Ring Legend Oscar De La Hoya today announced his retirement from boxing after a sixteen year professional career. He had set the press conference up to announce his further plans and chose retirement as he felt he could no longer compete at the elite level. De La Hoya was an Olympic Gold Medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics before turning pro with an amateur record of 220 wins and 6 losses. Right from the start of his pro career Oscar was a big name and has probably fought a higher percentage of his career on televised cards then any other boxer in history. De La Hoya’s pro career took off fast and afterjust 22 fights (he’d won all but two of them by knockout), he was already a champion in three weight divisions having won the lightly regarded WBO Junior Lightweight title, the WBO and IBF Lightweight titles and the WBC and Linear Junior Welterweight titles when he became the first man to stop Julio Cesar Chavez.
De La Hoya defended the title just once before moving up and defeating WBC and Linear Welterweight Champion Pernell Whitaker. The fight was razr thin with both fighters being on the canvas, but De La Hoya took a split decision to earn him world titles in four weight divisions after just 24 professional fights. After five successful defences which included a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez and a win over former multi time world champion Hector Camacho, De La Hoya met WBA champion Ike Quartey in the first blockbuster fight of his career. Sure the Chavez fights and the Whitaker fights were big, but this fight matched him up with a fighter of his generation and an extremely dangerous one at that. Both men fought an even first five rounds before the fight exploded in the sixth. Within seconds of the sixth, De La Hoya dropped Quartey with a left hook. De La Hoya went on the attack and the two traded for the first time in the fight. One minute into the round, Quartey dropped Oscar with a counter left hook. Both men tried to get the advantage for the remainer of the round, but it was Quartey’s jab that was starting to take over. Quartey took control of the fight and seemed to have a slight lead going into the final round. Oscar stormed out at the start of the 12th and put Quartey down for the 2nd time. Sensing he had his man hurt, De La Hoya fired barrage after barrage on Quartey on the ropes. The beating would have dropped most men and arguably could have been stopped there and then. Quartey survived and Oscar punched himself out leaving the fight to go to the cards where De La Hoya prevailed by split decision.
Seven months later De La Hoya faced the other champion in the division, long time IBF champion Felix Trinidad. Trinidad had held the belt since De La Hoya turned pro and had made 14 defences of the title including a one sided decision win over Pernell Whitaker. The fight was, at the time, the richest non Heavyweight fight of all-time and while there was a lot of hype around the fight, the action was sporadic. De La Hoya appeared to get the better of the early rounds before putting on a boxing clinic during the middle rounds. Trinidad was unable to find De La Hoya to connect on his power shots and was being thoroughly outboxed. Then De La Hoya did something that has defined his career in many critics eyes, he stopped fighting thinking he was ahead and let Trinidad back in the fight. Trinidad’s aggression dominated the final three rounds and with a few close rounds early on which the judges saw his way, he took a majority decision and De La Hoya’s zero.
Despite some big wins late in his career, De La Hoya was over his peak after the Trinidad fight. That’s not to say that he didn’t improve or what not, but achievement wise his later career hardly matches up to the early part of his career. He lost pretty comfortably to Shane Mosley in a bid for the titles Trinidad left behind before moving up to 154lbs and defeating Javier Castillejo. His greatest win was probably the 11th round stoppage of Fernando Vargas in 2002 after Vargas had called him out for years. Vargas worked Oscar over in the first six rounds before Oscar took the fight over with his jab, opening up a cut under Vargas’ right eye. Vargas came back in rounds 9 and 10 before De La Hoya rocked him badly at the end of the 10th with a left hook. ‘The Golden Boy’ then finished off the younger, bigger man in the 11th round of what was a masterful performance of skill and determination. Oscar looked to be making a revival in his career until he dropped a controversial decision to Shane Mosley a year after the Vargas fight. In a fight that De La Hoya seemed easily in control of, he was reluctant to dominate a Mosley who clearly couldn’t match him on the night and the judges thought that Oscar didn’t do enough. A run at Middleweight ended with his first stoppage loss via a body shot against long time Undisputed Champion Bernard Hopkins in 2004. After 18 months out of the ring he returned with a sixth round knockout over WBC 154lb ‘champion’ Ricardo Mayorga who had made Vargas’ trash talking on De La Hoya seem like he wanted to make friends. A super fight with Mayweather then took place in 2007, with Oscar putting in a valiant effort although he dropped the close split decision. His last big fight (and it turns out his last fight) came against Manny Pacquiao where De La Hoya tried (foolishly) to make 145lbs and suffered badly as a result, losing a one sided 8th round TKO.
It’s good to see that Oscar got out at the right time and thats a very rare thing you can say when it comes to boxers retiring. He’d been past his best for a while but still able to compete with the top guys. Pacquiao was the first guy to really beat him up and he did the right thing by getting out now and not seeing if he had anything left one or two more times. It’s a little sad to see him go out on his stool like that, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better then seeing him choke on his “s’s” when he’s 40 years old because he’s punch drunk. The big question that always pops up when a great retires is his legacy, and for De La Hoya it’s a controversial one. I usually leave it a few years before I go ahead and give a fighter his standing among the greats as judgment is often clouded around the time when the man is still fighting. He was one of the best fighters of the 90′s no doubt but as to where he stands among other great fighters in the same weight, I find it had to class him. His welterweight reign was very strong, but there was Trinidad nipping at his heels and it’s hard to rate him above Tito when Tito’s reign was more destructive and then he beat Oscar while they were both at their best (even though I thought Oscar won). Then there’s the fact that Mosley beat him twice, once at Welterweight, which makes his resume’ on par with guys of his own era, rather then the greats of all-time. The other option would be to rate him as a Lightweight, but his career there was so short and he was so green that it’s hard to imagine a young De La Hoya locking horns with Roberto Duran or Ike Williams.
The one thing that I think will always hurt De La Hoya’s legacy is the Trinidad fight and the second Mosley fight. There was no shame losing to Mosley the first time, or Hopkins, Mayweather or Pacquiao as Mosley was unheralded (as far as pound for pound entrants were concerned) and the other three were arguably the best pound for pound of the day that De La Hoya fought them. But he really should have beaten both Trinidad and Mosley convincingly enough that the judges couldn’t have screwed him over if you’re of the opinion that they did. The fact is, he left both of those fights to be closer then they needed to be because he didn’t have the guts to take the fight to them and risk losing. He has the guts as he showed in the Vargas fight, but using them when it matters is part of being a truly great fighter and in those two circumstances Oscar didn’t show guts. Had he dominated both of those guys and been a bit more active during his career, he’d be a shoe-in all-time great for sure. As it stands (and please don’t go on about his 10 world titles or whatever, fact is he was legitimate champion in three of those weight divisions, and in two of them he held the titles for less then a year and he never unified a division, WBO at 130 and 135 don’t count as far as I’m concerned and he definately did not prove he was the best 135lber in the game when he was at that weight class) Oscar is one of those fighters who sits below the true legends of the sport although at his best he’d be a handful for anyone. Although I see him as more of a media star then a fighter in the later part of his career, I’ve enjoyed the De La Hoya ride and I wish him all the best in retirement!
I’ve managed to set this up with a system that will allow me to update these monthly without too much trouble. Some interesting action this month; Mosley cracked the pound for pound list for the first time since he lost to Winky Wright back in 2004. The Welterweight division is very interesting now with the top three guys all having split wins over another. Hopefully, if Margarito gets cleared of his hand wraps incident (any suspension and I’ll probably drop him from the rankings completely), Margarito takes on Cotto and Mosley fights Clottey like what has been proposed and the winners meet later in the year. Whatever fight comes out of that series of matches will be great. I’ve also included a schedule of what significant fights are on next month and the lightweights again are all fighting in the same month which should move the rankings around a lot.
