Now THIS is a card from the archives. 4/2/1981, we've got a young Al Bernstein and even DUANE BOBICK on color. Antuofermo apparently had some plastic surgery done to shave his eyebrows down before this contest. In case you don't know, Vito Antuofermo was a one time middleweight champion with an all action style and an Italian fanbase. Sounds sorta familiar in some ways, doesn't it? Aldana is here to provide him with some busy work. "Busy" is one way to describe this fight, telecast from a mighty big ballroom at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago, IL. You may remember that hotel from when protestors were hosed outside of it in 1968 during the Presidential elections. I remember it because my wife and I stayed there a couple years back - not a terrible place, had some really cool public spaces (the ballroom used for this fight had an enormous wedding that evening), and historical exhibits about itself. That stay was also memorable because I vomited in the toilet of our room and my wife got a horrendous nosebleed the next morning. I digress. THE FIGHT.

One thing that is really apparent fast is how much larger Aldana is. Antuofermo has to get rough to try to get his way, and boy does it ever get rough. There's a ton of headbutts, wrestling, and wild action in the first three minutes. Aldana lands a hard right hand that drops Antuofermo to a single knee and ends up scored as a knockdown, though it takes the ref almost ten seconds of action to start an 8 count (which he doesn't finish!) Later in the round, Antuofermo is charged with another knockdown after being headbutted squarely in the skull. Bad call by the ref there. The dirty action continues with mauling clinches, low blows, and punches on the break - all of those happen multiple times in pretty much every round.

Clear as day is the fact that Antuofermo is pissed about this fight and how its going. Aldana and his wild brawling style were effective early on, but he's got his mouth wide open by the end of the 4th round. That kind of activity will wear on anyone, and Aldana seems ill prepared to deal with a long fight. Antuofermo just keeps up the pressure, marching forward, trying to break Aldana. And Aldana's reaction seems to just keep swinging his head and wildly grappling. While this is all going on, the announcers are making sure to tell us that the ref is a guy known for letting fights go inside. If that wasn't totally obvious given the near muay thai level of clinchwork happening here, I'd call that real insight.

The brawl continues and continues and continues. Vito is doing by far the better work throughout this fight, but Aldana isn't getting docked or having any penalty offered for the absolute foul fest that was taking place. Many, many fighter have been DQed for less. Cuts on the forehead, scalp, and around the eyes hampered Antuofermo further, but did not deter him from his quest to win. He comprehensively outpunched Aldana in pretty much every round of the fight, and even after being so badly hurt in round 1 with a variety of legal and non-legal strikes, was deserving of a wide decision. Aldana did very little to inspire any sympathy in this fight, fouling, fouling, and fouling again. While Aldana did come out red hot for a short period in round 10, Antuofermo still won the round with superior workrate and clean punching. He'd go on to win a unanimous decision, and earn another shot at the middleweight title held by Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Aldana does nothing, loses a lot and disappears.

This week's installment features a pair of cards recorded in the middle of 2011 from Azteca America. Ah, Box Azteca. Now a clearing house for strange European based cards and bad Mexican ones, it presents to us a pair of shows featuring super flyweight pseudo-contender Enrique Cuate Quevedo. I'll also be using a new format for cleaner reading.

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The first of the two shows was taped on May 6th and televised in the US the following day, and comes to us from a baseball stadium used in the Mexicali Rural Baseball League. Can't make this up. I have no idea what is on this card in advance, so I'm hoping for the best. Main event is Enrique Quevedo vs. Jorge Guerrero. Who? I'm not sure.

1) Diego Atzin vs. Horacio Sanchez : Fight between two flyweights. Atzin is much, much larger than Sanchez. According to Boxrec, Sanchez came in at Hayweight. Atzin came in at 113. I'm guessing that was 113 after a cut. Like a 5 division difference here.

RESULT: Atzin Unanimous Decision

BREAKDOWN: Interesting fight, actually. Sanchez has never won a contest, but he looks like the technically more proficent boxer. Atzin just wings stuff from all over. Super wide puncher. He hits a lot harder though and breaks Sanchez' nose, which means his face is completely red by the end of the fight. Sanchez did a lot of head movement and threw straighter, faster punches, but he couldn't dissuade Atzin one bit with the power he had. Atzin's first loss was to real prospect Roberto Castaneda, and I can't say I'm surprised at all.

2) Marcos Geraldo Jr. vs. Martin Rodriguez: One guy is debuting, the other is a 0-1 fighter from Punta Cana, DR. why drag him out here for this? Basically a featherweight bout.

RESULT: Geraldo Jr TKO Round 4

BREAKDOWN: Geraldo Jr. is a totally stereotypical Mexican brawler, and Rodriguez isn't good enough to keep him off. In round 4, Rodriguez lands a punch weird and falls to the mat immediately afterwards having injured his hand. He gets to the bell but the bell for the 5th never rings.

3) Edgar Lupillo Ramirez vs. Sergio "Mickey" Lopez: How many Mickey Lopezes are there? Lopez is 12-3 coming into this bout, Ramirez is but 3-4. Not much of a fight on paper. Featherweight contest.

RESULT: Lopez TKO (Retirement) Round 6

BREAKDOWN: Fight actually turns out to be pretty good - Lopez kept this one in tight and both guys just threw and threw and threw some more. Massive technical deficiencies on both, which explains each man's record. Ramirez retired prior to the start the 6th round due to exhaustion. He just ran himself out of gas in this one.

4) Roberto Castaneda vs. Pedro Garcia: I don't know if its fair to call it a "gross mismatch"; yes, Castaneda is 13-0, Garcia 10-9. But Garcia has a lot of pro experience and Castaneda is apparently still fighting 4-6 rounders at this stage.

RESULT: Castaneda TKO Round 3.

BREAKDOWN: Castaneda's taller, he's leaner, he's got more skills. Garcia comes forwards and eats punches until he can't eat anymore, and then falls down. Castaneda has that very vertical, almost European stance that a lot of Mexican boxers have picked up since the success of the Marquez Bros.

5) Enrique Quevedo vs. Jorge Guerrero: Okay, this is a total mismatch. Quevedo's mot notable contest is a KO loss to Gerson Guerrero for the NABF super flyweight title. He at least has a decent looking record. Guerrero is 3-6. To his credit, he's 3-1 in his last 4 coming into this. Still. Not good.

RESULT: Quevedo TKO Round 1.

BREAKDOWN: Little to analyze. Quevedo walked through his man like he was barely even there.

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The second card is all sorts of digitally screwed up from however it was sent along to the network in the states. I know its the video, because the audio overdubbed in the studio sounds crystal clear, and all the commercials work fine. Just not the fights themselves. In short: This was arduous to watch. This time the fights come from the Deportivo Anahuac in Monterrey, which is a soccer stadium. The main event for this card again features Enrique Quevedo, this time pitted against the 29-20-1 Roberto Lopez.

1) Ezequiel Aviles vs. Isirido Sanchez: Super featherweight opener. Sanchez has a mohawk. Not much else to say about the participants.

RESULT: Aviles TKO Round 1.

BREAKDOWN: Aviles bloodies and batters Sanchez into a KO win towards the end of the first to earn his second pro win.

2) Guadalupe "Corrales" Barrera vs. Omar Aguilar: Two guys I know little about and seem to not be going anywhere important in the super flyweight class.

RESULT: Barrera TKO Round 2.

BREAKDOWN: Barrera lets Aguilar in real close and tight, giving away a height/reach advantage he should probably be using. Makes for an OK fight between two guys that don't matter until he KOs Aguilar with a hook while they're being broken up by the ref. The referee counts anyways.

3) Jesus Lopez vs. Jose Escarcega: Another super bantamweight fight between unknown and meaningless guys.

RESULT: Lopez UD 4 Rounds.

BREAKDOWN: I didn't take notes aside from scoring the rounds, and I had it 39-37 Lopez, who is a 5-7 fighter now. Not the fight I was really looking to pay attention to.

4) Rolando Paredes vs. Rogelio Ruvalcaba: This is sorta interesting: Two undefeated Mexican super middleweight prospects fighting each other, really at light heavyweight. Paredes is by far the paunchier of the two men.

RESULT: Ruvalcaba TKO Round 2

BREAKDOWN: Ruvalcaba batters the hell out of a game but totally outgunned Paredes. Rogelio is probably 3-4 inches taller than his opponent and much, much leaner. Both guys are bangers, but if you have to pick one to have more refinement to what he does, its Ruvalcaba. His jab is not too fantastic but he has a decent idea of how to keep his man at bay and hit him over and over. Paredes ends up being stopped with a barrage against the ropes. I wonder if he's related to Rito, a former Sergio Mora victim. Hmmm.

5) Roberto Castaneda vs. Luis Alberto Gomez: Again we see the undefeated Castaneda against a guy he shouldn't fight. Gomez is 4-2.

RESULT: Castaneda TKO Round 3

BREAKDOWN: Lots of similarities with the fight against Pedro Garcia two months prior. Castaneda keeps the man at bay with the jab and just torches him with uppercuts and right hands coming in. I guess he's only 20 and this is who he should fight for a year or two more before making a big step up or something, but it doesn't tell me anything about what he can do aside from that he does have some basic skills and a semblance of power.

6) Enrique Quevedo vs. Roberto Lopez: Big step up to a long time gatekeeper for Quevedo.

RESULT: Quevedo TKO Round 6.

BREAKDOWN: Not an impressive destruction or anything here. In fact, Lopez quits on the stool between rounds after having at least looked alive most of the fight. No, what you have here is a fight in which Lopez comes at Quevedo for a little bit, gives a decent account of himself, gets hit quite a bit in return, and then stops fighting altogether rather suddenly. If you're hoping for something special out of these two programs highlighting the guy, you end up seeing this. He's basic, he has some talent, but he doesn't do anything very well, and against a guy who was stopped inside of 5 rounds multiple, multiple times over a very long career, he doesn't manage to ever really rock his world.

Congrats to anyone who read that entire thing. I know: not a ton of payoff, right?

Earlier this year, the folks over at Fox Deportes decided to air a pair of bouts from Mexico in the bantamweight division. Francisco Arce, the less talented but still fun to watch brother of Arce, was matched with the generally unknown Hugo Ruiz for the vacant WBA interim bantamweight piece of crap belt. Over the course of 16 rounds, some of the best boxing action of the year was seen.

The first fight was aired on May 14th, and if you recorded it like I did, you found out that the entire first half of the telecast didn't make TV because a Yankees game ran long. But the main event of the night, their first fight, was shown in its entirety. In the early going, it appeared that Ruiz was going to be able to use his superior size to keep Arce off him with his jab. Once we're in round 3, that flys out the window with a single Arce punch that floors Hugo Ruiz and immediately brings the fight to being even. From that point forward, a war develops between the two men, with legal punches being thrown as well as low blows and some mean clinch work. Francisco Arce clearly intended to make this a brawl, and succeeded wildly in his intention. Francisco is still not as good as Jorge, nor has his chin, making him more susceptible to getting knocked down and generally getting hit, and Hugo Ruiz and his mammoth KO ratio (over 80%) made sure to take a toll of his own on Arce, knocking him down twice over the course of the fight. Arce didn't do himself any favors throwing below the belt and getting a point taken in round 10, but he did manage to drop Ruiz once more in the 8th round. Absolute back and forth contest, but ultimately Ruiz did enough to win in the minds of all the judges. I too had him winning the fight with a score of 113-110.

