making him wait nine years like he did with Thomas Hearns, another fighter he could have fought at the time. This compares very well to Mayweather, who as the recognized welterweight champion of the world fought Oscar De la Hoya, who fights at junior middleweight, and Ricky Hatton, who fights as a junior welterweight. Mayweather could have attempted to fight the more important fights in terms of clearing up his own division by fighting guys like Cotto, Margarito, or Paul Williams. Instead he opted for the big paydays that came in less risky bouts.

About half a year following his win over Ricky Hatton, Mayweather retired. Why would anyone think there is chance of a Mayweather comeback? The same reasons that Leonard ended up fighting a second and third stint. It is plausible that Mayweather would miss the limelight enough to return for a mega-fight that guarantees him to be the talk of the sporting world again.

There are only two real chances this fight has of happening. One, Margarito could dominate welterweight for a few years in the way that Hagler took apart the middleweight division in Leonard’s absence from the sport. If Margarito could put together an impressive run over the next few years, he could make his case. A perfect world would see Margarito fighting a rematch with Clottey in November, then following that up with a title defense against Shane Mosley in early to mid-2009, and then closing the year with a welterweight unification rematch with Paul Williams to determine who is the world’s best welterweight. If Margarito could pull that off, it would be hard for Floyd to come back and not fight Margarito.

The other possibility is that Margarito somehow finds himself lucky enough to win the Oscar De la Hoya sweepstakes and take the Golden Boy out in a more emphatic fashion than Floyd was able to. If Margarito were to fight Oscar, he would likely knock him out in the middle rounds rather than edge a split decision like Floyd. Unfortunately, Oscar has come up with every possible excuse to avoid fighting Margarito, and with Oscar signed to fight Manny Pacquiao at the end of the year, a Margarito-De la Hoya fight is dead.

The first scenario is the much more likely of the two, and even that seems farfetched.. Hopefully, for our fans’ sake, Margarito becomes Marvelous over the next few years and lures Mayweather out of retirement for the most important fight of the decade.

Disgrace gone unpunished

2008-06-01T11:55:00.000-07:00

Mark Ortega

On May 30th, something truly disgraceful happened in the boxing world that has gone largely unnoticed.

The bout in which so much corruption and incompetency occurred was a heavyweight bout between Konstantin Airich and Danny Williams in Pais Vasco, Spain.

To start, Williams was deducted two points for a second low blow in the second round. The referee initially issued a standing eight count for the second low blow, but then took away two points from Williams. He couldn’t make up his mind whether it was a knockdown or a low blow, but then deducted points. If it were a low blow, normally a fighter would be deducted one point or even issued a second warning before points were taken away. In the third round, Williams was given two standing eight counts. Williams was hit by a hard shot against the ropes that staggered him, and since he was against the ropes I can see how a standing count was fair in that instance. Also in the third round, the tape comes severely loose from Williams’ glove, but the referee does nothing about it. Williams is stunned by a punch and finds his balance but is quickly issued another standing eight count. It is during this time that Williams himself had to remove the tape from his glove.

In the fourth round, Williams was issued a count after throwing a right hand that missed and falling. This means a third “knockdown” was awarded to Airich.

In the fifth round, Williams knocked Airich down legitimately, and the referee gave Airich nearly thirty seconds to recover.

In the sixth round, the most disgusting thing I have seen happen in a bout in a long time occurred when Airich was badly hurt by Williams a minute or so into the round. At this juncture, Airich’s PROMOTER Ahmet Oner of ArenaBox Promotions, went and rung the bell, and the round was declared over.

In the seventh round, Williams swarmed a badly hurt Airich and the towel was thrown in by Oner, probably to try and save face for the debacle that happened in the previous round. Oner also had no right to throw in the towel, as he was not part of Airich’s corner.

The sixth round in particular just mesmerized me in terms of what happened. It was almost comical how badly they were trying to save their fighter from a loss. Oner should be at the very least be fined a large amount of money, if not barred from the sport altogether.

Another thing that I have yet to conclude is why the boxing media has failed to report most of this, or even mention how corrupt this fight was. No website I have browsed has even a mention of Oner being the one who rang the bell about a minute and a half early. ArenaBox Promotion’s website fails to even mention that the sixth round was halted early. This was obviously omitted for a reason.