Could someone do me a huge favour and tell me how to turn off emoticons in my posts. It looks really fucking stupid having a sunglasses smiley in my rankings because the guy was ranked 8th in last months rankings.
The rankings are based on all fights that happened before February 1st 2009, so if there’s a result that happened on February 1st (I’m using boxrec’s calender) then it’ll be included next month. These rankings are my own work and have absolutely no reflection on any ABC rankings or anything else but my own opinion. Please feel free to flame me in the comments section.
Pound for Pound (1) 1- Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2)
(2) 2- Joe Calzaghe (46-0-0)
(3) 3- Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1)
(4) 4- Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1)
(5) 5- Israel Vazquez (43-4-0)
(NA) 6- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(6) 7- Rafael Marquez (37-5-0)
(7) 8- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(9) 9- Ricky Hatton (45-1-0)
(8) 10- Antonio Margarito (37-6-0)
Active- Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito (loss) Out- Kelly Pavlik (10)
Heavyweight (no limit) (1) 1- Wladimir Klitschko (52-3-0)
(2) 2- Vitali Klitschko (36-2-0)
(3) 3- Ruslan Chagaev (24-0-1)
(4) 4- Nicolay Valuev (50-1-0)
(5) 5- Alexander Povetkin (16-0-0)
(6) 6- David Haye (22-1-0)
(7) 7- Samuel Peter (30-2-0)
(8) 8- Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0-0)
(9) 9- Sultan Ibragimov (22-1-1)
(10) 10- Oleg Maskaev (35-6-0)
Active- None
Cruiserweight (200lbs) (1) 1- Tomasz Adamek (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Guillermo Jones (36-3-2)
(3) 3- Steve Cunningham (21-2-0)
(5) 4- Marco Huck (24-1-0)
(4) 5- Jean Marc Mormeck (33-4-0)
(6) 6- O’Neill Bell (26-3-1)
(7) 7- Enzo Maccarinelli (29-2-0)
(8) 8- Firat Arslan (29-4-1)
(9) 9- Vadim Tokarev (26-1-1)
(10) 10- Kryzstof Wlodarczyk (41-2-0)
Active- Marco Huck
Light Heavyweight (175lbs) (1) 1- Joe Calzaghe (46-0-0)
(2) 2- Bernard Hopkins (49-4-1)
(3) 3- Chad Dawson (27-0-0)
(4) 4- Glenn Johnson (48-12-2)
(5) 5- Antonio Tarver (27-5-0)
(7) 6- Zsolt Erdei (30-0-0)
(6) 7- Clinton Woods (41-4-1)
(8) 8- Hugo Garay (32-3-0)
(9) 9- Roy Jones jnr (52-5-0)
(10) 10- Adrian Diaconu (25-0-0)
Active- Zsolt Erdei
Super Middleweight (168lbs) (1) 1- Mikkel Kessler (41-1-0)
(2) 2- Lucian Bute (23-0-0)
(3) 3- Jermain Taylor (28-2-1)
(4) 4- Carl Froch (24-0-0)
(5) 5- Anthony Mundine (34-3-0)
(7) 6- Librado Andrade (27-2-0)
(8) 7- Sakio Bika (27-3-2)
(NA) 8- Karoly Balszay (20-0-0)
(6) 9- Dennis Inkin (34-1-0)
(9) 10- Jeff Lacy (24-2-0)
Active- Karoly Balszay, Dennis Inkin (loss) Out- Markus Beyer (10)
Middleweight (160lbs) (1) 1- Kelly Pavlik (34-1-0)
(2) 2- Arthur Abraham (28-0-0)
(3) 3- Felix Sturm (31-2-1)
(4) 4- Winky Wright (51-4-1)
(5) 5- Khoren Gevor (30-3-0)
(6) 6- Randy Griffin (24-2-3)
(7) 7- Sebastian Sylvester (29-3-0)
(8) 8- Javier Castillejo (62-8-0)
(9) 9- Amin Asikainen (25-2-0)
(10) 10- Daniel Geale (20-0-0)
Active- None
Junior Middleweight (154lbs) (1) 1- Paul Williams (36-1-0)
(2) 2- Vernon Forrest (41-3-0)
(3) 3- Sergei Dzinziruk (36-0-0)
(4) 4- Daniel Santos (32-3-0)
(5) 5- Sergio Manuel Martinez (44-1-1)
(6) 6- Verno Phillips (42-11-1)
(7) 7- Cory Spinks (36-5-0)
(8) 8- Sergio Mora (21-1-1)
(9) 9- Alex Bunema (30-6-2)
(10) 10- Joachim Alcine (30-1-0)
Active- None
Welterweight (147lbs) (3) 1- Shane Mosley (46-5-0)
(1) 2- Antonio Margarito (37-5-0)
(2) 3- Miguel Cotto (32-1-0)
(5) 4- Andre Berto (24-0-0)
(4) 5- Joshua Clottey (35-2-0)
(6) 6- Kermit Cintron (30-2-0)
(7) 7- Carlos Quintana (26-2-0)
(8) 8- Luis Collazo (29-4-0)
(9) 9- Zab Judah (37-6-0)
(10) 10- Mike Jones (16-0-0)
Active- Shane Mosley, Andre Berto, Antonio Margarito (loss), Luis Collazo (loss)
February Schedule 6th- Chris Henry vs Yusef Mack (NABA/NABF 175lb)
6th- Andre Ward vs Henry Buchanan (NABF 168lb) 7th- Vic Darchinyan vs Jorge Arce (IBF/WBA/WBC 115lb)
7th- Andreas Kotelnik vs Marcos Rene Maidana (WBA 140lb)
7th- Ruslan Chagaev vs Carl Drummond (WBA Heavy)
7th- Omar Narvaez vs Rayonta Whitfield (WBO 112lb) 7th- Almazbek Raiymkulov vs Antonio DeMarco (135lb)
11th- Anthony Mundine vs Shannan Taylor (160lb) 14th- Nate Campbell vs Ali Funeka (IBF/WBO 135lb)
14th- Sergio Gabriel Martinez vs Kermit Cintron (WBC interim 154lb)
14th- Cristobal Cruz vs Cyril Thomas (IBF 126lb)
14th- Manuel Vargas vs Walter Tello (WBO interim 105lb)
14th- Alfredo Angulo vs Ricardo Mayorga (160lb)
14th- Clinton Woods vs Elvir Muriqi (175lb)
20th- Breidis Prescott vs Humberto Toledo (135lb) 21st- Kelly Pavlik vs Marco Antonio Rubio (Ring/WBC/WBO 160lb) 21st- Miguel Cotto vs Michael Jennings (WBA 147lb)
21st- Matt Skelton vs Martin Rogan (Commonwealth Heavyweight)
21st- Anthony Peterson vs Edner Cherry (135lb) 27th- Tomasz Adamek vs Jonathon Banks (Ring/IBF 200lb)
27th- Glenn Johnson vs Daniel Judah (175lb)
27th- Rendall Munroe vs Kiko Martinez (European 122lb) 28th- Juan Manuel Marquez vs Juan Diaz (Ring 135lb) 28th- Chris John vs Rocky Juarez (WBA 126lb)
28th- Roman Gonzalez vs Francisco Rosas (WBA 105lb)
28th- Donnie Nietes vs Erik Ramirez (WBO 105lb)
28th- Cesar Canchila vs Giovanni Segura (WBA interim 108lb)
28th- Sebastian Sylvester vs Gaentano Nespro (160lb)
28th- Rafal Jackiewicz vs Luciano Abis (European 147lb)
These are a little late compared to a lot of other sites, but I wanted to wait until the year was officially over before I put these up. My MMA ones will be up in a week or so. These are entirely my opinion and feel free to have a go at me in the comments section and I’ll happily debate any of my picks.