By the time the second fight came around on October 15th of this year, both men had enough time to make adjustments to their game plans and improve what it was they wanted to do in the ring. Arce came in the same fighter, while Ruiz came in with a much improved game plan to stay mobile and not get in that same sort of dirty, brutal war. Arce proved very easy to hit by Ruiz both with the jab and power punch, as he lept in with his shots. With Ruiz not letting him inside so easily and keeping his hands up to prevent a repeat of the 3rd round in the first fight, Arce started to take shots. In round 3, Arce was the man to go down, and he was badly hurt. When the bell rang for the end of the round, Ruiz wrongly took it to mean the fight too was over and began celebrating before being pulled off the turnbuckle by the referee. It mattered little - a damaged Francisco Arce managed little but to waive in Hugo Ruiz and get hit repeatedly, very cleanly. Arce's corner jumped in to save their man and met a ton of resistance in doing so.

Hugo Ruiz now manages to get his name in the busy bantamweight discussion and prove that he's a 12 round fighter. He still has far to go to really justify being a serious contender in the bantamweight ranks given how stacked the competition is there.

ESPN Classic again brings us black and white bouts sponsored by Pabst, and again the contest comes to us from the Chicago Stadium. This is a middleweight contest pitting a then undefeated Chuck Davey in the ring against Rocky Graziano. This is a historically relevant bout for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it would go on to be Graziano's final contest in the ring. While Graziano was a product of the streets of Manhattan, Davey was part of a now largely dead world - an amateur champion for his college, Michigan State University. Davey was still moving his way up the ladder on a collision course with Kid Gavilan, while Graziano's best days and legendary trilogy with Tony Zale was now several years behind him.

As a fight onto itself, it was not exactly thrilling, and was not terribly competitive. Graziano was reduced to a wild swinging brawler, rarely if every jabbing, and never cutting off the ring successfully on Davey. Davey may have very well been a "runner", and with his southpaw stance, he was incredibly difficult to land anything on without having a very impressive modicum of skill. Graziano, in this late stage of his career, simply had nothing in terms of physical ability to get the fight into a mode where he was comfortable, and spent almost the entire fight eating jabs, right hands, and short uppercuts from a constantly mobile Davey. His nose bloodied and his attack neutralized, Graziano showed great heart in the 10th round to try and rally himself to victory, but even with the few clean blows landed that round, Davey was never in any great trouble or threat to be dropped. The scorecards unanimously and widely read for Chuck Davey. While a bout from the golden era of boxing, its not really a "classic" any more than it would be a classic to see the likes of Mosley/Collazo 40 years from now. It's very one sided and not particularly entertaining.

Alan Sanchez vs. Albert Herrera is the main event of this Solo Boxeo show and....its the first bout shown. Apparently they've turned into Boxeo Telemundo in the course of a week. This is not exactly the best fight ever either. First, let me admit I didn't exactly score the fight at home. I looked at various websites and multitasked while watching this. When you have a fight that doesn't really matter, its tough to be able to focus on it, IMO. The ebb and flow was very clear though - Herrera came forward and pushed Sanchez back repeatedly. Sanchez gets on the ropes and throws straighter punches and stuff from different angles and lands on Herrera. This is actually very competitive then. Lots of tough to determine rounds, and not a ton of cleanly landed punches. In the end, Sanchez wins the unanimous decision for landing cleaner punches, but I can't say I'm wholly impressed.

We're on to featherweights with Guy Robb taking on Hugo Ramos in a 6 rounder. Man, this is a bad mismatch on paper. Ramos is game, but by the time we're in round 2, he already has nothing left on his shots. Robb just picks his opportunities to land clean shots, but hardly looks to go out and destroy a lesser fighter that's standing right there. In the 5th, the punches all add up and Ramos ends up getting saved by the ref after suffering a lot of head punches. He looks like he wants to throw up afterwards too, which is an ugly scene. Robb's nothing to write home about.

Third fight of the evening features a guy making his pro debut: Jonathan Chicas/Paul Cano. Cano's brand new, Chicas is 3-0. Chicas moves around the ring pretty well and looks like he has a decent arsenal of punches. Cano comes right at him, which means that Chicas gets a chance to really show off his abilty to move laterally and throw on guys who aren't set to defend stuff coming from strange angles.

The final bout of the evening is actually the one I'm most interested in seeing. Go figure, right? Dimtry Chudinov is a former Russian and now undefeated prospect based in Southern California, and he's matched up tough here with 12-4-2 Tony Hirsch. Chudinov is technically competent, but his hands remain slow, and he's not much of a puncher. Adding to the difficulties here for him, Hirsch is a passable boxer and might actually have better hand speed than Chudinov. While Chudinov threw better, straighter punches for more clean connects, Hirsch was still able to get off his own shots and not look totally outgunned. Chudinov got a majority decision nod in the fight, which is fair.

In summation: The final new episode of Solo Boxeo for 2011 was not mandatory viewing. I expected that and that's why I didn't watch it live. Its also why, I'd guess, BLH didn't cover it immediately after either. I hope for better cards than this in 2012. It will be tough to do worse.

Alright, a pair of cards - one from October, and one all the way back from FEBRUARY. Yes. I have unwatched stuff going back about a year. Ergo: These posts.

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Our first show was recorded a couple weeks ago and comes to us from a random Comcast Sports affiliate in the Bay Area. Chris Mannix and Brian Adams are here and ladies and gents, WE HAVE BOXING ON THE WAY. Yes folks, its Broadway Boxing, coming to us from that famous Broadway venue....uhhh....Foxwoods Casino. That dude with the mile long dreads is announcing - I know his name is David Diamante because it is on the back of the cards. I could draw more people to the Fox Theater than are presently in the building when they start taping too. Taping date for this show was 10/21/2011. If you're thinking "Hey, did DiBella do something that day?", well, he did. This was the dark undercard for Edwin Rodriguez/Will Rosinsky. Sorta.

Jevon Boisseau (3-5-1) fights Delen Parsley (5-0 [2]) to open the card and like two people clap. This is a junior middleweight contest. Parsley is pretty tall, but he's not very good fighting on the outside. I would go so far as to say that he can't or doesn't want to. Boisseau is honestly like a light welterweight or something in comparison. Like, its some hilarious difference in size.There nothing I'm seeing here that excites me whatsoever. In fact, he recedes into a defensive shell far too easily, which allows Boisseau to keep walking at him and throwing body shots. He just doesn't appear to be an elite guy. He wins a unanimous decision.

Willie Villanueva (10-3 [2]) against Ryan Kielczewski (11-0 [2]) is our next bout. Lou Dibella also joins the folks on the mics and tells us that Kielczewski is a poor man's Paulie Malignaggi. That's how he is promoting him. Well, as one of the few dudes who actually liked to watch Paulie fight, I guess I'll pay attention. You see the similarities: Soft punching and white skin. Aside from that: Paulie moved a lot on guys. Gave them angles. Gave them a target that was very difficult to touch, much less land clean on. Ryan comes forward. He's not giving angles and trying to counter punch or kill guys with speed. He's walking them down and trying to land. He doesn't have the hand speed either.

Dibella ends up sounding ridiculous offering nothing but the occasional Staning of his fighter. It actually becomes the most enthralling part of the contest: How hard will he root for his man? What punches that land on the arms will he cheer? Dibella tells us he has few if any technical flaws. Well, I will agree. His basics are not terrible. The issue is that he's not being pressed at all here to justify any hype. I agree that at 22, there's no reason to shove him forwards against tough opposition who will beat him. On the other hand, he's in a fight against a guy who isn't offering much serious resistance.Add in a style that, in combination to the lack of punching power, seems destined to leave him shattered on a Shobox card - I'm not racing to buy a ticket. Again: Unanimous decision, wins all 6 rounds.

Lou Dibella then gets a chance in a studio to give a monologue for Jack Johnson to get a pardon. Oh. Great.

Hey, Mike Straka. Benny Ricardo. Wait, wait? We're at the Hard Rock in Punta Cana? This is a Victor Cayo fight they're announcing? This is a thing right here, and this thing is from 11/6/2011. Ring announcer is some dude name Grant Waterman who might be British or something. He is definitely bald. In our first fight, there is some sort of belt at stake, and we have a 21-0-2 fighter named Jenifel Vincente from DR fighting Lucian Gonzalez, who is 10-6-1 with two KO wins on his resume. Dear god. This is at super bantam. This is an 8 round fight, for what that's worth.

Vincente is a banger: That is very clear. Not much of a guy who works his way in, at least here. Gonzalez doesn't really make him pay coming forwards, and so the fight largely consists of Gonzalez laying on the ropes defending and countering occasionally. Gonzalez does start to come on pretty strong in the later rounds as Vincente' motor begins to tail off. He gets some traction going moving and jabbing but does so at a point in the fight where he basically needs to get a knockdown or two to win. As a fighter with 2 KOs, that's not likely. Can't say I'm surprised to hear the bell ring to sound the end of the fight and that he lost a decision either. Ricardo tell the fans at home that Gonzalez earned his paycheck. Last time I heard fighters went to Punta Cana to fight, it was an MMA card no one got paid to do and no doctor was present at. Oops. I had this 77-75 personally after 8 in favor of Vincente.

Finally, the main event: Nelson Sanchez (7-2) against Victor Cayo (26-2). What a crap fight. Sanchez basically takes a dive or something that makes me believe that I would claim that someone has allegedly taken a dive off a right hand to the temple while Sanchez was off balance, and we're out and away a minute and a half in. Cayo is a skilled fighter. I'm not sure he even needed any of it on this night.

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Onto the next show, and we're hours and hours away by plane in Argentina. Taping date for this show was 2/19/2011, and its Boxeo De Primera. That means poor matchmaking featuring Argentine fighters, which makes for carnage. And for those MMA fans out there what does carnage really mean? Action! Yes. This is a night of short fights. Headlining this venture is Arthur Abraham's comeback opponent, Pablo Farias. Causing trouble for this broadcast is the issue that sound for the entire show has heavy feedback/static. None is present before. None after.

Opening up this festival of beatdowns disguised as serious competition is Dario Balmaceda (5-4-1 [2]) against Job Mazeo (8-3-1 [4]). Does either guy matter? No. Balmaceda lost twice to Farias already in his 10 fight career. Mazeo never lost to anyone you've heard of. This, I should note, is a light heavyweight contest, and Balmaceda looks to be as much as 7-8 inches taller than his opponent, and more muscular too. Physical mismatch made competitive for short bursts by Balmaceda's lack of technique and skill in the ring. Mazeo basically pressed him from moment one and actually landed some shots here and there. Horrible stoppage in the second - Mazeo goes down off balance from a left hook, then Farias rushes him shortly after with some cuffing punches and the ref jumps in to save him. He shakes his head. I write "smdh" in these notes.

Next bout: a 4 round women's contest between Daniela Bermudez and Cristina Pacheco. Lots of wild punching going on, Bermudez wins, then goes on to fight for a WORLD TITLE in her next bout. If you want to read more about Bermudez, feel free to see this much more recent view of her beating up another overmatched opponent in a short bout from my look at the 11/19 TyC card.

That basically ignored women's bout is closely followed by Gustavo Bermudez (10-5 [5]) getting in there to take on Daniel Eduardo Brizuela (21-1-1 [8)]. This Bermudez has actually fought decent fighters. In fact, his prior fight to this is a loss to Jonathan Barros. This Bermudez also turns out to actually be the larger of the two men and...wait, did he just drop Brizuela in the first round on a well timed hook? He did. Huh. This fight goes the entire 6 round distance that its scheduled for, and my final scorecard reads 58-55 in favor of Bermudez, who I give rounds 1, 3, 4, and 5 to and a 10-8 for the clean knockdown in the first. Brizuela just didn't react well at all to the pressure and looked all out of shape any time something landed on him. The fight officially goes down as a split decision draw. Horrible judging there.