Not only should Oner be seriously penalized, but the referee of the bout, Alfedo Garcia Perez, should never be allowed to officiate a professional bout ever again. In the fifth round, Perez was yelling at Williams in Spanish. Danny Williams does not speak Spanish, so he obviously had no idea what Perez was saying. The only way the referee was able to show Williams he was doing wrong was by waving his finger at him and shouting “No, no,” as if Williams was a young child who had done something wrong. The referee failing to stop the action to remove loose tape from Williams’ gloves was also vastly overlooked without reason. The fact that the fighter himself had to remove loose tape from his gloves is more than ridiculous.

What happened during this fight that is even more disappointing is that it was an otherwise exciting fight, especially by today’s heavyweight standards. Both fighters were throwing hurtful bombs with bad intentions, but it will forever be overshadowed by the fact that the fight was riddled with corruption and incompetence.

Arena Promotions have since replied to Mark Ortega with this statement:

Dear Mr. Ortega,

First of all I want to thank you for asking for our side of this story. I understand your anger but before you blame Ahmet Öner and ARENA Box-Promotion please keep in mind that it was Mr. Öner personally who threw in the towel to end the fight IN FAVOUR OF DANNY WILLIAMS. If he had in mind to cheat on Danny or steal the victory from him that would have been the stupidest thing to do – especially considering that Konstantin Airich was way ahead on all scorecards.

To clarify the situation below you find the official statement of Mr. Öner.

Ahmet Öner on Konstantin Airich vs. Danny Williams on May 30th in Bilbao : “First of all I want to apologize for all the confusion in this fight. And I want to point out that I never meant to cheat on Danny ion any way. If it would have been my goal to steal the victory from him I wouldn’t have thrown in the towel at a point were Konstantin was leading on all scorecards.

To me the first couple of rounds between Konstantin Airich and Danny Williams have been the most entertaining I’ve seen in a while in heavyweight boxing. Konstantin showed a great performance and impressed Danny with his enormous power and very hard hands and sent him to the canvas a couple of times. The way Danny recovered from that and came back to win the fight with all his experience was very impressive as well. The main problem of the fight, however, was very poor refereeing and the officials of the local commission.

Regarding this I want to make clear that the show was only co-promoted by ARENA and we didn’t bring German officials to Spain but worked with the local commission in Bilbao . I didn’t know anybody of the officials before the fight and to me they really turned this great bout into a farce. The referee was at no point in control of the action inside the ring. When Danny’s tape loosened from his glove the ref wouldn’t stop the bout to have it fixed. At one point the ref even tried to wrap the tape around the glove himself which looked really stupid to me after that he even ripped it off completely. In addition to that he warned Danny and deducted points in strange situations, he gave him a standing eight-count which wouldn’t have happened in Germany and he saw knockdowns where the fighters obviously slipped. The supervisor did nothing to correct the referee and what the timekeepers did was the biggest disgrace. They stopped the breaks prematurely and had one round – I think it was the 5th – going for 3:30..

Because the fight was very exciting but disturbed by poor refereeing I got very angry and started to argue with the officials. Additionally I had heard after the 3rd round that Konstantin had problems with his left hand and seemed to be seriously injured. So when Danny started to attack Konstantin in the 6th I shouted at the officials to stop the fight. Actually Konstantin’s trainer didn’t think that his fighter was in danger so he didn’t throw in the towel what would have been the best at this point of time. I thought Konstantin might get knocked out hard as I know that Danny can do some damage. So I kept on shouting ‘Stop the fight!’ and meant that it should have been a tko for Danny at this point. This situation led to the ringing of the bell with 1:30 to go in the round. As the officials acted as if nothing had happened and just started the 7th round after a break I threw in the towel to end all discussions. I never meant to cheat on Danny or to steal the victory from him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have thrown the towel in.