Fight of the Year- Israel Vazquez SD12 Rafael Marquez (March 1st).
Round of the Year- 4th- Israel Vazquez SD12 Rafael Marquez. Seriously if you haven’t see this fight go and see it. It’s one of my personal all-time favourite fights and considering that I’m very old school in my opinions and don’t let new fads change my picks too much that’s saying something. There’s only three fights in the last ten years that I consider up there with some of my more classic choices and this is one of them (along with Barrera-Morales I and Castillo-Corrales I). A lot of people overlook this trilogy because therse guys are only 122lbs which is complete crap. A lot of ‘fans’ say they don’t like the little guys, but seriously, where do you draw the line? If you will watch Featherweights whats the big deal with the 4lbs less for the Junior Feathers? Whats the big deal with the 21lbs to Minimumweight?
You’d all think I was crazy if I said I don’t watch anything below Cruiserweight because the next division is 25lbs smaller when those fights are usually the best yet people draw the line at other places and it’s crap. These guys in the lower classes fight just as hard, if not harder then the other guys and get little credit and anyone who has seen this fight knows exactly what I mean. These guys left it all in the ring and the action see-sawed throughout every round. Marquez got the better of the first six rounds including knocking Vazquez down in the 4th round only for Vazquez to get up and rock Marquez in return. The two then exchanged hard blows until the bell with both men getting rocked again in the final 30 seconds (youtube clip provided below). Vazquez came back to steal the fight with a 12th round knockdown, winning a split decision. There was about six or seven rounds that could have gone either way (if you scored all of them for one fighter you’re a moron I might add) and everytime I’ve watched this fight I’ve scored a few rounds different. This truly was one of the greatest fights of all-time and if you haven’t watched it, go find someone who has a copy of it and check it out. Here’s a taste and my pick for round of the year:
Honourable Mentions (Fight of the Year)- Antonio Margarito TKO11 Miguel Cotto (July 26th), Manny Pacquiao SD12 Juan Manuel Marquez (March 15th), Joel Casmayor TKO10 Michael Katsidis (March 22nd). Previous Winners- Israel Vazquez TKO6 Rafael Marquez (2007), Somsak Sithchatchawal TKO10 Mayhar Monshipour (2006), Diego Corrales TKO10 Jose Luis Castillo. Honourable Mentions (Round of the Year)- 1st- Kendall Holt KO1 Ricardo Torres, 12th- Israel Vazquez SD12 Rafael Marquez, 2nd- Antonio Margarito vs Miguel Cotto. Previous Winners- 3rd- Rafael Marquez TKO7 Israel Vazquez (2007), 10th- Somsak Sithchatchawal TKO10 Mayhar Monshipour (2006), 10th- Diego Corrales TKO10 Jose Luis Castillo (2005).
Fighter of the Year- Manny Pacquiao
Performance of the Year- Manny Pacquiao TKO8 Oscar De La Hoya (December 6th). I have to admit, I was setting this article up in late November and I had Calzaghe pencilled in to the Fighter of the Year slot expecting De La Hoya to be too big for ’The Mexecutioner’ (sorry to any Mexicans reading this but I just love that name) and Pacquiao’s performance against David Diaz down for Performance of the Year (although that was a toss-up between it and Hopkins schooling of Pavlik). Even though I made a big deal that his fight with Oscar would do nothing to his legacy should be lose, a SD over Marquez that I thought he lost and a TKO over David Diaz who I don’t rate and a loss aren’t enough to outdo Calzaghe’s downing of two legends despite one of them being more shot then Oscar. Despite plenty of people calling Oscar shot after their fight, Pacquiao definately shouldn’t have won that fight in such a one sided fashion unless he was the real deal. Despite Marquez giving Pacquiao all he could handle in their March thriller, Pacquiao proved that making 130lbs probably had something to do with it after twice moving up in weight and one sidedly knocking out two very capable fighters. So for winning new World titles in two weight divisions in 12 months and for completely dominating two very good fighters (one of them a legend) and beating a fellow top five pound for pound fighter, Pacquiao wins two of my awards this year. Honourable Mentions (Fighter of the Year)- Joe Calzaghe, Antonio Margarito, Juan Manuel Marquez. Previous Winners- Floyd Mayweather Jnr (2007), Manny Pacquiao (2006), Jermain Taylor (2005). Honourable Mentions (Performance of the Year)- Manny Pacquiao KO9 David Diaz, Bernard Hopkins UD12 Kelly Pavlik, Vic Darchinyan KO9 Cristian Mijares. Previous Winners- Ricky Hatton KO4 Jose Luis Castillo (2007), Joe Calzaghe UD12 Jeff Lacy (2006), Floyd Mayweather jnr TKO6 Arturo Gatti (2005).
Knockout of the Year- Juan Urango KO4 Carlos Vilches When it comes to knockouts, I find it best to explain it by just showing it! Enjoy!
Honourable Mentions- Antonio Margarito KO6 Kermit Cintron, Shane Mosley KO12 Ricardo Mayorga, Manny Pacquiao KO9 David Diaz. Previous Winners- Nonito Donaire KO5 Vic Darchinyan (2007), Daniel Ponce de Leon KO1 Sod Looknongyangtoy (2006), Allan Green KO1 Jaidon Codrington (2005).
Upset of the Year- Nate Campbell SD12 Juan Diaz No one seemed to be able to touch Diaz in the lightweight division and not many expected him to be beaten until he moved up a weight division. This fight was somewhat overshadowed with David Haye’s unification fight with Enzo Maccarinelli as well as Oleg Maskaev’s defence of his WBC Heavyweight strap against dangerous contender Samuel Peter (the fight was on the undercard of this bout). Campbell had won three in a row in his hot and cold career that has seen him look like one of the World’s most dangerous fighters one day and look like a complete fool the next (see Campbell-Peden I). Diaz seemed to be taking over as he usually does by the midway point of the fight with his high output of punches although Campbell stayed in the pocket with him and traded hard leather. Everything changed with one punch in the 6th round. Campbell landed a left that opened a massive cut on Diaz’s left eye and although the referee incorrectly ruled it a headbutt and docked Campbell a point, Diaz wasn’t the same fighter after that. His punch output slowed down while Campbell was spurred on by the cut and the rare weakness that Diaz ever shows in the ring. Campbell dominated the later rounds as Diaz’s eye closed shut and he took a split decision as well as Diaz’s WBA, WBO and IBF Lightweight titles. Honourable Mentions- Carlos Quintana UD12 Paul Williams, Vic Darchinyan KO9 Cristian Mijares, Breidis Prescott KO1 Amir Khan. Previous Winners- Nonito Donaire KO5 Vic Darchinyan (2007), Carlos Baldomir UD12 Zab Judah (2006), Zahir Raheem UD12 Erik Morales.