And now onto the next bout on the card: Cleber Alves (8-3 [7]) vs. Pablo Farias (16-0 [10]). Farias is defending his unified Latino WBO/WBC titles. I can't believe I just typed those words. In defense of Farias here, he has a very intense mullet. He is also clearly soft. Alves is slow and clumsy and all around is not very good, and yet he has some success landing punches here on the occasions he is not merely a training tool. For the most part, he just gets beat up. There's a nice little uppercut that drops Alves in round one. In round two, we see Farias just increase the work rate and combination punching. In turn, we get more knockdowns (two) and then he finishes the job in round 3. Lots of cheering and hugs. He's not a terrible fighter, but he's very plain. He has a Juan Diaz body style. And that's being kind. I can't see him lasting 5 rounds even with an unmotivated Alejandro Berrio. Of course, he lost his last fight by DQ, which led the WBC to push him up the rankings. He's never faced anyone above domestic competition in his homeland.

Finally, its time for a 4 roiund bout as Damian Albornoz (5-1 [1]) takes on David Irusta (3-0-1 [1]) in the best matched contest of the night. Lightweight bout too, so maybe they will throw a lot of punches and not look so bad! I paid only some attention to this, to be honest. Irusta fights as a southpaw and Albornoz has shoes that come untied often. To the credit of Irusta, he ends up controlling the distance and landing the jab most in spite of a serious height disadvantage against him and wins a unanimous decision.

And with that, another one of these is in the books. I like to try and get them done on Tuesdays, but I got busy this week. Promise to be closer to on time next week.

Its SABADO SABADO SABADO and TyC is televising from Parque Eva Peron. As one would almost anticipate from a fight card held at a venue named after a famed female head of state, women take center stage. The main event was held between Fernanda Alegre and Chris Namus Corrales, a fight heightened in intensity by the nationalistic nature of the combatants (Argentina vs. Uruguay, Round 1 Million). This was for some sort of title belt, but hardly gave the impression of a world class boxing contest with the wide, squared stances and arm punching from both. Lots of bombs thrown, and Alegre wins for her native Argentina, running her record to 12-1-1, while Corrales' loss drops her record to 16-2.

Juan Manuel Bonanni fought Fernando Cleffi in a welterweight contest as the highlighted bout between men for the evening. Cleffi came in as the Uruguayan import to potentially give Bonnani another notch on his record. Cleffi offered only mediocre resistance en route to a losing effort against Bonanni. The Argentine fighter simply outworked his man over the course of a unremarkable 6 round fight. Much of the fight was found to be in close, with Bonnani landing significantly more punches over the distance of the fight. Neither man was ever seriously in trouble. Bonnani walked away with the unanimous decision and a record of 16-2-1. Cleffi falls to 6-2.

Maria Del Carmen Potenza met heavy favorite Debora Dionicius in the opener for the show. Dionicius is an defeated 6-0 fighter who's had plenty of TV time on the network since debuting. Potenza is a 42 year old fighter with a 6-13-1 record. This was not intended to be a serious test then for Dionicius, and certainly didn't play out as being one. Dionicius has generally been the larger fighter in the ring every time I've seen her, and this was no different. She generally kept off Potenza with the jab, landing clean power shots, and left Potenza looking like a rank amateur. I'm not impressed with the hand speed or power of Dionicius, but in the world of women's boxing, I don't know what is adequate or even good. Potenza at least can take in stride that she went the entire distance.

Also seen on the broadcast was a super bantamweight bout between Matias Mendoza and Diego Liriano. Liriano, a Dominican based boxer, was making his pro debut against the 0-3 Mendoza. but seemed to give up some significant size in this fight. However, he sat back in the pocket and used an appreciable hand speed advantage to win a 4 round decision. Miguel Villegas (7-16-1) found himself picking up another loss against one time bantamweight title challenger Diego Silva (25-2-3), being stopped in the 5th round in a 6 round contest used to fill remaining airtime.

In addition to the bouts shown on TV, highlights were shown from Friday night's Fabio Moli/Sebastian Ceballos bout. The Argentinian Heavyweight Title was up for grabs in this fight - Ceballos rolls and falls all over the place during the fight and complains of a knee injury caused by a light tap from Moli. Looks like an absolutely crap fight. Moli won and retained the title.

Top Rank has the night off the big networks, so that means it is time for the last Top Rank Live program for 2011. Not even one on the schedule for January yet either. As I do for these minor cards, I don't do RBR. I will do updates every 3 rounds for this show and if there is a stoppage.

We have HEAVYWEIGHTS to open the show. 5-6-1 Derod Johnson (sp?) fights undefeated Andy Ruiz Jr. Not expecting much here. Ruiz is pretty chubby.

Two fight card televised by TyC in Argentina to the US Friday night; Headliner for the show was a WBC women's title bout won by Erica Farias over Puerto Rican fighter Melissa Hernandez. It was a decently matched fight that I thought Hernandez looked better in, even though she had a clear size disadvantage. However, the fight most people would pay attention to was the feature contest at catchweight of 137. Fernando Angulo, who rose to some degree of prominence stateside with a spirited attempt at lifting Juan Diaz's WBA lightweight title, took on Argentine fighter Patricio Perdero.While Pedrero entered with a record of 25-3-1, it was a record built entirely on domestic level competition in Argentina. The sole example outside of Argentina was one of his losses; an 11th round TKO loss to Darley Perez in Colombia. This then was a decently matched fight.

Early on, it was clear that the aggressor in the fight was Angulo. He consistently came forward with his jab and wide right hand shots against a fighter in Perdero that was seemingly afraid to engage consistently, or at all. While the rounds were somewhat difficult to score through the first 6, Angulo crushed Perdero with a right hand during an exchange that left his opponent flat on his back. Following a slow count from the referee, Perdero was allowed to continue and made it to the bell only seconds later. He was also given, without any particular reason, extra time in the corner to have smelling salts administered to him and to sit on his stool. From the 7th forward, Perdero barely threw any punches, instead running and hugging. It wasn't until round 10 that he chose to exchange leather with Angulo, and once again was hit with more effective power punches.

To Angulo's credit, he kept his cool in spite of a terrible situation. Throughout the fight, Perdero was allowed to hold and grab by the ref, was was never seriously warned ever for locking up Angulo's limbs and refusing to let go when informed to break. Along with the (seemingly) slow count and the additional time given to Perdero, I had some serious worries with the score cards. When read, it turned out that Angulo was rightfully given a wide decision victory, and with it, the WBC Latino Light Welterweight title. I'm not really sure where Angulo goes from here given losses in the last 3 years to Anges Adjaho, Ameth Diaz, and Leonardo Zappavigna. Angulo simply hasn't beaten any one fighter who even remotely smells like the elite at 135/140/147, much less is the elite. The bauble he won will probably put him in a position to fight a prospect over rankings rights in the WBC. At least he might go down swinging.

In our modern times as boxing fans, we often look at the stars of our sport as being destined or needing to retire young. I can barely count the number of times I heard that Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Floyd Mayweather, and so on are going to walk away any moment now. But the history of boxing is very, very clear. No matter what someone says, generally they're going to be with us for a long time. Sure, there's exceptions. Ricky Hatton left young. So did Naseem Hamed. David Haye may not return either. What it is with British fighters walking away, I'm not sure. Maybe there's better social programs in England? But for fighters based in America, this is practically never the case.

In exhibit A for that which I speak, I offer this fight. Neither man really was "at his best". Pazienza, should you not remember, broke his neck in a car accident, only to come back 3 months later, choosing to train while wearing a halo. Following the injury, the one time lightweight/junior lightweight blew up to being a super middleweight. Duran was a different situation. There were no great crippling injuries in his past. However, his past is the thing of legend - 23 years prior to this fight, Duran won his first world title against Ken Buchanan in a lightweight bout. Over two decades later, a 42 year old Duran is at 168, fighting in a 12 round bout against the younger Paz.

The first fight between the two was an entertaining affair that featured Duran looking competitive and even knocking down Vinny Pazienza in the 6th round. He argued that it was a bad decision, and enough people were convinced by his legend and success seen in the bout that a PPV rematch was put on in Atlantic City. At the time for boxing, the sport was still transitioning and having difficulty getting over the fact that its biggest star (Tyson) was rotting away in prison. Paz/Duran II didn't move the sport forwards, but it wasn't necessarily the sort of thing that was single handedly going to demolish the sport. You also have to remember that the heavyweight champion at this time was George Foreman; the image boxing then held was one of aging men and criminals. Not the best thing commercially.

The fight itself doesn't deserve all the background I just gave it though. I gotta admit this. Maybe I should have earlier? Duran looks slow, pudgy (though this was nothing new) and totally disinterested from the second Paz decides to box and use lateral movement rather than trade. Duran simply doesn't have the reflexes to deal with even the not-so-great slick boxing of the Pazmanian Devil, and round after round goes by with power shot after power shot landing clean on Duran. Instead of an entertaining bout that meant precious little, we had a sad spectacle that not even the fans in attendance were overjoyed about seeing. The worst part about it was what it segued to: in attendance was Roy Jones Jr., and Pazienza was set on a course to face Senor Y'all Musta Forgot in one of the most one sided boxing contests ever televised on HBO. Duran continued to fight on, facing Hector Camacho and Jorge Locomotora Castro twice each, as well as men like William Joppy in increasingly sad fights.

Today, they occupy strange places in the present day boxing world. Duran retired, gained a ton of weight, and occasionally reappeared in strange places (like being failed prospect Julio Cesar Garcia's promoter). Vinny Paz went broke, changed his name to his nickname (legally) and has generally been associated with Foxwoods/MGM Grand Casino in Connecticut for many years as a greeter, making some scratch.

Over in one of the articles here, I've gone on to defend Chad Dawson as not being completely boring and awful. It is one thing to easily defend and write about fighters who are great action stars, even if they are not good. Just look at all the writing over the years fauning over Arturo Gatti. But to defend a fighter who is perceived as mediocre or boring and to argue against that? Well, now we're talking. My challenge to anyone: Write a defense of someone who you think the general public has the wrong idea about. Maybe you think Greg Page really was Ali reincarnated and he got screwed by Don King. Maybe you think John Ruiz got a bad rap because the guys he fought just couldn't infight. Convince me and others and make yourself feel superior to your fellow man.

As an example, A DEFENSE OF CHAD DAWSON:

-Okay, look, Chad can't punch because he's not really a light heavyweight. That's the truth. He turned pro at 162 and fought a number of times as a middleweight. He moved up to 175 because honestly, no one at the time wanted to give him the time of day. He's still at 175 because of boxing politics and opportunity. 168 is full of names now, but 175 gives him the best shot at stardom and world titles at this very moment.

-Dawson hasn't ducked anyone. Oh sure, "Tavoris Cloud". How often does Cloud fight? He's fought 4 times in the last 3 years thanks to Don King, and probably won't fight anyone worth a damn for a few more months either. Cloud hardly looked electric against a Glen Johnson that Dawson beat (twice) including a wide decision win. Meanwhile, Dawson has fought the following:

-Antonio Tarver (twice). Oh, its easy to crack on Tarver as being a washed up former champ. Except, you know, that he's won fights at heavyweight and cruiserweight since. He also entered the fight with Dawson off a domination of Clinton Woods, one of his best career wins. No small feat, that. Oh, were they super enthralling action fights? Well, when were these past Antonio Tarver all action fights?