Unlike other (German) promoters I stand for boxing as a sport. I want to see interesting fights and great action inside the ring. That’s why I do the aggressive matchmaking I’m known for. No other promoter in the world would have let a guy with only 10 pro-fights take on a world class fighter like Danny Williams. In addition to that I didn’t do the fight on German soil or with German officials like other German promoters do it to control the judging. We went to neutral soil which proofed to be a mistake as this local commission really did a bad job. I think the first half of the fight showed that it was a good match-up. That this was ruined by poor refereeing teaches me not to work with inexperienced referees and officials again. And I regret the mistake I made in choosing Bilbao as place for the fight to happen.

I hope that Danny understands my motives and what happened in Bilbao . And I hope that he didn’t mean to accuse me personally but point on a problem we have in professional boxing in general: Promoters impinging on officials to have their fighters win. This might be a typical German problem but I am not a typical German promoter – I am Turkish; I work internationally; and I am a boxing fan as well which means I want to see great fights with fair decisions. Everybody who accuses me personally should not forget that it was me who ended the fight in favour of Danny and that I saw Sinan Samil Sam losing to Oliver McCall in Ankara one year ago which wouldn’t have happened one of the other ‘typical German promoters’.

After all I hope that Danny gives Konstantin a rematch one day after he recovers from his broken hand because I think Konstantin deserves it as he really showed a hack of a fight which shouldn’t be forgotten besides all the anger and confusion.”

Griffin dominates Cockerham!

2008-05-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

Mark Ortega

It was a successful night at the Red Lion Hotel for Sacramento as all four of it’s local fighters won fights. Leading the way were veterans Otis Griffin and Michael Simms, who both won by unanimous decision in their co-main events.

Otis Griffin picked up a win in the light heavyweight division by battering journeyman Carl Cockerham over six rounds en route to a unanimous decision. Griffin [19-3-2] had Cockerham hurt and nearly out a few times, most notably in the second round right before the bell. The referee went to break the action as if he was stopping the fight, even to the point of holding the hurt fighter, but the bell rang and he then dismissed it and allowed the fight to go on. Cockerham [12-18-3] took many punishing shots and was there to land quite a few good blows himself. “Carl is a tough guy. I mean, Mario Veit couldn’t even knock him out so that says something. He also doesn’t throw enough shots to get knocked out. It is hard to knockout a guy who is always coming in with his guard up.” He had his moments throughout the fight but was unable to put much together in terms of winning rounds. Griffin landed the straighter punches, while Cockerham was more looking for the one big shot throughout the fight.

This is Griffin’s first win since losing to Jesse Brinkley in February, in a fight where he came in totally weight drained. “I want to get three wins here in Sacramento, and then start getting in the mix with the bigger names. I want to take my time, it should happen this year. When I had my belt, I should have sat there and waited,” Griffin said. “I am gonna stay at light heavyweight and get all those belts. Right now I would like to fight Tavoris Cloud, who has my old (WBO NABO) belt that I never lost. He has the belt, but I think he should give me that chance. He didn’t beat the man; he beat the man next to the man.”

Michael Simms ended his career long five fight losing streak by winning a unanimous decision over former Roy Jones, Jr. opponent Derrick Harmon in six rounds. Simms [20-9-1] was able to drop Harmon in the first round and had him badly hurt, but did not jump on him and wasn’t able to finish him. Harmon [25-7] outworked Simms over the next five rounds, but the judges believed that Simms must have been more effective with his shots. There were some sparks with twenty seconds left in the sixth as both fighters knew that whoever won the sixth round likely won the fight. Simms ended up winning by a wider margin than the fight would make you believe, with scores of 58-55 (x2) and 57-56. Harmon was coming off of a nearly two year layoff, and seemed upset at the result of the fight. “He dropped me in the first, but then I feel I won the next five rounds.”

Brandon Gonzales got his fourth straight knockout in four professional fights over Mike Alexander, but not before having to deal with his first taste of adversity. Gonzales [4-0] was dropped by Alexander from a glancing blow in the first round, but then got up and won the rest of the round. Alexander [1-2-2] was having some problems with his hand somewhere along the bout, and Gonzales was able to put his combinations together before finally walking Alexander down and dropping him with a vicious left body blow. Alexander didn’t beat the count and the bout was stopped at the 2:50 mark. “It was a good fight, you know first round I came out kinda sleeping and be got me but then I got him out of there in the second round. Gonzales also added, “I knew I needed to go to the body, he had his ear muffs on. He has a long torso so there was a lot of opportunities to get him downstairs, and that is how we finished him.” Gonzales will also be July card in Sacramento.