Event of the Year- Manny Pacquiao vs Juan Manuel Marquez (By this I basically mean the biggest fight of the year without taking into account what actually happened in the ring. For example there were far better fights in 2002 then Lewis-Tyson, but that one was the highlight event of the year).
I really didn’t buy into De La Hoya-Pacquiao (as many who have read this site for a while will tell you) and I really can’t think of another fight that was as good a match-up as this one. I tend to go more for a hardcore fans perspective when picking these unless there’s an obvious pick like Lewis-Tyson or De La Hoya-Hopkins. This fight pitted the two best fighters in the 130-126lb division in a fight that had a long build up after their controversial draw in 2004. It was the culmination in a series of big fights between these two plus Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera that saw this fight as the Finale after Marquez defeated Barrera (Pacquiao also defeated him after Marquez) and Pacquiao had defeated Morales. It was sort of like Hagler-Leonard of the 80′s rivalry of those two plus Duran and Hearns although over a shorter period of time. There were plenty of big fights and one’s that received a lot more attention then this fight, but this was the fight I looked forward to the most this year. It was two top five pound for pound fighters squaring off and the fight didn’t disappoint. Honourable Mentions- Antonio Margarito vs Miguel Cotto, Kelly Pavlik vs Jermain Taylor II, Vic Darchinyan vs Cristian Mijares. (I don’t rate Calzaghe-Hopkins because even though it was a big fight, I knew it’d be as boring as all fuck as it actually was). Previous Winners- Ricky Hatton vs Floyd Mayweather jnr (2007), Joe Calzaghe vs Jeff Lacy (2006), Ricky Hatton vs Kostya Tszyu (2005).
That’s the big ones out of the road, a few I think I should touch on:
Prospect of the Year- Leonard Zappavinga First of all, I think this award is stupid. It’s not like in other sports where it’s easy to determine what a prospect is because they’ve only been playing a year. Boxing is a different sport. A prospect could be a three fight rookie or a guy with 30 fights who’s taken his time on the way up and is about to crack the big time. Second of all, I’m clearly biased. I don’t take this award that seriously so I’ll probably always pick an Australian. Zappavinga ended his year with a knockout over former two time world title challenger Tommy Browne in a fight he looked excellent in. Zappa is only 22, he is undefeated and will definately be one to watch in the new year.
Australian Fighter of the Year- Vic Darchinyan Darchinyan totally dominated two world champions with absolute ease in his new weight class and became the first Australian since Kostya Tszyu to be near the top 10 pound for pound in the World. After a controversial draw in February against Z Gorres, Darchinyan got a shot at Dimitri Kirilov’s IBF strap and won by one sided 5th round knockout. After that came a unification bout with (at least by my list) Cristian Mijares, who held the WBC and WBA titles and had wins over Jorge Arce and Alexander Munoz. Not many (I wasn’t one of them) gave Darchinyan a chance, but he brutalised Mijares over nine rounds with a great mixture of boxing and punching before knocking him out with an overhand left in the 9th. I just hope Darchinyan receives more credit and attention down here instead of joke ‘fighters’ like Anthony Mundine and John Hopoate who rob the public blind with their overpriced PPV sideshows.
One to watch in 2009- Beibut Shumenov This guy is only 7-0, but he has already beaten Montell Griffin (yes, the same one with a win over Roy Jones jnr) and Epifanio Mendoza (who gave Jeff Lacy all he could handle for 12 rounds).
And some lighter ones:
Arthur Mercante Award for Best Refereeing- Pat Russell (Vazquez-Marquez III) This was by far the best fight of the year and it could have been one of the most controversial if referee Pat Russell was having a bad night. There were several tight calls in the fight that the fight road on, and he got them all right. Russell deducted a point from Marquez for a low blow which ultimately cost Marquez a draw in the fight, however he had previously warned Marquez a number of times and had to take that point off. Had he let Marquez off the hook there it would have been unfair to Vazquez as he had warned him a few times previously and most of the shots were pretty low. The other call was the 12th round knockdown. Russell very well could have made the mistake that many a referee would have made in that situation and stopped the fight. Marquez was taking punishment on the ropes and taking a lot of it yet he wasn’t going down. He staggered into the ropes and would have fallen if they weren’t there and instead of stopping the fight he gave Marquez a count. These calls are still controversial parts of the fight, but they would have been a hell of a lot worse if Russell had say jumped in and saved Marquez in the 12th with a few seconds left.
Jersey Joe Walcott Award for Worst Refereeing- Joe Cortez (Francisco Lorenzo DQ4 Humberto Soto) (If you don’t get the reference it’s not because I hate Walcott, it’s because he refereed one Heavyweight title fight and lost complete control of the Ali-Liston rematch therefore he gets my award named after him. I actually am a big fan of Walcott so this is no cheap shot at him about his fighting, just thought I’d point that out).
Humberto Soto battered Franciso Lorenzo for three and a half rounds before dropping him in the fourth round. While going down, Lorenzo grabbed Soto’s legs prompting Soto to continue to hit him, landing a grazing shot to the back of his head. Instead of counting, Cortez ruled that Lorenzo had been hit while he was down at which point Lorenzo started faking like he was in more serious trouble as a result of the blow. Actually, Lorenzo was ready to go and all the damage was done by legal blows from Soto during the action. After viewing several replays, Cortez disqualified Soto and ruled Lorenzo as the new WBC interim champion. The WBC however would right the wrong and strip Lorenzo of his belt (one of the few controversial decisions from an ABC group that I agree with).
Eugenia Williams Award for Worst Judging Card- Doug Tucker (Cristian Mijares SD12 Jose Navarro) (Reference again is to Eugenia Williams who scored the Holyfield-Lewis first fight to Holyfield after he won maybe three rounds).
Tucker scored this fight 120-108 for Navarro. The other two judges both saw it for Mijares in a close fight. Seriously Doug, what fight were you watching? Maybe Navarro won the fight (I agreed with the other two judges) but he didn’t win every round.
George Foreman Award for Comeback of the Year- Vitali Klitschko If you come back from four years of inactivity and totally dominate one of the top contenders in your division then there’s no denying you this award. Vitali Klitschko did just that. It almost made my performance of the year honourable mentions but missed out. Klitschko came back from numerous injuries and totally dominated someone who was a very, very dangerous opponent with absolute ease. As much as I don’t like the Klitschko brothers, it was hard not to be impressed by that.
Andy Raymond Award for Worst Commentator of the Year- Andy Raymond (Fox Sports Australia) I seriously hate Andy Raymond and it’ll be a task for anyone to win this award any year apart from him. He just talks and talks and talks without ever saying anything with the slightest bit of meaning. The only Raymondism I can remember this year (if I remembered anymore I’d probably get cancer) is this: ‘Boxing under the Nitro Format this evening’
WTF does that mean?!?!?!?! At the time he was referring to the promotion as being called Nitro Fight Night or some shit, but what he actually said has zero meaning to anyone with an IQ above 50! Maybe it’s just me who gets irritated by things like this, but seriously if you’re on TV and your job is to talk you really need to know how to do it. Another thing that annoys me about him is his constant comment everytime a boxer from New South Wales fights a boxer from Queensland he calls it state of origin. On some cards when this happens four or five times he says it every fucking time. Its no wonder that boxing is seen by a lot of people in Australia as a sideshow sport that Rugby League players play to keep themselves fit in the off season when you have some moronic Rugby League commentator who knows fuckall about the sport making absolutely no sense with anything he says except when he says something that he can relate back to Rugby League like the state of origin shit.