-Glen Johnson (twice): The Road Warrior gave as good as he got in the first barnburning fight, and then as is often the case when Glen faces elite competition twice, he got decisioned easily by a guy who adjusted to the singluar style Glen offers. What was he supposed to do? Stand and trade again?

-Tomasz Adamek: You might have heard of this guy. Became the top cruiserweight in the entire world. Then he became a top 5 heavyweight. Chad Dawson, an undersized light heavyweight, took this guy on and won a wide decision. The only other guy to beat Adamek is named Klitschko. Also, did anyone fall asleep seeing Adamek pursue Dawson, especially in some exciting late rounds?

Yeah, there's some not-so-great fights he took in his career. Jesus Ruiz and Epifanio Mendoza were brought in purely to kill time and give him easy pay days. But what about going up against Eric Harding when Harding was still relevant? Or taking on Adrian Diancou just to get back in the win column (this is a legit top 10 guy!)? He may have been first to send Carl Daniels onto becoming a tomato can, but he won in style and he was the first to do it. He also did a better job with Ian Garner than either Arthur Abraham or Golovkin. And he was hardly boring against Mendoza, Ruiz, Garner, or other guys who actually refused to engage him. He may not have had the leverage or the strength to take them out early, but he eventually did.

Now, yes, he didn't put forth the effort needed to beat Pascal. Maybe its because Pascal is actually a very good fighter? Maybe even a better fighter than Dawson? And were you authentically bored by Pascal/Dawson? I can see disappointed in the lack of perceived effort, but not bored. It was a close competitive fight and Dawson was coming on very strong in the late rounds.

In summation: Dawson is not an evil. Perhaps he's not made for exciting fights with Bernard Hopkins, but NO ONE is made for exciting fights with Bernard Hopkins. If there were a bunch of people who were, Larry Merchant would never have spent a decade railing on the guy for being boring. Dawson may not be a pound for pound talent, and he's not promoted by the best, but he's not necessarily a "boring" fighter.

For this week, I'm continuing on with spanish language boxing programming. Heck, the vast majority of weeks that I do this, it'll be spanish language boxing programming. They show a lot of boxing there, what am I supposed to do?

The first show I went back to is one I had no idea I even recorded: Antonio Pitalua vs. Cosme Rivera II from Telemundo on 9/9/2011. This is really sad, because I was geeked to watch the third bout when I found out it was on and who was in it. It actually resembled the third fight greatly - my scoring may have been influenced by that fight, but I though Rivera moved enough and showed enough class defensively and with ring generalship to win 117-111 on my card. Pitalua was very one dimensional, but his dimension is always an exciting one. When he would land the right hand, there was legitimate drama involved. Many times though there were grazing blows and I think those got scored as if they were landing with full force.

Afterwards, the fight shown was a 4 round bout between a couple of junior flyweights: Ariel Guzman and Miguel Dominguez. They scrapped a little, showed no outward class, and Ariel Guzman was given the decision. A lot of clean blows landed by both guys. I'm not expecting tons from either, but they're young.

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I went back even further into Telemundo's programming schedule for the next thing to watch, which was Jose Nieves vs. Cuahhtemoc Vargas II from August 26th of this year. I can't remember seeing the first fight though I might have if it was on TV. Vargas is a run of the mill tough guy at 122 who's been on TV many times as a trial horse. Nieves made it to Shobox or ESPN2 and had Chris Avalos bust him up. The first fight was apparently very close, so we get this rematch. It too was outrageously close. I finished scoring this thing as 114-114. Nieves came out and boxed effectively in the first two rounds, then Vargas' pressure fighting approach started to pay off in the middle rounds and he took most of those. Nieves then managed to come back strong in the final 3 rounds on my card; Vargas may have punched himself out and Nieves just took over the fight. Good bout. The scorecard from the folks at Telemundo was 116-112 Vargas, and the official cards read for Nieves. I did take real issue with the 117-111 card from Don Trombley for this fight. There simply weren't enough close rounds that could have gone to Nieves to justify that. If anything, I could see why more rounds would go to Vargas than I gave him for aggression.

Two undercard attractions get shown: One is Harion Socarras' fight with Eduardo Melendez. It ends up as a first round KO off a left hook. Soccaras is Cuban, but doesn't have any notable amateur experience. Or any, really. He looks OK, but he's young and a bit raw. We're then shown Alan Sanchez's fight against Frank Gedeon, which is a wild free for all. In the first round, Gedeon is dropped twice, with the second knockdown causing a deduction of two points as Sanchez continued to hit the down man. Then Gedeon drops Sanchez very late in the round himself; if there was any talent being on display, I'd say round of the year. The slugfest continues until Gedeon puts Sanchez away in round three with wide hooks and power shot.

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Finally, I also finished off all the Solo Boxeos I hadn't seen yet by viewing the show from 10/28/11 headlined by Ira Terry/Eloy Perez. Opener for the show was a 6 round contest between non-contending, non-prospect fighters Loren Myers and Paul Mendez. Myers was referred to by the spanish announce team as a "punching bag" at one point, which I feel properly describes the contest. He has heart, but not much in terms of skill.

Its not the kind of boxing that excites one to be a fan of the sport. We then go to the main event, which is decently matched, I suppose. Ira Terry at one point was not horrible. He was at least better than Leon Bobo, for whatever that is worth. However, he's been on a skid of KO losses. Against Eloy Perez, he again suffers one. Perez is not a great power puncher, and while he's exciting to watch, he has great limitations stylistically. He never jabs coming forward except with single up jabs. And he doesn't do use that much, to be honest. Most of the time he just walks towards guys rather squared up and throws power shots. Because he's so hittable and because he rarely puts guys away, he has a couple draws and close decisions on his record. Adrian Broner should truck the guy. Ira Terry isn't good enough though and while he gets in a lot of fire fights with Perez, the number of early KO losses on his record indicates that's a bad idea. Perez wears him down and stops him against the ropes in the 6th with a volley of punches.

We then get a trio of fights to kill time: Rudy Puga Jr. just blows away Jose Hurtado to get his second win. Pure offense; runs a chubby guy over, noting to see there. Then we get a women's bout with Sharon Gaines playing the nearly 40 year old opponent against Carina Moreno, a 21-3 boxer who generally outclassed Gaines with superior hand speed and footwork over a 6 round distance in a fight I only sorta paid attention to. Finally, to finish filling out the time, Ulises Soriano and Jonathan Zamudio had a 4 round fight. Soriano won a fairly clear decision in my opinion; Zamudio had his moments, but he was walked back and out worked the entire fight by Soriano. Both guys were very wide punching and I don't see a great amount of success for either, but this was fairly competitive, non-offensive boxing between neophytes.

Technically it is tomorrow morning, but these two fights will be on at 2:30AM EST on HBO Latino. If you're like me and you skipped the PPV, this is a good opportunity to catch up. Its probably worth noting if you didn't already see the fan post that Youtube features the entire untelevised undercard for the PPV, which means that pretty much the entire show will be available legally after the fact minus the Mike Jones' decision victory.

Its time for more random crappy Argentinian fights! I kinda am stuck watching this because the satellite box only has two tuners and they're both in use. Must. Stay. Away. From Spoilers.

Anyhow, this is starting with a middleweight bout: out first is Esteban Ponce (19-6-2), and he's set to face Sebastian Heiland (18-2-1). Meanwhile, the third person in the booth tonight is a mighty attractive female named Silvana Carsetti and she's talking about Amir Khan. EVEN THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT THAT FIGHT.

I'm not going to go round by round but I'll check in every 4 rounds or so WBC open scoring style.

Just got done watching the TyC Sports card from Argentina (AKA the other fight card of the night from there): Wild set of bouts.

No surprise in the TV opener: Yesica Bopp fought a totally overmatched sub .500 female from Colombia and downed her in the second round with a body shot. Complete control leading up to that too. Bopp's been matched super carefully, even for a female fighter. She's a semi draw in that part of the world and I don't know if they'll ever give her anyone tough who isn't from Argentina. She has her WBO and WBA light flyweight titles and that's probably plenty for her.

We hit the bout intended to highlight a prospect, and its Leandro Carrizo, who is 10-0-1 fighting Gustavo Bermudez in a 6 round feature attraction. Carrizo is very vertical in terms of stance and moves straight forwards and backwards. He's packing offense and drops Bermudez in the first round and also gets a standing 8. Its not looking too good for the 11-6-1 fighter here. Then Bermudez comes out in round 2 and he just figures "screw it" and starts throwing like crazy and we have a donnybrook. Apparently no one told Carrizo to pick his spots or anything like that. Sure enough, a right hand comes crashing through from Bermudez, and we are looking at a huge upset in the making. Then he hits a down Carrizo in the back of the head. Then he hits him again as the ref tries to separate them. And then he hits him again as the ref is trying to restrain him. That's not a mistake. That's just not having the composure necessary to be a pro fighter. And it costs him, because he's DQed for that stupidity.

Onward to the main event (which I had no idea was even happening): Fidel Monterrosa Munoz is back. You may remember him from such Spanish language boxing films as Munoz/ Humberto Soto I and Munoz/Humberto Soto II. Its fair to say you would not have seen him under any conditions, really. Well, he's been flown into Argentina and pitted against the generally unknown 23-3 Claudo Olmedo in a 10 round junior welterweight fight. Olmedo got a surprising result against undefeated David Peralta back in July and his only other really notable opponent to audiences this way is Aldo Rios (who also beat him). Munoz ended up losing a fight to Fernando Castaneda shortly after the second Soto bout. Castaneda is the sort of guy who you have never actually heard of, but sounds like someone you might have. In spite of this, and the location, my general feeling coming in is that Munoz should be the favorite.

Munoz indeed fought like the favorite in rounds 1 and 2, moving in and out on Olmedo and landing a lot of overhand rights. In round two, Olmedo goes down on a well timed right hand, but survives to see the bell. Olmedo turns up the wick in round three and begins to stage a rally that has this fight turning into a slugfest. Lots of punches get thrown as the round moves on and Munoz is clearly rocked a little bit by some of the fire returned by Olmedo. In round 4, the pressure continues and Munoz ends up catching a right uppercut to the stomach that he never sees. He drops to a knee and ends up taking the count, giving Olmedo his 23rd KO victory in 24 wins. For Olmedo, the win is huge; it positions him in the world rankings and makes him a potential foe for one of the many Argentine fighters at 140 (Rene Cuenca, Bruno Godoy, Oscar Pereya) as well as the German promoters who so often look to Argentina to provide opposition (Willie Blain, Sergei Fedchenko, Denis Shafikov). Munoz returns to the status of pure opposition. He'd probably be wise to move to the US like a lot of other Colombians did and get better training. He has better skills that what these recent losses would seem to indicate.

So much for the listing on Fightnews.com; Its Alex Sanchez against Glenn Donaire, not Eric Morel. First round is just wrapping up right now and Donaire looked pretty decent in there boxing around. I honestly haven't seen him since Vic broke his jaw a couple years ago, and apparently almost no one has because he hasn't fought in 3 1/2 years. Sanchez has been gone even longer. Strange fight to see existing, but I'm sorta interested to see how it goes. Anyone else watching/watched?