In the opening bout, Stan Martyniouk scored his first professional knockout as he was able to finish Matt Mahler at the thirty second mark of the opening round with a flury of punches followed by a right hook. Mahler [0-1] started off swarming Martyniouk, but his superb defense wasted all of Mahler’s shots. Martyniouk worked patiently behind his combinations and scored a devastating knockout near the ropes. “It was his pro debut, I knew he was going to jump on me. I knew I just had to be patient,” Martyniouk said. Stan moves to 3-0 and will definitely be fighting on the next Sacramento card in July, but he hopes to fit in a fight before then as well.
A bout was scrapped at the last minute between Geraldo Lopez and Tyrone Scott. Lopez will likely be fighting on the July Sacramento card, as well.

The card was promoted by Uppercut Promotions and was held at the Red Lion Hotel in Sacramento.

Ward stops Williams!

2008-03-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

Mark Ortega

Andre Ward took his biggest step up Thursday night and was successful, stopping veteran Rubin Williams in the seventh round at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California, in front of 4,588 fans. This was the 2004 sole Olympic gold medal winning fighter’s biggest test to date, and he dominated every second of the fight from the opening bell. Ward [15-0] did what Allan Green could not do, stopping Williams for the first time since his TKO loss to Jeff Lacy, in a fight he was winning up until that point, back in 2005. Williams [29-4] has lost his second straight fight and has not picked up a win since August of 2006.

Ward worked behind his jab for the duration of the fight, and even turned southpaw in the third round, something he said he never worked on in camp. Ward pressed the action, while Williams was content in sitting back and looking for one big punch. A cut was opened up in the second round near Williams’ left eye, which helped slow Williams down. Ward’s best punch of the night was the uppercut, which stunned Williams numerous times throughout the contest.

Ward doesn’t know what is next for him, but when asked about a potential fight with Allan Green, he said it was inevitable for them to meet sometime in the future. Ward’s promoter, Dan Goosen, has said they are looking at June for his next fight. Goosen also mentioned that they tried getting fights with Contender champion Sakio Bika, former Contender contestant Peter Manfredo, Jr., and Canadian prospect Jean Pascal. Ward’s team also believes they will go after a regional title in his next affair.

In the co-main event, Karim Mayfield [6-0-1] won a contested six-round split decision over Francisco Santana [8-1]. The fight started off slowly, with both fighters having success in the opening rounds. But it was in the fourth round that the fight changed, when Santana landed a flurry that had Mayfield noticeably hurt against the ropes. Mayfield looked in bad shape but was able to stay on his feet, nearly being knocked down at the end of the round when he crashed to the canvas in what the referee ultimately ruled was a slip. In the fifth, Mayfield was still on weak legs and did his best to survive, while Santana continued throwing everything he had. In the final round, Mayfield had his legs back and was the one going for the kill, hurting Santana numerous times and nearly knocking him down. When the decision was announced, two judges had it 58-56 for Mayfield with one judge having it 58-56 for Santana. The decision was loudly booed by the crowd, who seemed to be in Santana’s corner throughout the bout.

After the fight, Santana said he wished he had two more rounds, because he thinks he could have finished Mayfield if the fight went on longer. “I would love a rematch with him, maybe take a few fights in between, but definitely meet up again somewhere down the line, but make it eight rounds this time. Maybe we could headline here, because I know we could pack the place.”

WBC Minimumweight title-holder Carina Moreno [17-1] continued her march towards a date with Eileen Olszewski in June on a female pay-per-view card by winning a unanimous decision over the game Mayela Perez [7-6-1]. Both fighters were willing to trade and never seemed to tire, and this was a good stay busy fight for Moreno while she waits for a title defense against Dan-Bi Kim and her fight with Olszewski. All three judges scored the bout, 40-36. The victory also won Moreno the AM&I Cup and a $500 bonus for winning the “You Be the Judge” contest, which was given to the best performance of all the four round preliminary fights.