John Ruiz Award for Worst Fight of the Year- Wladimir Klitschko UD12 Sultan Ibragimov Now this isn’t exactly the worst fight of the year, but it’s the worst one I saw that I went out of my way to watch. Ibragimov ran for dear life and Wladimir was too shit scared of being knocked out to do anything about it. The result was Wladimir winning the fight on his aggressive pawing of his jab. Valuev-Holyfield sounds worse, but you’ll have to pin my eyes open A Clockwork Orange style to get me to watch that. Bringing me to my next award:
Ruiz-McCline Award for Worst Matchup of the Year- John Ruiz vs Jameel McCline This award was originally going to be called the Ruiz-Holyfield Award out of respect for the worst boxing trilogy of all-time, then I remembered he fought McCline this year and the award will be now known as Ruiz-McCline. Now I didn’t see this fight (which is why I haven’t gouged out my eyes with a toothpick) but oh my God, who ever thought these two would make for attractive viewing needs to jab themselves in the eye with a screwdriver. Has there ever been two more boring Heavyweights? At least Wladimir Klitschko has punching power that can sometimes be exciting. These two not only have extremely boring styles, but they’re very ineffective fighters who often resort to holding. If I was managing Ruiz, after I committed suicide I’d do everything I could to keep him away from the likes of McCline who is just a fat waste of space with enough gas to punch for maybe three rounds. Matching these two up only shows the full range of boredom they can produce. Luckily I didn’t have to sit through this bout as Haye-Maccarinelli was live on one channel and by the time it had finished so had this piece of shit bit of matchmaking.
Joe Jacobs ‘We was Robbed ‘ Award for Robbery of the Year- Nicolay Valuev W12 Evander Holyfield (Joe Jacobs managed Max Schemling in the 1930s and had a famous quote ‘We was robbed, we shouldda stayed in bed’ after Schmeling lost the title to Sharkey).
I haven’t seen the fight and I don’t want to, but the whole thing is just cruel. Here’s a legend of the ring who’s battled way past his prime in a quest to re-capture the Heavyweight title before he retires and after years of not getting anywhere near it he finally gets a shot and by all accounts should have won the fight and they rob him. Now it’s probably for the good of the division that Holyfield doesn’t win the fight and ends up being killed in the ring if he puts it against one of the Klitschko’s, but to rob a man of being the first five-time champion as well as the oldest champion in history is just cruel.
And on a sadder note:
Gone but not forgotten (pictured in order below, if I left anyone out leave a comment and I’ll edit it) Yo Sam Choi- Former WBC 108lb Champion (1999-2002), lost his title to Jorge Arce in 2002. Died from injuries sustained in a fight he won in December 2007 a week later. Duilio Loi- Two-time World Junior Lightweight Champion (1960-62 and 1963), bested the great Carlos Ortiz 2-1 in their series of fights. Lost the title to Eddie Perkins in 1962 then regained it in his next fight and retired with a 115-3-8 mark. Died in January of Alzheimers. Ralph Dupas- Former World Junior Middleweight Champion (1963), also challenged Emile Griffith for the Welterweight Championship and Joe Brown for the Lightweight Championship. Defeated former World Middleweight Champion Joey Giardello and lost a disputed decision to Sugar Ray Robinson. Died in January of dememtia. Mando Ramos- Former Undisputed Lightweight Champion (1969-70) who regained the WBC title in 1972 but lost it the same year. Lost his undisputed title to Panamanian great Ismael Laguna. Died in July of natural causes. Mate Parlov- 1972 Olympic Light Heavyweight Champion, 1974 World Amateur Light Heavyweight Champion, WBC Light Heavyweight Champion (1978). First Croatian to win a World title in Boxing. Died in July 30 of lung cancer. Vic Toweel- Former World Bantamweight Champion (1950-52). First South African to win a World Championship in Boxing by defeating Manuel Ortiz. Lost his title to Australian Jimmy Carruthers in 1952. Died in August at age 80. Joey Giardello- Former World Middleweight Champion (1963-65). Fought Dick Tiger four times (winning twice) and also beat Sugar Ray Robinson and Rubin Carter to name a few. Died in September of heart failure.
Manny Pacquiao moved up from lightweight and battered six weight world titlist Oscar De La Hoya, forcing him to quit after eight rounds of brutal punishment. Right from the opening bell Pacquiao was on his toes using his superior hand and foot speed to frustrate De La Hoya and land with his powerful left hand. De La Hoya was unable to get off with any sort of effective offence throughout the fight as Pacquiao repeatedly scored and retreated out of harms way. In the 7th round De La Hoya was battered from one corner to the other and twice looked like going down, however he showed heart and came out for the 8th round firing. Pacquiao soon took over in the 8th though and was back to battering ‘The Golden Boy’ come the end of the round. After a brief conversation with his corner, De La Hoya seemed to decide that fighting on was futile against the brilliance of ‘Pacman’ and surrendered on his stool.
Pacquiao deserves all the credit in the world for his performance. De La Hoya was the much bigger man and I thought was the better technical fighter, but Pacquiao keeps improving. He’s constantly adding dimensions to his game and has transformed from being the banger who destroyed Marco Antonio Barrera back in 2003 to a puncher who has among the best boxing skills in the game. While De La Hoya seemed lacklustre probably from weight loss, it’s hard to imagine what he could have done differently going on his recent form even if he didn’t have to lose the weight. No one’s done that to De La Hoya. Hopkins didn’t do it, Mayweather didn’t do it, Mosley or Trinidad didn’t do it. De La Hoya just 18 months ago took Mayweather to a split decision so for Pacquiao to do that to him cements him as an all-time great.
The obvious fight that is to be made now is Ricky Hatton vs Manny Pacquiao and it would be a blockbuster. Hatton again is the bigger guy and could smother Pacquiao and make him work for his punches, but then again Pacquiao’s power is that big that he could drop Hatton if Hatton leaves himself unprotected the way he does at times. De La Hoya should definately retire, there’s absolutely nothing left for him to do now. His skills have diminished due to inactivity and there’s no big fights to be made that are really worth being made above welterweight. The man has made millions and has plenty of businesses going and should concentrate on them and leave the fighting to the fresher men.
I’ve put this off about as long as I can. For those of you who haven’t read this blog much, I’m not in the slightest looking forward to this fight. I don’t think it’s a bad fight or not a big, I just think it’s about 1% as good as everyone thinks it is. Anytime the pound for pound best boxer in the world fights it’s going to be a big fight, and this is a real challenge for Pacquiao and in that sense this is a good fight. But the fact remains, De La Hoya has chosen a much smaller opponent who suits him stylistically to try and make himself look better then he is and the public are buying into it and that pisses me off. This isn’t the biggest fight of the year, let alone the biggest fight of all time. The simple fact is, De La Hoya is a fighter who has had some success at junior middleweight and has challenged for the middleweight title and he’s fighting a guy who is coming up from lightweight having never fought above 135lbs (and only fought at 135lbs once) who originally came all the way up from flyweight. I don’t care what anyone says, De La Hoya gets nothing added to his legacy should he win this fight. If Pacquiao wins it’ll be a different story altogether although in my opinion it’ll be more of a detraction from Oscar’s greatness then an addition to Manny’s. Anyway, enough bitching, onto the fight!