For this week, ESPN goes back 59 years and travels just a bit further west to Chicago, IL for a welterweight contest. Yes, its the days of Blue Ribbon Bouts, and we're at the now defunct Chicago Stadium for a 10 round contest between Johnny Bratton and Rocky Castellani. A brief history lesson for the fight: Bratton is a former (briefly) welterweight champion. He had won the vacated NBA title following Sugar Ray Leonard's move to middleweight against Charley Fusari back in March of 1951, and had lost the title in his second fight holding it against Kid Gavilan just two months later. He managed a draw in a rematch with Gavilan in a non title bout that November, but was still on the outside looking in when it came to contention. Castellani had lost to Fusari and Gavilan in 1949 but picked up plenty of wins over other less "elite" names like Harold Green, Joey Giardello, Ralph Jones, and others. They met for the first time in March of 1952 at MSG, with Castellani pulling out a close decision. That all brings us to this rematch, held one time zone over in Bratton's city of residence.

(I often like to score bouts along with the fights, but I rarely end up doing it for classic bouts of this sort of vintage. These are fights that predate the 10 point must system, and so its inaccurate to bother doing it in that system because it doesn't reflect the era.)

The fight itself is a very good one; Early on we see a feeling out process taking place with Castellani moving forwards and pressuring Bratton. Castellani's best two punches by some degree are the left hook and the over hand right. He rarely throws anything but and generally if there's a combination, its those two punches being linked together. Unlike a lot of guys who are offensively limited, he does seem to have a fairly good idea on how to block punches and move around the ring. He never follows Bratton around; he cuts the ring off and fights. Bratton, meanwhile, is a slicker defensive counter puncher with a wider offensive range. Whenever you have that kind of clash is styles, the odds are good that you'll get punching exchanges and guys getting hit clean.

By round 3, Bratton is beginning to find his range and lands a number of strong shots to Castellani, who continues moving forward perpetually. By round 6, the punches that have landed seem to have exhausted Castellani and Bratton appears to be firmly in control of the bout. At the very least, I considered the bout generally even in round 6 if not clearly ahead for Bratton. Round 7 sees Castellani come out as a house afire, throwing bombs and landing strong punches. One hook snaps around Bratton's head and he's forced to hold on to the final bell to prevent a knockdown being scored against him. In round 8, he recovers nicely and it looks as if Castellani has burnt himself out going for the kill in the 7th round, but again Castellani shows great grit by throwing hard in the final two rounds and coming forward. Bratton generally does a decent job slipping punches, but with the volume of stuff that comes at him, he's bound to be hit clean a few times. He also has the very difficult issue to overcome of being pushed on the back foot by Castellani regardless of what he's landing.

There is little surprise when the cards are read that its a split decision. But one card (read as 56-44 on TV, shown as 54-46 on Boxrec) is the determining score for the winner, and rather than go to the hometown fighter, it goes to the Italian fighter from Pennsylvania. Castellani wins the fight; he would go on to fight Bobo Olson in August of 1954 for the middleweight title, and lost by unanimous decision. In fact, while he fought a great many of the star fighters at 160 (Sugar Ray Robinson, Gene Fullmer, Joey Giambra), he never attained the kind of success there that he did as a welterweight. Post retirement, he opened a bar and also was a judge for the NJSAC from 1984-1996. Bratton would recover in his career and find himself fighting Gavilan again one year later in 1953. After losing badly by decision in a fight he was reported to have taken a beating in, Bratton never recovered, lost 3 more fights in a row, and basically disappeared. His final years are reported to have included run ins with the law over intoxication, work as a farm hand, and a death in 1993.

I record a lot of stuff, and sometimes I don't watch it immediately. Or for weeks. And sometimes months. Hey, I get behind, I get discouraged, and so on. Times like now in the dead of winter is when I go ham watching stuff because I have next to nothing else to do. And so, because I like to keep notes about stuff I watch and I like to share, my first edition of this. I'll try to do it weekly, if for no other reason than to inspire myself to actually watch old fights.

The first item I'm watching dates from a record date of 12/5/2010 and Fox Sports Deportes, and its a Boxeo Thompson program. Oh, great. It comes from that legendary boxing venue, the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Ontario, California. I'm sure that's not far from the airport, Scandia Family Fun Center, or both. The actual card took place on October 8th of 2010, so I got this generally irrelevant boxing card just under 14 months after it happened. That's not very good.

Christian Cruz vs. Daniel Roman is the first fight on the show, and it occurs at mysteryweight. It lasts all of 14 seconds, with Cruz being hurt by a body punch (or a headbutt), turning, and quitting immediately. Roman has not gone on to great success, losing his 3rd pro bout.

Mike Cross vs. Sergio Nunez is the next bout. Again, I have no idea who these guys are or why to care, but here I am watching. Both, say the almighty Boxrec, are making their pro debuts. We get Mike Cross making himself on the end of lots of power punches from Sergio Nunez and being hurt repeatedly and dropped twice in the second round. The second one was preceded with an all time great example of the highlight reel baby giraffe dance. Nunez doesn't look so bad, but Cross is abjectly bad as a pro fighter, which is probably why he hasn't fought since.

MAIN EVENT TIME: Chris Chatman against Alberto Herrera. Both are 7-1, and Chatman makes it clear that he thinks the winner is the top welterweight prospect in the area. Herrera is the promoters favorite and clearly that of the crowd as well. If either of these names is familiar to you, its probably Chatman, who gave Demetrius Andrade a tough fight last year and got an appearance on ESPN2 afterwards as a result.

Chatman is extremely muscular and comes out bringing fire. Drops Herrera twice in round one on the end of punches. Herrea might have more technique but is not able to deal with the speed of Chatman as he dives in to jab or throw the straight left. The southpaw stance of Chatman probably doesn't help either. As the rounds continue, Chatman continues to control the inside and even the outside in spite of a reach disadvantage thanks to the immense advantage he has in terms of athleticism. By round 4, the ref sees enough and calls a halt to the action as a badly shook up Herrera absorbs more blows. In the post fight interview, he calls out Andrade again demanding a rematch.

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The next show I decided to catch up on was of much more recent vintage: Telefutura's 10/21/2011 extravaganza episode of Solo Boxeo, featuring a headlining 8 round fight. OK, not much of an extravaganza, I'll admit.

We open with a 6 round contest between 4-0 Jorge Suarez and 10-6 Larry Smith. Smith is the bigger of the two men and actually a semicompetent fighter. The problem is that he falls into sparring partner mode not long after having success, and that drags him into a decision loss. He drops an off balance Suarez in round 1 and actually is the more successful fighter offensively in round 2 as well. After that, he falls into a defensive shell. He taunts his man and makes a lot of noise, but does little to nothing to actively back that up. Meanwhile, Suarez, a one dimensional offensive puncher just comes forward with basic combinations, shortening up the distance, and landing shots inside while Smith mugs and grunts. Its a case study depending on your perspective: Either a how to on torpedoing your own career aims, or a step-by-step blueprint for how a professional opponent should carry a lesser fighter than himself when the need arises. In either sense it doesn't really make for compelling television.

The main event of the evening is Eric Cruz and Fidel Maldonado Jr. for some ridiculous WBC belt. Apparently they have Silver versions now of the Youth titles. Can't wait for the Double Bronze WBC Super Flyweight FECARBOX Senior 6 Round Title. Maldonado enters at 11-0 with 10KOs and Cruz at 12-7-3 and 12 KO wins. After Cruz is knocked down early in the first round, he falls into sparring partner mode most of the fight. He does win a couple rounds here and there (in fact getting as many as 4 on some judges cards) because of Maldonado Jr's inactivity. For a guy with a lot of KOs, he sure doesn't seem to be much of a finisher. He tries to goad in Cruz many, many times with smiles, sticking his tongue out, waiving him in, and so on. Taunt after taunt after taunt, and Cruz keeps sticking the jab out and eating right hands on the end of it. He never really bothers Maldonado with anything except an inside uppercut in the 7th, whereas pretty much every time Maldonado makes contact, Cruz's legs buckle and he grimaces or makes sounds. Clearly, Maldonado has some pop, but I'm not sure if he intentionally went to go get in rounds here and not finish off Cruz early. My scorecard read 78-73, but the official cards went 76-75 twice over, and 77-74. Cruz may have earned rounds 2 and 3 along with 4 and 7 if you want to be really kind, but I thought 4 and 7 were the only rounds that were clearly his and where Maldonado didn't land the most effective punches.

Since there is time to fill, we get Jose Garcia and Javier Rodriguez fighting a super flyweight contest. Both fighters are merely teenagers of 17 and 18 respectively, but Rodriguez (the younger of the two) actually appears to be the older and is much, much larger. Garcia has better defensive technique and gets pretty wild with his counter punching and we get a wild 4 round affair with a lot of shots landed very cleanly, but neither fighting getting particularly hurt by them. I gave it to Garcia as a 39-37 score, but the fight was a majority draw officially, which is just as well. Garcia looks like he can drop to 112 or even 108 with ease, whereas Rodriguez is bound to end up a super bantam later on in his life, should he continue with the sport.

Apparently, no one told me that Solo Boxeo was live on Galavision because of a Telethon on Telefutura. Thanks a lot, guys. It still recorded though at 2:30AM on Monday morning. Must be a contractual thing. I'm really glad it was on though.

Kenny Williams and Joaquin Chavez open the show up as two dudes that have next to no experience at 140. I was hopeful for a passable fight, and we got just that. Chavez looked a little more nervous and had a lot of wasted motion in the ring, while Williams (who was frankly not as athletically impressive in terms of hand speed and what not) was much more calm and willing to trade. What the viewer got out of this was both men scoring knockdowns - Chavez in round one, Williams in round two - and plenty of solid boxing otherwise. Williams demeanor I feel kept him in the fight. A lot of guys would panic after the first knockdown, rush things, and take a beating. Instead, Williams kept to his gameplan of counter punching and throwing combinations, and that in turn put him in position to get the off balance knockdown and I felt also the third round. The fight ended as a majority draw with two cards mirroring mine (37-37) and I think a rematch is possibly in order.

Speaking of fights for which a rematch is in order, we move on to our second bout of the evening, scheduled for 8 rounds. Andrew Cancio has a glittery record of 11-1-2 with all wins by KO. Fernando Carcamo is 9-2, taller, and has no wins over notable opposition. And this fight is a war. Cancio comes forward constantly and Carcamo boxes on the outside, and there are a lot of punches thrown and a lot of stuff landed. I personally had the fight even after 6 - the rounds I gave Cancio were close. The rounds I gave Carcamo were ones he ran away with in general. Cancio clearly had pop, but Carcamo's chin was good enough to absorb it and when he got off first, his work rate and punch selection was on target. Cancio's face was a swollen mess by the middle rounds.

The 7th and 8th though were monster rounds. Cancio seemed to get worn down in the 7th by the continuous abuse and hard shots from Carcamo and Carcamo just starts wailing on him. I can't imagine what the punch stats were that round, but Carcamo was just throwing and throwing and throwing. Cancio's got a ton of heart and a great chin to be taking as much as he did. And then in round 8, the pendulum swings completely in the other direction. Carcamo ends up getting tagged and hurt by a rampaging Cancio. Poor Carcamo may have punched himself out in the 7th, and pays for it by going down twice in round 8. Ref Jose Cobian deserves a lot of credit for not stopping this in spite of Carcamo's clearly shaken frame of mind and all the punches being landed. He could have done it and it would have possibly been justified, but Carcamo stayed upright and made it to the final bell just barely. I had it the same way two judges did: 76-74 Cancio. What a fight though.

