Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

Carson City Smackdown
I’m not going to bother with a De La Hoya/Forbes preview. Vegas has Oscar at 20-1, and Oscar by stoppage at 2-1, which pretty much tells the tale. If Oscar doesn’t have him out of there by the eighth, it will be a shocker.

There are a couple of exciting young fighters on the undercard that deserve mention, however, even though I doubt HBO will show any undercard fights. Brooklyn’s Danny Jacobs will fight Jose Pena in a middleweight six-rounder. A four-time NY Golden Gloves champ, Jacobs is looking to become the next great fighter to emerge from Brownsville in the grand tradition of Tyson, Riddick Bowe and Zab Judah, and he’s got the skills to do the job. What’s more, he’s got the looks and the charisma to be a superstar and he also has himself a prime contract with Golden Boy. Over at No Mas, we shot some videos of Danny last year at the Olympic nationals in Colorado and hanging out with him in his hood and trust me, the man is just cash money all around. (You can check those videos out here.)

Oxnard, California’s Victor Ortiz will feature in the main undercard fight tomorrow night against Dairo Esalas. A junior welter, Vicious Victor fights out of the La Colonia gym in Oxnard which is most famous for being the home base for Fernando Vargas (Ferocious Fernando… I notice a theme with these La Colonia nicknames). Ortiz has been a highly touted prospect for a while now, and he made a big splash on the Cotto/Mosley undercard last November with a first-round KO of Carlos Maussa.

Fourth Time’s a Charm
Talks are underway to stage a fourth fight between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez. The two fighters already have fought an epic trilogy, with the jaw-dropping third leg fought this past March and ending in a controversial decision for Vasquez. The beef about the decision certainly gives cause for another fight, as does the quality of the bout itself, which was simply off the charts. But I have to admit, I’m kind of hoping it doesn’t happen. It will, of course, because the money’s sure to be there and they’ll make more money fighting each other than they will anyone else. But the way these two go at it, man, it’s like you can see the specter of pugilistic dementia hovering over the ring. Sometimes you can even see a much more frightening specter indeed. As it stands right now, they’ve given us one of the greatest trilogies of all time. I say leave well enough alone.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.