Oscar De La Hoya As of the last few years De La Hoya’s been more of a businessman then a boxer. He’s fought three times in about four years, scoring a knockout over Ricardo Mayorga (who deserved every bit of punishment he took in that fight for the way he carried on beforehand), dropping a split decision to Floyd Mayweather and winning a 12 round unanimous decision against Steve Forbes in his last outing in May. De La Hoya’s inactivity is probably Manny’s biggest advantage in this fight. Oscar has shown he still has the handspeed even in his later years, his main problem is when he is forced to work more then he wants to like when he fought Mayweather last year. One of the biggest strengths for De La Hoya in this fight is the fact that he’s never been seriously hurt from a punch to the head, which is a key fact as Pacquiao relies on his power a lot yet De La Hoya has faced much bigger men who hit much harder yet taken their best shots.
For Oscar to win this fight he has to put some hurting on Manny early and make him respect the fact that he’s the bigger man. He has to take advantage whenever Manny lunges in like he does and counter with heavy punches. He has to have some control over what pace the fight goes at because you can’t beat Manny Pacquiao if he’s controlling the pace. Juan Manuel Marquez gave Pacquiao such trouble in their two fights because he was able to make Manny fight his fight for the most part. Erik Morales also showed this in their first fight. If De La Hoya takes a few rounds to get going he might find Pacquiao too hard to keep up with in the later rounds.
Manny Pacquiao Pacman moves up in weight yet again for this super fight after claiming the WBC 130lb and 135lb titles in his last two fights. After besting Erik Morales in their three fight series (2-1), Pacquiao beat another Mexican legend for the second time in Marco Antonio Barrera before challenging Juan Manuel Marquez for the title at 130lbs. In what was one of the best fights of the year, Pacquiao scored a somewhat controversial 12 round split decision (I scored the fight 114-113 for Marquez but it could have gone either way) to take the title. Pacquiao then moved up in weight and destroyed David Diaz in what was probably the most dominant display since Mayweather whipped Gatti to take his WBC 135lb title. The main things that Pacquiao has going for him in this fight are his conditioning and his handspeed. Where Pacquiao is likely to have trouble is the fact that not only is De La Hoya the bigger man, but he’s got the better boxing skills as well.
For Pacquiao to win this fight he needs to draw Oscar into exchanging with him and then he needs to make sure he’s not trading evenly in the power shots department. For once Pacquiao isn’t the harder puncher in a fight and it’ll be interesting to see how this affects him. Manny has to limit the amount that he lunges in because Oscar can counter punch very effectively and Oscar’s power is something Manny will never have tasted before. Manny also has to avoid getting tagged too often too early or else when Oscar tires he won’t be in any condition to take advantage of De La Hoya’s lack of ring time. The gameplan for Pacquiao should be to feel Oscar out in the opening rounds and try and steal the odd round here and there and then explode on him in the second half of the bout and either stop Oscar late or win on points. One thing Manny will have to exploit is when Oscar stands flat footed and thats when he’ll need to explode on him and land his left hand.
Prediction There’s a saying in boxing; ‘a great little man will always lose to a great big man’ and if that ever rang true it’s here. De La Hoya should simply be too big and too skilled for Pacquiao. Where a guy like Marquez was able to give Pacquiao trouble, a guy like De La Hoya should also be able to exploit Manny’s recklessness and have the chin to stand up to Manny when he does land. Another key factor in this fight is that De La Hoya may actually have the quicker hands of the two. De La Hoya has incredibly fast hands and while Pacquiao is the smaller guy, Oscar’s speed may be slightly better. In my opinion if De La Hoya loses this fight it will show that he was overrated in the past because he shouldn’t lose to someone who matches up this well with him and is that much smaller then him. Pacquiao has his chance if he can exploit De La Hoyas ever slowing footwork and make his lunges successful but I see this fight like a slightly more competitive version of the Gatti fight with Oscar, where Oscar has his way with Manny but takes the odd shot in return to make things interesting before Pacquiao is knocked out in the middle rounds. It will probably be an entertaining fight, and people will probably disagree with me on this forever, but I’m looking forward to the K-1 much more then this sideshow. Oscar De La Hoya by 7th round knockout.
I’ve been a little stingy when it comes to boxing lately. I’ve been enjoying the fights but I haven’t had the time to really write anything up. I’m going to try and cover as much as I can thats happened over the last few months in this post. I’ve also been working on the rankings but I can’t promise when they’ll be up. I need the motivation for a good 4-6 hours work on them to get them where I want them and with work and training and other stuff I haven’t had the time. It’s the long weekend this weekend and I’m no big rugby league fan so I might get something done of it this weekend. Then again I’ll probably do what most Aussies do and get smashed all weekend and do nothing.
Juan Manuel Marquez KO11 Joel Casamayor I didn’t think Marquez had it in him to knock Casamayor out. I thought he might be able to out box him or outwork him but to pull off a knockout in a close fight in that style was impressive! Both of these guys are extremely underrated fighters and I thought this was a great fight. It wasn’t up there with Castillo-Corrales by any stretch of the imagination but for the purists this was an excellent strategic battle similar to Leonard-Benitez. I really want to see Marquez fight Nate Campbell. These are the two top guys currently fighting at this weight class and no other fight makes any sense while Pacquiao is fighting De La Hoya. I personally don’t see what Campbell can bring to the table that Marquez hasn’t seen before but bigger upsets have happened before.
Shane Mosley KO12 Ricardo Mayorga
Mayorga fought a great fight, but even fighting at nearly the best I’ve seen him against one of the flattest Mosley’s I’ve seen he couldn’t get over the line. The finish was spectacular and for any idiots out there who thought Mayorga was robbed of not being allowed to go to a decision go shit in your hat. Mosley knocked him out, there’s no more conclusive end to a fight then that. So what if there was one second left on the clock, Mayorga was out. Mosley was ahead on the cards as well so Mayorga wasn’t robbed of shit especially condsidering the 10-7 round that Mosley would have got anyway. As for the scorecards, I had Mosley up by one. Mayorga was very effective early on, but Mosley was defending well in the second half of the fight and Mayorga wasn’t landing much even though he was frustrating Mosley with his tactics. I’d like to see Mosley retire on this win, he’s 37 years old and his best days are behind him but I’d definately watch him fight again without question if he fights again (which I’m sure he will). I’m really not sure who’d make a good matchup with him? He’s beaten the guys he’s gonna beat and he’s lost to the guys he’s not going to beat. Maybe a rematch with Cotto when he comes back? I wouldn’t mind seeing him fight Margarito either if he drops back down to welterweight and thats a fight I think he’d have a chance in, although I’d be picking Margarito to become the first to stop him.
Mijares takes on Darchinyan
This is the sort of fight you want as a boxing fan; the top guys unifying the titles. Darchinyan is one of my favourites and while I was hoping to see Mijares take on Montiel, this fight is only slightly not as great. Mijares is obviously the favourite with his recent victories but Darchinyan has more then a punchers chance especially if Mijares’ Mexican spirit comes out and he trades with Vic. It’s great to see the lighter weight divisions getting the attention they deserve, I definately can’t wait for November 1st and I think Vic has the tools to cause an upset here!
Steve Cunningham defends against Tomasz Adamek
Cunningham returns from his long blank induced layoff (anyone know why he’s been out so long?) to defend against former WBC Light Heavyweight titlist Tomasz Adamek. Adamek whipped O’Neil Bell earlier this year and is one of the top cruiserweights around right now. This is a very interesting fight that could go either way. I’m backing Adamek though based on his recent form and Cunninghams inactivity.