Rico Ramos [1-0] won a unanimous decision in his professional debut against Sammy Yniguez [2-2-1]. Ramos dominated the fight, hurting and nearly stopping Yniguez multiple times. Ramos landed some uppercuts that would have put most fighters down, but Yniguez seemed to have a chin made of granite, and would get his legs back soon after being stunned. All three judges scored the bout 40-36, and Ramos said he will next be fighting on the Antonio Tarver-Danny Green/Chad Dawson-Glen Johnson double header on April 12th against a yet to be determined opponent.

Eric Garcia [0-0-1] fought to a majority draw in his professional debut with Marlo Cortez [2-4-2]. Garcia seemingly won the first two rounds with ease, but in the third round, Cortez was backing Garcia straight backwards and was landing some good combinations in the process. Cortez controlled the first two minutes of the round, while Garcia was the aggressor over the final minute. In the fourth round, both fighters went to war, with Cortez getting the best of it to start the round. When the referee stopped the action to examine a cut under the left eye of Cortez, Garcia got his second wind and swarmed his opponent to close the final minute of the fight. Unfortunately for Garcia, it was only enough to win on one judge’s scorecard 39-37, while the other two judges scored it even at 38-38. Garcia’s camp could not believe the outcome. “I went in and I got robbed. It hurts. I feel bad for the next opponent.”

In the opening fight, Mike Dallas, Jr. [1-0] emerged victorious against Alejandro Balladares [0-1] in a fight between guys making their professional debuts. Dallas, Jr. earned a unanimous decision by using his noticeably quicker hands and superior skills. Dallas had Balladares hurt a few times, but was unable to put his opponent down. The judges all scored the bouth 40-36 in favor of Dallas. Dallas will next be fighting on April 26th in Porterville, California.

The card was promoted by Goosen Tutor Promotions. Both the headlining and co-headlining bouts will appear on Fox Sports Net’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period” on March 27th. All of the preliminary fights are also said to be broadcast on Fox Sports Net. The next Fight Night at the Tank is scheduled for June 19th.

Brinkley TKOs Griffin!

2008-02-23T02:01:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

In a main event featuring two former boxing reality stars, “Contender” star Jesse Brinkley emerged victorious via eleventh round knockout over Otis Griffin, the winner of “The Next Great Champ”, earning him the vacant WBC USNBC Super Middleweight Championship in the process.

Brinkley [ 30-5-0 ] controlled the fight from the opening bell, pressuring Griffin all night against the ropes. The overhand right was the punch that landed all night for Brinkley, but it was the left hook which put Griffin down in the tenth and ultimately finished him in the eleventh. Griffin [ 18-3-2 ] had trouble all night landing anything of meaning, and never had Brinkley in any sort of real trouble. Brinkley was able to bully Griffin against the ropes and control the tempo of the fight and won nearly every round before dropping Griffin at the end of the tenth round. A bombardment of punches to start the eleventh prompted the referee to wave the bout off, much to Griffin ’s decline. Griffin is expected to continue fighting as a light heavyweight, as he had a lot of trouble making super middleweight and was noticeably drained heading into the fight. When asked what his future holds, Brinkley stated, “I am looking for that world championship. I am hoping to have a couple more fights before challenging for a world title on HBO.” In the co-feature, a rematch between Glenn Donaire and Jose Albuquerque won the fans over in what is surely one of the best fights of 2008. Unfortunately, only the fans in attendance were able to view this as the card was not televised. Donaire [ 17-3-1 ] won a unanimous decision, avenging a draw with Albuquerque [ 8-3-2 ] from 2006 in his first fight in a little over fourteen months following his knockout loss to Vic Darchinyan. Both fighters went toe-to-toe for much of the fight, leading to a few headbutts and elbows thrown by Albuquerque , which were deemed unintentional. Both fighters were cut, with Albuquerque being busted open pretty badly. The scores were 79-73, 77-75, 77-75. Donaire and his team are hoping to setup a fight with IBF champion Ulises Solis sometime in the future.