MAIN EVENT: Arturo Santiago is some guy scheduled to fight 12-0 prospect Randy Caballero. On paper, this is a gross mismatch and a horrible fight. However, whoever was doing the match making here was actually prett competent. This isn't to say that Arturo Santiago was ever seriously in the fight with a chance to win. However, he was very game. Caballero got a chance to exhibit some of his skills as a boxer against a guy who was constantly pressuring and bringing the fight to Caballero. Santiago didn't do it perfectly, of course. That's why he lost. He jumped in and threw wide lead hooks and right hands rather than setting up with a jab or feints, and he paid the price repeatedly by eating power shots. That never stopped him though from giving it effort though. He came forward the entire fight, no matter how many times his knees buckled from the punches. He made it a very rough affair inside with holding, grabbing the arm, and wrestling down Caballero repeatedly. Caballero got a showcase, Santiago looks like a tough guy - in some sense, everyone wins.

For a Solo Boxeo that looked horrible on paper, that was pretty enthralling stuff.

I don't prefer watching boxing on internet streams. It just...sucks. But watching fights on my TV is something I much prefer. So I skipped this on Ustream to watch it on TV a couple days later with overdubbed spanish commentary. Might as well. Plus, it is a Fight Night Club show, which suck so, so bad. I'm told this is the "season finale". My guess is that it becomes Solo Boxeo Tecate next year and they have one entirely bad show instead of a bad show and a passable one. That's generally the way promoters work in this sport.

We open with Cameron Krael (0-0-1) taking on a 1-0 Luis Mora in a junior welterweight contest. As is usually the case in these fights, I know nothing about either man. Good close fight with Mora coming forward and Krael backing up and returning fire. Krael earns an even card from one judge, loses 3-1 on the other two. Not a terrible fight though. Mora looks pretty ordinary; all offense, not much pop, not much defense. He landed clean

Santiago Guevara vs. Salvador Cifuentes is our next fight - young lightweights doing battle and what not. Again, the young 1-0 fighter moves forward, his opponent moves straight back, and the roles are clear as to what is supposed to happen. Unlike the last fight, our opponent (Cifuentes) is a bit pudgy for his weight and while game, not nearly good. He gets worked over, dropped in the first round off a combination that goes body to head and ends with an upper cut, then badly rocked as the bell rings. In round two, he's pushed to the corner not long in and takes a barrage of blows before the ref steps in. Guevara looks competent in the ring but totally was not tested here.

Bout #3! Chance of being competitive: Zero, I'm sure. There's Zachary Wohlman and Ricardo Malfavon in a welterweight contest. Wohlman is making his debut. Malfavon is 1-6-1 with his win being a KO. Wohlman, wikipedia (Already?) says, is the 2009 LA Golden Gloves champ and trained by Freddie Roach. That must mean he's good, right? Well, Malfavon hits him a gross ton in spite of the fact that he's not so good, and Wohlman doesn't seem to have much in terms of power to dissuade him. Actually sorta an interesting contest. Wolhman takes a unanimous decision, but he's not much of an athlete and I think his power is...not there. Decent punching technique, but that alone won't take you too far if you're lacking a lot of other things (defense, power, hand speed, etc).

MAIN EVENT TIME: Hugo Centeno vs. David Lopez. I got excited about this when I heard about it because I thought it was David "The Destroyer" Lopez, 154lb gatekeeper to the stars. Then I learned it was the 3-6-3 David Lopez against the 10-0 Hugo Centeno. Oh. This Lopez likes him some Boise State, and I think I've seen him before.

The fight itself: "Paulie Malanagie" is doing guest color on the english side. Naturally, I can't hear him. Also, how much can GBP care about the dude if the show they produce and distribute had his name messed up? The fight itself: Lopez is a overly defensive counter puncher with not much pop and not much activity, which means he's good for putting in rounds against and making guys look like defensive superstars slipping his occasional volleys. The fight was a boring wash. Centeno easily won all 6 rounds and coasted the entire way. This was televised sparring; nothing else. To be fair to Centeno, he is a mere 20 years old and will probably grow into a proper junior middleweight frame. 11 fights into his career though and the young man has yet to face a single fighter with a winning record. Not even a 1-0 record. The combined records of his opposition are 26-70-5. That is just deplorably bad.

After watching this, I've pretty much forgotten everyone who fought already. Not a good sign. Just very little star power or great performances to rave about.

For years, heavyweight boxing's status in the US has dropped into outright obscurity. Once one of the premier athletic endeavours, its now just an occasional side show featuring muscled up European fighters of wildly varying skill levels along with the occasional completely overmatched American heavyweight. And almost never are the fights entertaining. Things weren't always this way. Even though heavyweight boxing has been described as being on a decline since the days following the Brown Bomber's retirement, its almost always provided regularly entertaining fights on American shores. Only in recent days has that fact changed.

Even in the early 1980s, during the dawn of present multi-belt era, heavyweight boxing was largely dominated by American heavyweights, and generally consisted of fights that did not suck. Larry Holmes, the top man of the era, is often criticized for being a dull champion. And yet, to watch his fights is to see a mastery of skill as well as a wealth of excitement: Fights with Norton, Shavers, and Weaver would be considered the best heavyweight fights of the present decade. Even when beating down overmatched foes like Scott LeDoux and Tex Cobb, he was scintillating. This is a far cry from the jab and grab of Wladimir Klitschko, or even the slow motion annihilation provided by his brother Vitali. Just as Holmes was so much better than his contemporaries were willing to admit, so were many of the other heavyweights of the era. Men like Tim Witherspoon, Renaldo Snipes, Trevor Berbick, and Greg Page had real skill and could really fight. Like many other athletes of the era, these men had issues such as cocaine addiction and poor management that derailed careers for years at a time.

Two of these talented men were Pinklon Thomas and James Tillis. Tillis claimed in later years to have had issues with citric acid that caused him to gas early and never achieve what his trainer (Angelo Dundee) believed he could. Pinklon Thomas' harsh background led him to heroin addiction as a 12 year old, and he'd struggle with the disease ever forward. The two men back in August of 1982 at what is presently the Renaissance Cleveland's Ballroom on an ABC televised fight made on short notice. Tillis was intending to fight fellow top contender Tim Witherspoon, only for Witherspoon to drop out on late notice due to to a claimed injury. Thomas, a tall and rangy heavyweight in some ways similar to Witherspoon, was brought in to take his place.

What took place was the kind of heavyweight fight we never see any more; two well skilled and trained men in top condition throwing educated punches, landing hard, throwing combinations, and showing real skill and athleticism. Thomas kept his left hand very low and very successfully threw a hard up jab that set up left hooks and right hands throughout the rest of the fight. Tillis stayed in the contest on heart, a decent chin (he went the distance with Iron Mike once) and landed plenty of his own overhand rights against Thomas. Heads swung around, sweat flew, and by round 6, it seemed clear what direction the fight was going. Thomas had taken over and was landing the comprehensively better, cleaner, harder shots. In round 7, Tillis was badly hurt with combination punching and was sent reeling multiple times, but he managed to hang on and even swing back. In round 8, the shots were too much for the ref to ignore, and he stepped in to save Tillis and give Pinklon Thomas the win that would propel him into heavyweight contention. He would stay generally relevant for the next 5 years, and even became a reasonably decent trial horse after that into the 1990s.

While the fight was entertaining (I'd argue better than any I've seen in the heavyweight division proper in this era....period), I'm painfully reminded of what the heavyweights once where and why I used to love watching them. In the post Ali era, we've gone on to ignore a great number of skilled, able fighters who engaged in great fights that are quickly forgotten because of what we associate their weight class with now. If only the heavyweight division were so rich with talent today that we could have the likes of a Pinklon Thomas deep in the top 10 or 15....if only.

I've been busy a lot this week given that I had siding ripped off my house during the big snowstorm that hit southcentral MI earlier, so not as much boxing has been viewed as I would have hoped. But I finally watched this today and was pretty pleased with the entertainment value derived. But who cares about my back story?

Juan Alberto Rosas' gift title win against Zolani Tete was the opener for the night. The first ten rounds I felt were pretty easy to score: Tete took the first five fairly easily using much superior footwork, handspeed, and technique. Then he got tired, and Rosas got busy. From rounds 6-10, it was the El Topo Show - he started mugging Tete by pushing him back constantly, walking through the jab, and working the body and head with all sorts of wild, wide combination punching. If one man hurt the other in this bout, it was unquestionably Rosas huring Tete, generally with some uppercuts thrown from the waist at the end of body punching combinations. This meant that the championship rounds were basically where the fight would be won or lost.

Tete made a big comeback and started again dictating the pace in the 11th round, having apparently survived the Rosas onslaught. In the twelth though, controversy enters the bout. Having not been seriously warned for holding, ref Ray Corona comes out of left field and deducts a point from Tete. The round itself is fairly close, giving the possibility of a large swing in the points depending on who won the round on one's card. For myself, I gate the round to Tete - while Rosas was chasing him down in earnest, he landed nothing of practical value, while Tete landed a goodly number of shots and blocked or parried most of what was thrown (at least in my estimation). That had my card ending at 114-113 in favor or Tete. Rosas, meanwhile, walked away the winner of a majority decision. Clearly the point deduction alone didn't lose him the fight on two of the cards (which held Rosas at 115-112) but a third card with a 113-113 draw was turned in. The deduction gave the feeling of being something in which "insurance" was being built into the scoring. Its a set back for Tete, but the fight was compelling enough that perhaps a rematch will be warranted.

The main event was a bit less compelling, but by no means not interesting. For those that missed the original bout betwen Jorge Arce and Angky Angkota, here's a synopsis: Arce outboxes the Indonesian fighter cleanly for 6 rounds, including some pretty beefy attacks in the corner for the 2nd and 3rd before laying off. In round 7, Angkota is having slightly more success, but a headbutt causes a cut and the fight is over. Arce wins a technical decision. For reasons that have everything to do with making Arce still popular in Mexico (which, I assume at this point, he will be forever), the rematch was made for a useless vacant strap, and the 3rd/4th career of Arce continues barrelling forth unabated.

The fight this time was completed and reached the distance. As was the case in the first fight, Arce put forth a lot of effort early to put Angkota down and away, failed to do so, and we had some actual back and forth action in the middle rounds. Arce again really put forth a solid effort to end this one as we closed on the championship rounds, but Angkota proved to be a very sturdy, albiet mediocre, opponent. Stylistically it worked well for Arce: Angkota would typically react to the volleys of offense by turtling up and heading to the ropes. He simply never mustered up enough offense to seriously trouble Arce, though he did buzz him with the occasional punch and won a pair of rounds on my card. As did two of the official judges, I had this 118-110 for Arce when the fight was over, allowing Arce to procure his 7th world title of some sort or another.

Considering that to most audiences, Arce's career has died not once, not twice, but at least three times, that's an astonishing statement to make about his longevity at the lower weight classes both in popularity and at least in some reasonable amount of skill. It doesn't, however, change that by far and large, the best men he's shared the ring with have either defeated him or probably should have defeated him (Carbajal, Darchinyan, Mijares, Parra). Nor does this win change that Arce has never been the top dog at any weight class he's performed at regardless of what time he was performing there. Arce is an entertaining figher responsible for some of the wildest contests in recent memory and one of the sport's most engaging personalities, but he's also a first ballot Hall of Very Good fighter.

I was out and away for the weekend and now I'm rushing to play catchup from last week. Wish me luck or something. At least Solo Boxeo was just a few Abner Mares fights.