This week in Boxing will be scrapped I’m scrapping this part of the site and I will try and cover things as they happen. It probably won’t always happen on time but I’ll do my best. I don’t like just piling it all into the one post if I can avoid it.
Results from last weekend
I haven’t seen any of these fights yet. If anyone has a link to a youtube clip or something like that please let me know via comment or Email (angryfightfan@hotmail.com). Ivan Calderon defended his title with a technical decision win over Hugo Cazares. From what I understand Calderon was having a much easier time of things this time around and Cazares just couldn’t mount any sort of consistant attack on him.
In the other good matchup of last weekend, Cristian Mijares defended his WBA/WBC 115lb titles against Chatchai Sasakul with a 3rd round knockout. I really want to see Mijares in the ring with Fernando Montiel or Vic Darchinyan (I’d say it’ll be Montiel) and I’m sure that a fight between him and one of those guys could be made. Hopefully the sanctioning bodies are man enough to let the fight be for all of the titles instead of doing what they normally do and stripping them for fighting other titlists.
John Ruiz lost to Valuev again, thats all I’m going to say on the fight because thats all the mention it deserves.
Lightweight Matchups start this weekend
Former WBO, WBA and IBF lightweight champion Juan Diaz returns from his shock loss to Nate Campbell to take on former WBO interim lightweight champion Michael Katsidis this weekend. This fight should be a barnburner and if it weren’t for the UFC being on this weekend I’d be watching it live. I think Katsidis will be in the fight for 4-5 rounds but Diaz has a lot more boxing skill and that should be the difference. Katsidis is tough though and I think this fight will go the distance (at 3.5-1 I’m hoping it does as well) but Diaz will be the clear winner.
There’s an interesting fight on the undercard between junior lightweight contenders Rocky Juarez and Jorge Barrios. This is another fight that could be a war. Both guys like to come forward and mix it up on the inside and this is a tought fight to call. I’m leaning towards Barrios though because he’s the bigger, stronger man and I think it will play a big factor in the later rounds. Barrios to win this fight on points in a highly entertaining battle.
Also in action this weekend in the UK is a fight for the WBO (interim?) with British fighters Alex Arthur and Nicky Cook doing battle. Arthur should be the favourite in this fight. He’s more experienced and he has a size advantage, however Cook looked good early in his career and could have something to prove after losing to Luevano last year for the vacant WBO Featherweight title. I think Arthur will retain his title on points. Amir Khan is on the undercard against some Colombian up and comer.
Edwin Valero moving up to lightweight
The lightweight division is getting more interesting by the day with the news that WBA 130lb titlist Edwin Valero has relinquished his title and will fight for the WBC interim Lightweight title against the winner of the Antonio Pitalua-Jose Armando Santa Cruz bout. With boxers like Manny Pacquiao (assuming he comes back down after he fights Oscar), Juan Manuel Marquez, Joel Casamayor, Nate Campbell, Juan Diaz, Michael Katsidis, Joan Guzman and David Diaz already in this division, Valero is an unnecessary but more then welcome addition to the most exciting division in boxing right now.
Joey Giardello passes away
Former World Middleweight Champion Joey Giardello passed away on Thursday at the age of 78. had a twenty year professional career and defeated such great fighters as Sugar Ray Robinson, Dick Tiger and Rubin Carter just to name a few. After previously splitting fights with Dick Tiger and drawing with Gene Fuller in 1960 (in his first shot at the championship), Giardello won the third fight with Tiger and the Undisputed Middleweight Title in 1963. Despite what the movie ‘The Hurricane’ says, Giardello beat Rubin Carter in his one and only defence of the title in 1964 via 15 round decision before he lost the title to Dick Tiger in 1965. Giardello is a very underrated fighter who was among the best middleweights of all-time. RIP.
Oscar De La Hoya takes on Manny Pacquiao on December 6th
The fight was announced yesterday. Manny Pacquiao will move up to welterweight to take on Oscar De La Hoya. I’ve made my opinions very clear on this fight so if you want to know how much of a mismatch I think this pointless fight is, check out these posts: http://angryfightfan.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/this-week-in-boxing-23rd-august/ http://angryfightfan.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/this-week-in-boxing-16th-august/
For the record anyway, all of my frustration is aimed towards the De La Hoya team for this fight. I have tremendous respect for Pacquiao for taking such a hard fight and I really hope he can find a way to knock De La Hoya out. If he can there’s no one who can really question that this man is an all-time great. I just don’t see how he can do it and don’t see at all why this is such a big fight. I’d much rather see Margarito take on Paul Williams or Cristian Mijares take on Fernando Montiel then watch this fight.
Olympic Boxing Results
Well for the first time in who knows how long the Cubans didn’t win a Boxing Gold Medal in an Olympics they competed in. The Chinese and Russians topped the Boxing Medal Tally with two gold medals each. The United States continued their fall in Amateur Boxing by securing only one Bronze Medal this Olympics.
Here’s the full results of the Gold Medal fights:
Super Heavyweight Gold: Roberto Cammarelle (Italy) Silver: Zhieli Zhang (China) Bronze: Vyacheslav Glazkov (Ukraine), David Price (Great Britain)
Medal Tally
Countey (Gold-Silver-Bronze) 1. China (2-1-1)
2. Russia (2-0-1)
3. Italy (1-1-1)
4. Mongolia (1-1-0)
5. Thailand (1-1-0)
6. Great Britain (1-0-2)
7. Kazakhstan (1-0-1)
8. Ukraine (1-0-1)
9. Dominican Republic (1-0-0)
10. Cuba (0-4-4)
11. France (0-2-1)
12. Ireland (0-1-2)
13. Armenia (0-0-1)
14. Ajerbaijan (0-0-1)
15. India (0-0-1)
16. Mauritius (0-0-1)
17. Moldova (0-0-1)
18. South Korea (0-0-1)
19. Turkey (0-0-1)
20. United States (0-0-1)
Cazares-Calderson II, Mijares returns this weekend
The big rematch between the top two Junior Flyweights (108lbs) in the World takes place this weekend. Ivan Calderson puts his undefeated record and WBO 108lb title on the line against former champion Hugo Cazares in Puerto Rico. I think Calderon will be much more adjusted to the weight (for guys this small that extra kilo makes a difference) and I also think Cazares is struggling to make weight. Calderon should win the rematch more comfortably.
Also in action this weekend is the top Junior Bantamweight (115lbs) in the World Cristian Mijares. Mijares is one of the few titlists who is willing to fight other guys with titles and fight top fighters on a consistant basis. This is one of the reasons I think he deserves a spot in the top ten Pound for Pound best fighters in the World. Recently he’s beaten Jorge Arce, Katsushige Kawashima and Alexander Munoz and not only that, he fights every few months so he can stay sharp. Other champions could learn a lot from this guy! Mijares takes on former WBC flyweight titlist Chatchai Sasakul (64-3).
Big two weeks of Lightweights starts next weekend All of the top lightweight contenders (bar Manny Pacquiao) will do battle over a period of eight days starting next weekend when Juan Diaz and Michael Katsidis fight to try and get back in the title picture. This is then followed by a fight for the Linear Lightweight title between Champion Joel Casamayor and two weight titlist and top pound for pound fighter Juan Manuel Marquez. Also on the same day, multi alphabet belt holder Nate Campbell gives Joan Guzman a chance to win his third world title. Two of the junior welterweight titles go up for grabs on the same day with Timothy Bradley and Andreas Kotelnik defending their respective belts. Despite the few weeks without a big fight, September 13 is doing its best to make up for lost time!