In the card’s only upset, Oakland , California ’s Tony Hirsch knocked out Reno ’s Derek Hinkey in the final round of a scheduled four-round contest. Hirsch landed the overhand right at will, due mainly to the fact that Hinkey did very little to defend himself. Hirsch [ 4-1-0 ] has only one loss on his record, stemming from a TKO loss in which the fight was stopped prematurely when Hirsch was against the ropes. Hinkey [ 4-1-0 ] drops his first professional fight, and many, including Hirsch and his team, wonder if the scorecards would have favoured the hometown fighter if the fight reached a decision. “I knew I had to knock him out to win,” said Hirsch after the fight. “I thought they might steal it from me.” When asked what is in the future for Hirsch, his manager Repo Ric declared loudly that they are targeting Sacramento prospect Brandon Gonzales and would like to fight him within the next year. It is also possible that Hirsch could appear on San Jose ’s March 20th show at The Tank in which Andre Ward will be headlining.

Emily Klinefelter won in her professional debut, earning a four-round unanimous decision over the game Elizabeth Cervantes. Klinefelter punished Cervantes for much of the exciting bout, with Cervantes landing a few good exchanges over the course of the four two-minute rounds. An amateur national champion, Klinefelter’s future is a bright one, and she proved she can take as much punishment as she can dish in her first victory as a professional.

The first fight of the night was a good scrap between lightweights as Michael Peralta of Carson City won an entertaining four-round majority decision over Oscar Marin of Las Vegas . The first few rounds were close, but Marin’s conditioning caught up with him and he tired over the last few rounds, allowing Peralta to pull a win out. Scores were 40-36, 40-36, and 38-38.

The card was promoted by “Let’s Get it On Promotions” and was held at the beautiful Silver Legacy Resort & Casino. Promoter Terry Lane is looking to host another show sometime in May, and could very likely use Brinkley as the headliner in defence of his newly won crown.

Norris upsets Simms, local fighters shine in support.

2008-02-08T03:09:00.000-08:00

Mark Ortega

Damian Norris scored a shocking upset over Michael Simms in a ten-round battle of heavyweights Thursday night at the Red Lion Hotel in downtown Sacramento, California.

Norris [11-5-0] was awarded a split decision victory having won 98-92 and 96-94 on two scorecards while Simms won 97-93 on one judge’s card. Many people were left wondering how Norris won the fight when he had not landed very many clean punches over the course of the ten rounds. Simms [19-8-1] did himself no favor by staying against the ropes and letting Norris throw combinations, even if the punches did not land cleanly. Simms landed the much cleaner shots throughout the fight, including a huge right hand that had Norris hurt in the fifth round. Simms was hoping a win in this fight would be the beginning of a descent to the cruiserweight ranks, especially after he came into the fight in pretty good shape following a more than ten month layoff.

On the undercard, Ernesto Castaneda won a six-round unanimous decision over Christian Cruz in a battle of local super middleweights. Castaneda outworked Cruz from the beginning, and found an opening with the right hand throughout the fight. Cruz [12-9-1] was rusty in his first fight back following a loss to rising prospect Jean Pascal back in June of last year. Castaneda [10-7-1], one of four fighting brothers, won by the scores of 60-54, 59-55, and 59-54.

Local middleweight Brandon Gonzales needed only twenty-two seconds to notch his third professional victory as he easily dispatched Flavio Cardoza with a huge left hook. Cardoza [1-2-0] came into the fight six pounds overweight, but Gonzales agreed to fight anyways and it worked in his favor. Gonzales [3-0] is scheduled to fight in two weeks on the undercard of Otis Griffin-Jesse Brinkley in Reno on February 22nd.

Lightweight Stan Martyniouk, also a Sacramento based fighter, scored his second professional win by winning a unanimous decision over Jesus Hernandez. Martyniouk [2-0] had Hernandez down in both the second and third rounds, with both knockdowns coming towards the end of rounds in which Hernandez [2-2] was competitive in. The scores weren’t disclosed. Martyniouk looked impressive after narrowly winning his professional debut back in October.

The Red Lion Hotel has announced that they will be holding another boxing show April 24th, which is likely to be promoted by Uppercut Promotions, who ran Thursday night’s card.

In attendance were a slew of local fighters, including junior welterweight contender Juan Lazcano and “The Next Great Champ” winner Otis Griffin. Lazcano is looking to return to the ring in May, while Griffin is in the middle of preparing for his fight in Reno, Nevada on February 22nd with Jesse Brinkley.