TyC is televising EN VIVO from Club A. Velez Sarsfield, which is somewhere in Liniers, Argentina. The opener tonight is Jorge Miranda against Diego Chaves in a welterweight contest. Miranda is 44-12, Chavez is 19-0 with 15 KOs. My interest is piqued! The fight doesn't last all that long and we have another Chaves KO. He just walked him down, picked his shots, and landed a lot of strong power punches before taking him out with a body shot KO. You can draw some parallels here between the way he fought and the way Saul Alvarez fought, I think - both came in to demolish their man but did so in very intelligent fashion. Chaves still needs to prove his skills against more talented opposition however - he's gone 12 with Omar Weis and went a full six rounds with Edvan Dos Santos Barros when it comes to more recognizable competition. He's a muscular 25 year old and may be able to make noise beyond South America one day, but he's got some distance to go before he does that.

Our next fight is Facundo Munoz being pitted against Sergio Cordoba. This is a super middleweight contest - Cordoba is 1-1, Munoz is 2-6 (and has a fierce mullet), and neither man has been fighting more than 2 years. Yes ladies and gents, we're filling TV time. Sloppy arm punching bout that isn't even too exciting. It does end in a fairly early KO as Munoz gets dropped on a combination and goes down in humorous fashion in the second.

Onward to main event time! 154lb fight as Nestor Faccio fights Javier Maciel. Maciel is currently living in the US and has a 19-2 record, while Faccio hails from Uruguay and is 15-3-2. This may be somewhat well made. Or it will be an ugly beatdown. 30 seconds in and we know: Maciel comes right at Faccio, digs in punches and drops him with an uppercut to the stomach and the fight is over. Maciel is most well known for a fight I never saw where he gave Dmitry Pirog a lot of trouble in spite of barely exceeding the super welter limit at the scale. He might actually be sorta good. 

Alright, still airtime to fill. Diego Luque, a 4-0 fighter with a single stoppage to his name, comes out next. His opposition comes in the form of Ramon De La Cruz Sena. Sena is 6-6-2, establishing that he's been in some fights and might be able to stick around for the 4 round distance. He does manage to - Luque presses early in the rounds, doesn't come close to finishing, and then backs off and boxes in pretty much every stanza. 

Overall, the show was nothing spectacular, but TyC shows rarely are. Maciel and Chaves are both guys I'd like to see again coming out of this though I don't think either fight did them much good in terms of learning.

Last card from the weekend that was televised that I haven't seen yet. Possibly the most meaningless. Given how bad Telefutura was, that is a statement there. This is a Star Boxing show: Good to see them move from the ghetto of GFL to some form of TV.

Opener is a light heavyweight fight between Steven Tyner and Mike Ocasio. Ocasio is the star prospect and Tyner is the guy intended to be a stepping stool, and this doesn't go well. Ocasio is down 23 seconds in off a right hand and never recovers. He's just holding to survive and ends up beating a ton of punches before going down two minutes in. 

We're onto bout number two after some time in the studio and, oh no, heavyweights. In one corner, we have a fighter making his pro debut in Aaron Kinch and a 2-0 chubby Haitian named Jacques Louis. Hey, at least I'm not paying $9/99 for a middling stream. I had a bizarre realization watching in the third round of this generally lousy but semi entertaining sloppy slugfest - this might not be a real fight. This might be two obese men doing a performance art tribute to the great lost heavyweight classic of the preceeding decade, Etienne/Clay-Bey. They seemed to have similarly colored clothes as the competitors in that fight. Kinch is a dead ringer for Clifford Etienne. Louis just laid on the ropes and got hit a crap load like Clay-Bey did in that fight and then would randomly choose to fight back seemingly when the fight was about to be stopped. OK, OK, it was just a bad heavyweight bout. And it reminded me of how just 10 years ago, there were fights between not that good heavyweights on TV regularly, and they were actually pretty good. These days? Kinch wins a split decision and earns win number 1.

With that trip down memory lane completed, onward to the next televised fight featuring guys on a card because they sold tickets: Rashad Bogar vs. Cletus Seldin. Cletus' cornermen are rocking Stars of David, so I guess we know where his fans are on Saturday. He's also the undefeated fighter looking to get a win, and if he does it, he's the first for the night to actually win a fight he was set to do so in. We nearly get a continuation of the theme in the first as Seldin is badly hurt by a right hand as he comes forward, but he hangs on and survives to see the end of the round. We end up with a pretty decent little scrap between guys who aren't that good and Seldin gets a gift stoppage of sorts in the third round. Seldin doesn't show much of a jab or head movement and that means he'll probably have some exciting fights at this level until he inevitably gets beaten stupid. Seldin's left eye was closing up too.

MAIN EVENT TIME! Chris Algieri and Bayan Jargal meet in a fight that would possibly get a green light as an opener for Shobox. Algieri is 11-0, Jargal is 15-2-3, and I know nothing about either one. The fight actually ends up being pretty good, to be honest. Algeri does a lot of little things right - his body shots are nice, I like his jab, he does a decent job throwing combos. But his stamina for a 10 round fight is very suspect. After round 6, he slows down tremendously, and Jargal comes on very strong in the last few rounds. He makes Round 7 close enough for the TV announcers to give him the round, and then wins rounds 8-10 pretty clearly by pressuring Algieri and landing a lot of shots. He gets some help in this because I think the ref misses a thumb to the eye of Algieri in round 8 that flips the entire momentum of that round (and to an extent, the remainder of the fight). Algieri gets a UD but he comes out a little dented in terms of rep. 

I did some post fight research on Algieri also: Looks like he had never been past 6 before, which explains why and when he gassed. Also, he never had an amateur career. Instead he learned the craft of boxing vis-a-vis kickboxing (not muay thai, just standard full contact ISKA rules karate based stuff). Kinda an interesting way to come into the sport. I'd be glad to see him again though in an 8 rounder against a similar sort of opponent. 

TyC Sports in Argentina had this one starting a half hour earlier than it did. Oh well.

Roberto Sosa fights Tadeu Pantoja at 115 for the opener. Pantoja is from Brasil and claims a record of 11-1. Sosa, meanwhile is 21-0. So this is like, sorta meaningful. And possibly not crap! Pantoja shows some decent skills and hand speed and then he's hit with a head spinning right hand by Sosa and the fights is all over. To be completely honest, I at first thought the knockout was a dive because of how dramatic Pantoja went down, but he was hit about as clean and as hard as you're gonna get among little guys. I like what I saw from Sosa: He let the KO come to him rather than rush it, which shows restraint and patience in the ring. He has a tendency to cover up when thrown on which I find suspect. I'd like to see him in with more of a pressure fighter.

There were highlights from a few prior non-televised cards". First we're "treated" to Ademar Correa vs. Walter Armando Masseroni. For those unfamiliar with bad South American heavyweights, Masseroni is old, fat, and awful. Correa, a .500 fighter from Brazil, KOs him in the first. There's also highlights of Matias Vidondo's loss to Irineu Beato Costa Junior, which was another Brazil vs. Argentina HW clash that went the wrong way for the Argentine fighter. That one looked exceptionally bad with Vidondo and Costa Junior flopping everywhere in exhaustion. Next up was a 160lb or so bout between Abel Adriel and Gabriel Ramirez that must have mattered to someone somewhere, just not me (Ramirez won a split decision). With those highlights completed, back to live action.

Daniela Bermudez vs. Norma Caucota: Women's boxing bout. Caucota is 0-11. Bermudez is 5-2-2. Why am I watching this? Complete mismatch that sadly goes the full 6 round distance. Caucota is undersized and outgunned. She's game and has guts but that's literally it. 

Sergio Blanco comes out next and he's 3-11-1. Oh Jesus. Horacio Centeno is the opposition for him and offers a 3-0 record with 2 KO wins. Usually TyC cards are way better than this. Everything is usually way better than this. The fight ends up being pretty decent actually. Blanco might be terrible and a total mauler, but he stays tight with Centeno and while he's hit with a few good countershots, by staying in tight he easily gets through to see the distance (a 4 rounder) and even gets a couple points from the judges. 

And its time for the TV finale, Cristian Solis against Alberto Santillan in a lightweight affair. Not much of a fight here in spite of it being fairly evenly matches - Santillan just blows out Solis with some heavy power punching and forces a stop pretty early in the second round. Slugfest with guys going toe to toe, and the one with the heavier hands pulls out the win.

All in all, this show had some horrendous matchmaking. Yeah, you get KOs, but boxing fans know KOs don't automatically equate to good. This was not particularly good.

Just catching up on some weekend fights from the DVR. There may be similar additions later for other cards. I'd like to try doing these sorts of posts more often (and hopefully more immediately after shows).

Antonio Infante vs. Eddie Gomez:  Two guys not at all far along in their boxing careers doing battle. Or something approximating that, I suppose. Gomez is a highly defensive fighter. To a degree, that's a good thing. Once he goes into his defensive shell, Infante never seemed to be able to touch him. But the problem was that Gomez seemed to only be interested in counter punching, and Infante feared fighting off the front foot and leaving himself available for counters. Gomez shakes up Infante in the fifth and pursued with telegraphed single shots. While I don't see that being a winning or finishing strategy against better fighters down the line, the ref was willing to put an end to the fight after one upper cut caused Infante's skull to rock back violently. 

O'Nell Negron vs. Roberto Acevedo:  Negron is clearly intended to win here with his 8-0-1 (8KO) record. Acevedo is on the wrong side of .500. My lack of excitement is warranted. Acevedo seems to have no real interest in boxing with Negron and chooses instead to clinch. This brings many comparisons from the announcers, as best I can tell, to pro wrestling and the UFC. Negron appears to have extraordinarily basic technique - he leads by pumping the jab, tthre's a right behind it, and his most interesting punch selection comes on the rare occasions the two men are in tight and have some separation. Acevedo has his moments of activity and on the inside when in close, he shows a certain slickness that allows him to roll shots and land his own counters. Negron also fades late, and this bring us to a 6 round Acevedo majority decision win. Ugly fight though.

Keith Tapia vs. Andrus Kuilan: Man, already to pro debuts? Really weak Telefutura card this week. Cruiserweight fight, both guys are in shape. Tapia basically destroys the other guy. No great show of skill, just one guy with more athleticism overwhelming someone comparably deficient. I like Tapia's frame - the guy reminds me a little of Big Truck Braithwaite. 

Starling Cordero vs. Luis Declet: Cordero is making his debut against an 0-2 fighter, and this is basically a club fight level contest. Declet is wild, Cordero looks somewhat composed and places shots well, and we get a first round stoppage. Its impossible to make any definitive statements after a fight with a guy that bad.

Rafael Marquez vs. William Lorenzo: These are the sorts of fights that it takes desperation on behalf of Telefutura to show. Lorenzo is 1-5, Marquez 1-1. Lorenzo comes forward, Marquez wins the decision, and I'll honestly be shocked if I see either on my TV ever again.

Alright, I just wanted to give quick thoughts on the other show tonight that ESPN Deportes aired. Not much of a card, honestly.

First, the main event referenced in the subject line: Guzman picked up an easy first round KO over a completely over matched fighter. To be fair, Guzman dispatched Castellano faster than Matthysee did when he fought Guzman back about a year ago. However, that's not terribly meaningful as far as statements go. The fight ended on a one punch, first round KO with Guzman landing a lead upper cut on Castellano that he simply never saw coming. Prior to that, anyone watching was treated to a flat footed Guzman cutting the ring off and moving forward while basically doing nothing offensive. Just the act of resorting to his defensive stance was enough to keep Castellano from throwing meaningful punches. Guzman might be back in the winners column, but he's still a long ways off from getting invited back to HBO or Showtime.