Olympic Boxing Gold Medal Matches
I bitched about the scoring last week so I’ll leave my opinions of that out this week. The Romanian boxing judge though has been suspended for ‘suspected foul play’ which is a big blow for any chances of Olympic boxing taking place at London. Something will have to change for boxing to have any chance at remaining in the Olympics. The Gold Medal matches will take place over the remaining games at the Olympics. Here’s how they shape up:
Junior Flyweight Shiming Zou (China) vs Serdamba Puredjorj (Mongolia) Bronze: Paddy Barnes (Ireland), Yampier Hernandez (Cuba)
Super Heavyweight
Zhieli Zhang (China) vs Roberto Cammarelle (Italy) Bronze: Vyacheslav Glazkov (Ukraine), David Price (Great Britain)
De La Hoya vs Pacquiao still in negotiations The De La Hoya camp has reduced their proposed 70-30 split to a 67-33 split for their fight against Manny Pacquiao. It sounds like De La Hoya really wants to beat up on another smaller fighter. Why would he face someone of Antonio Margarito’s caliber when he can fight a guy who fights the same way but is 15lb lighter? If De La Hoya is to lose to Pacquiao, it’ll seriously tarnish his legacy in my eyes and if he wins, anyone who knows jack about boxing will know it’s no career defining win.
Pound for Pound Rankings
There’s that little going on in boxing this week that I decided to share my current Pound for Pound Rankings. I was planning on putting a monthly ranking set up at some point including all divisions, but thats been put off for now. Here’s my pound for pound list though:
1- Manny Pacquiao 2- Joe Calzaghe
3- Juan Manuel Marquez
4- Israel Vazquez
5- Kelly Pavlik
6- Bernard Hopkins
7- Rafael Marquez
8- Ricky Hatton
9- Cristian Mijares
10- Antonio Margarito
A lot of people rank Margarito higher, but everyone above him on that list deserves to be there. Margarito only recently lost to Paul Williams which in my opinion keeps him down on the list behind these other guys who are above him. Should he avenge that loss, Margarito is likely sitting in the top five. The Pavlik-Hopkins winner will likely take third place behind Calzaghe, it all depends on how clear cut the victory is as well though.
Ruiz takes on Valuev next week
There is so little going on this week that I’m going to talk about a fight thats happening next week (I also don’t wanna waste a slot in a good week of boxing talking about John Ruiz, actually it really shows how little is happening in boxing when I have to talk about John Ruiz the week before he fights to fill up a post). This fight should be your typical God-awful heavyweight title fight filled with lots of holding (from Ruiz’s part anyway), not much punching and the taste of vomit in everyone’s mouth after its over. Valuev should win the rematch as well, he seems to have improved from their last fight.
I decided to start a new feature on this site. Each Saturday I’ll post a wrap-up of what happened during that week in boxing (outside of the really mega stories which I’ll post as they happen/when they happen) and give my take on it. I read quite a few different sites as well so I’ll comment on the odd article that I find to be stupid and put crap on the author. I’m hoping this segment will actually get someone to comment on the site because I’m feeling a little lonely. I might also do an MMA version of this segment, although right now I’ll keep it to boxing because there aren’t a lot of good boxing matches happening over the next few weeks.
Olympic Boxing Results Not really results, I just wanted to vent my frustration about the scoring. I really don’t think there will be boxing at London 2012. The scoring system has somehow managed to break the rock bottom it hit at Athens 2004 and get worse. The way they do it just isn’t logical. These fighters sacrifice so much to get there, only for their dreams to rest on whether or not three judges react to a punch within a second of each other in order to score a point. Not only do they have to worry about scoring with their shots and making the other boxer miss, they have to hope that their point is scored by this completely random scoring system. Go back to round-by-round scoring if you have to and make it three-three minute rounds instead or let the judges keep their own cumulative score over the four rounds based on punches landed on the target area and then score it for the fighter who the majority of the judges think won. Anything will work better then the current method!
Jorge Arce returns in September
Again this isn’t really about Arce, it’s about what the WBA are doing with this fight. Okay try and follow this; Cristian Mijares unified the WBC and WBA titles with a points win over Alexander Munoz. The WBA do what they always do and make Mijares ‘super champion’ because he holds the WBA belt plus another title which is their fucked up policy. Now get this, without even filling the ‘regular’ WBA title, the WBA have announced Alexander Munoz will fight for the regular title, and Arce will fight for the interim title. How fucked up is that? To make matters worse, both guys are fighting average fighters. Why don’t the WBA just make these two fight because the winner will definately be the next top fighter behind Mijares and Montiel. That would be an excellent fight and something that boxing needs to happen more often; two top fighters fighting each other for the right to face the champion. Sanctioning bodies suck and as long as organisations like the WBA are allowed to do shit like this boxing will always be a second rate sport!
Joe Calzaghe to retire should he defeat Roy Jones jnr
I’m a bit pissed off by this. There are plenty of good fights for Calzaghe to take part in (well there’s at least one and possibly two). The winner of Dawson vs Tarver would make an excellent opponent for Calzaghe as would Kelly Pavlik should he defeat Bernard Hopkins (I really couldn’t sit through a rematch between Calzaghe and Hopkins). Jones jnr won’t test Calzaghe, he’s old and washed up. Calzaghe’s got plenty of fight left in him if he wants to keep going, and a win over who I think will be a top pound for pound fighter in boxing for the next five or so years will add enormous amounts to his legacy. Pavlik has to get by Hopkins first and I’m really not sure he can at the higher weight. Hopkins spoiling style and physical strength will make things ugly for Pavlik who will be forced to fight at a lower pace then he likes to. I’d love nothing more to see Pavlik mop the floor with both Hopkins and Calzaghe in his next two fights though.
Vic Toweel passes away
Arguably South Africa’s greatest boxer (I don’t know a lot about their boxing history but no other names came to mind) and former Undisputed World Bantamweight champion Vic Toweel passed away yesterday at age 80. Toweel went 298-2 as an amatuer (one of those losses came in the form of a disputed decision at the 1948 Olympics) before turning pro. He won the World Bantamweight Championship in 1950 with a 15 round points win over Bantamweight great Manuel Ortiz. ‘The Benoni Atom’ made three defences of his title before losing it to Jimmy Caruthers in 1952. During his reign he had troubles making the weight and had many fights above the Bantamweight limit. Toweel retired with a 28-3-1 record (14 knockouts) and lived the last 20 years of his life in Australia. RIP.
De La Hoya vs Pacquaio likely off
The ‘mega’ fight between top ranked junior middleweight Oscar De La Hoya and top ranked lightweight Manny Pacquiao is likely off after both parties couldn’t come to an agreement. Good Riddance! I really don’t know why people were so keen to see De La Hoya beat up a man who is 20lbs naturally smaller then him no matter how good he is in his weight division. The last thing I needed to hear on the occasions I visit message boards is how much greater De La Hoya is after a knockout win over Pacquiao. It’s bad enough as it is that people think he’s up ther with guys like Ray Robinson and Henry Armstrong (I personally don’t think he’s the greatest welterweight or lightweight of the last 15 years) without this overhyped mismatch taking place. Pacquiao will instead fight Humberto Soto, who is a good fighter but will likely test the pound for pound king Pacquiao. De La Hoya will probably make Felix Trinidad saw his leg off to make welterweight and avenge that loss in his farewell fight which might infact be worse.