The chief attraction on the undercard was Julio De Jesus, an undefeated prospect, taking his first reasonable step up in class against Ramon Duran. Duran's record of 21-4-1 wasn't too awful, but he was clearly outsized in the ring and outgunned. De Jesus basically walked him down, ignored his opponents shots, and threw a lot of wide power shots in an attempt to impress.I can't say that De Jesus did a lot for me. He's very open when punching and his chin is out there to be hit. Duran, in spite of generally being hapless in the ring against his much bigger foe, landed the occasional meaningless punch. Ultimately, the pressure from De Jesus proved too much, and he ran his record to 14-0 with 13 KOs. Its one thing to be a sloppy brawler who comes to knock your block off if you have nuclear bombs in your hands like Edwin Valero. De Jesus does not, to me, appear to be an Edwin Valero.

Also making TV were a pair of other short fights: Argenis Mendez took on Cuban born record enhancer Alex Perez in a contest that lasted 2 rounds. Mendez has had a reasonable amount of success over the years having recorded wins on his ledger against the likes of Martin Honorio and Cassius Baloyi, and this was a bounce back fight following his loss to Juan Carlos Salgado in September. Some of the broadcast there was cut off due to technical difficulties, but it wasn't any great crime. Perez simply operated as a moving punching bag for Mendez and took some ugly looking punches to the head. Its one thing to see a guy who hasn't won in ten years who handles himself in the ring and comes to at least give a fighter 4/6/8 rounds of work without getting hurt. Perez has been KOed in practically every fight he's had in the last two years. Finally, the TV opener was a women's bout featuring Amanda Serrano massacring a completely overmatched Grecia Nova. Not much to say here other than that Serrano seems at least fairly skilled and is then probably capable of winning a bunch of meaningless women's belts.

Of all the things discussed during the aftermath of the UFC's deal with Fox, the one that I think was forgotten is how it affects the historical place of World Extreme Cagefighting. During the WEC's brief and generally ignored existence on Versus under the direction of Zuffa, it posted fairly lousy ratings (though good for the abject failure of a network that was Versus). It sold precious few tickets outside of Sacramento, California, had a moderately successful one off pay-per-view featuring all of its stars, and basically piggybacked off of sponsorship deals produced for its much more successful sister product, the UFC. While it provided many entertaining fights and changed the center of the lighterweight MMA universe from Japan to the US for the hardcore fans following them, the WEC was still scuttled at the end of 2010 and merged with the UFC.

Its very creation was an act by Zuffa to create its own market confusion by introducing its very own alphabet soup, much like the maligned duplication of championships in boxing. While some of the duplicate titles were eliminated when three weight classes were shifted entirely to the UFC, a duplicate title at 155lbs remained until the promotion's very last contest. Through this, it also created a second rate ghetto that perhaps had the similar effect of making the featherweight and bantamweight classes look completely inferior, and the lower pay than the UFC also prevented top lightweights from being willing to take the dive down in weight. Instead, the fighters who emerged from 155lbs to fight at 145 were generally aging names far from the elite such as Jens Pulver and Jeff Curran. 

When the promotion closed, a number of justifications were given for why it was created in the first place. Most often among them was the argument that it was to make the lighter weights "UFC ready" in terms of making them promote-able and generating interest. Instead, the lighter weights have been anything but heavily promoted since merger. Dominck Cruz has already been demoted from headlining PPVs to headlining shows on Versus (the UFC's second tier network partner) while most of the ranked competitors at the weight are fighting off their original WEC contracts in Facebook prelims seen by approximately 27 people (+/- 5 depending on the weekend). The upcoming TUF 14 season will likely do more in 3 months than the WEC did in 3 years. Another important thing to mention about that argument is that it is a false one to begin with - the WEC generally headlined only with Faber among it's little guys during the age when it had larger weight competitors, choosing instead to headline with future light heavyweight non-factors and drug addled middleweights.

By the middle of 2011, it was clear that the argument that the 135 and 145 lb classes were made better by their time in the WEC than they would have been by simply being plugged into the UFC disappeared. It was an impossible argument to make with the evidence surrounding it. A new narrative had to be created, and that narrative was that the WEC's existence was justified because it created a link to Comcast, and in turn, Comcast's purchase of NBC would put the UFC on network TV for them and take them to the promised land. Instead, a funny thing happened on the way to TV negotiations. Comcast attempted to pawn off an underachieving network to the UFC for a value exceeding their TV deal to make it happen. The UFC also saw their ratings on Versus hit the toilet, affecting their value on the open market when negotiating among networks. Ultimately, no deal was reached with NBC and when the UFC on Versus season concludes this winter, so will that relationship.

The ultimate conclusion when evaluating the WEC is that it achieved nothing. It lost money. Its only serious draw took important losses before he could even be properly cashed out by the promoter or himself. It didn't make the lighterweights any more ready for the UFC than they would have been had they just been inserted into the promotion instead of the WEC having been purchased and moved into the Hard Rock in Vegas. In fact, for the last couple of years of its existence, it did little more than retard the growth of those divisions and the earning potential of its fighters, Faber included. A couple of noteworthy lightweights were generated, but the same can be said about the IFL or Strikeforce or a lot of other ultimately failed promotions. It produced some great fights, but that can be said about Shooto, DEEP, the IFL, Strikeforce, Rumble on the Rock, and tons of other second rate promotions. Ultimately, it still flopped. What it did do is expend some money from Comcast and perhaps drive them out of MMA permanently. How that ends up being a winning situation for fans or fighters, I'm not sure.

With the names revolving around the biggest fights that the division will see having been reviewed in part one, we enter part two. For this section, I'll be writing about the second tier of potential title challengers. To review the categories in the first part:

CHAMP: Wladimir Klitschko

THE OTHER BROTHER/BELT HOLDER: Vitali Klitschko

THE NEXT BEST CHALLENGER: Tomasz Adamek

I'LL CHALLENGE WHEN I WANT TO CHALLENGE. PLEASE?: Alexander Povetkin

I WAS A CHAMPION ONCE (First Tier): Ruslan Chagaev

So with that, on with the show....


I'D LIKE TO HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE. WHENEVER YOU GET A MINUTE (European Division): With the Klitschko domination, a lot of guys have gotten up to world title contention only to be knocked right back down the list and back to being ignored. Luckily, some of these fighters operate in Europe where TV dates and times exist that don't in the US. This is basically merged with the next tier of ex-champs below Chagaev because, well, who knows what is going to happen to any of these guys?

David Haye is the first and most important name on the list. With threats that he would retire by the end of 2011 counteracted by an embarrassing loss to Wladimir Klitschko, no one is sure what David Haye will do. He likely would be leaving a lot of money on the table to fight domestic heavyweights in the UK or to take on Vitali Klitschko. Given how little punishment Haye has absorbed, it then seems unlikely that he walks from the sport given that he still has his athleticism and punch. But who and what he fights? No one can be sure.

Nicolay Valuev and Alexander Dimitrenko are the giants of the heavyweight class, existing purely on the outskirts of real contention, and in the case of Valuev, possibly in retirement. Neither one is a one-hitter quitter, but both men, thanks to their enormous height and reach (Dimitrenko is listed at 6'8'', Valuev at 7') can still pose problems to a great number of immobile, slow, undersized heavyweights. Both have shown also that when confronted with lateral movement, they freeze up and become targets, indicating that a return
to title contention may be an uphill battle.

I'D LIKE TO HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE. WHENEVER YOU GET A MINUTE (American Division): Oddly, while the ranks of return contenders among Europeans is somewhat short, the list of Americans or American based fighters is quite lengthy. This seems to make little sense given European dominance at heavyweight in the last decade, but yet it is very much true.

At the head of that list is Cristobal Arreola, the power punching Mexican-American. Arreola arrives at that place not because he has earned his spot at the forefront of the American heavyweights through great victories and sheer determination, but because he is theorized as a hispanic draw and has a favored promoter for HBO (Golden Boy). On paper, Arreola seems to have a lot of the same issues as other exciting, power punching heavyweight saviors - he has issues with weight and conditioning, and that in turn stems from his wishing to pound beers and fatty food instead of sticking to the wants of a dietitian. Recently, Arreola has begun to listen to those professionals around him and has lost a significant amount of his weight. While he's not the 178lb amateur he was as a kid, at 230, he looks the part of a serious prizefighter. It remains to be seen, however, if this recent change turns out to be a career revival or a short term fix, a la David Tua's decision to lose weight prior to fighting Chris Byrd.

Also lurking in the shadows, supposedly with plans to fight one another, are polar opposites; One on hand, Eddie Chambers, a 29 year old blown up light heavyweight carrying a defensive "peek a boo" style similar to Winky Wright's, except with the addition of a spare tire around his waist. The other hand has a 39 year old octopus like 6'5'' boxer-puncher named Anthony Thompson. Tony The Tiger has been a staple of the top 15 or so in the heavyweight rankings over the last several years in spite of having never beaten a relevant opponent aside from a shot Luan Krasniqi in 2007. Thompson has at least been semi-active of late, having 3 fights in the last 18 months, including avenging his loss to Mo Harris on a recent episode of ESPN Friday Night Fights. Chambers would be the brighter star should he win such a contest given his age and skills, but sadly, he doesn't belong at the heavyweight division at all. His efforts would be better rewarded fighting Marco
Huck in Germany for the cruiserweight title. Thompson, meanwhile, hasn't shown any real improvement in some time. 

I AM A EUROPEAN HEAVYWEIGHT PROSPECT: HEAR ME ROAR (first tier):

When one thinks of top named European heavyweight prospects, one name that often comes up first is Denis Boystov. He's been a work in progress for the better part of the last 7 years, collecting tons of early KOs against fringe names. He's had issues with his heart and has basically petered out in terms of development, becoming increasingly less active, and has yet to improve on his best career victories (Taras Bidenko, Robert Hawkins). Short, pudgy power puncher in the mold of Povetkin, Sultan Ibragimov, and others, he stands a chance to be as successful at they are, but not with his current development track. In spite of having turned pro in 2004, he is still by 25 years old.

Robert Helenius is a skyrocketing name following his devastating KO of Samuel Peter. With wins over a number of ex-prospects and amateur stars like Scott Gammer, Attila Levin, Gbenka Oloukun, Taras Bidenko,
and of course Sam Peter, Helenius has actually gotten a great many different looks coming up through the ranks while engaging in fights that were rarely high risk. Its probably a very good thing. With his upcoming fight against Sergei Liakhovich, it marks the 3rd former world title holder he will have faced in his young career. Helenius is a fairly standard tall European styled boxer-puncher. 

Finally among elite Euro prospects, we get to Kubrat Pulev, a 30 year old ex-Amateur star for Bulgaria with wins over Derrick Rossy, Dominick Guinn, Danny Batchelder, Zack Page, Matt Skelton, and Paolo Vidoz. While many of Pulev's best names aren't necessarily known to American fans, Skelton and Vidoz both had achieved impressive regional heights at their peaks. Like so many others, Pulev doesn't really escape the mold of European styled heavyweights. 

THE COMMONWEALTH AND/OR BRITISH CHAMPION OF THE EMPIRE 

Throughout boxing's history, the man who owns the Commonwealth heavyweight title or the British title (or commonly, both) is always a threat to the heavyweight's division elite. The list of champs that have gone onto world heavyweight title contention is long: Lennox Lewis, Matt Skelton, Danny Williams, Scott Welch, Henry Akinwande, so on, so forth. Ergo, Tyson Fury must be considered in the list. His dimensions are extremely impressive (6'9'') but he is still extremely raw. Aside from a win over a pregnant looking Dereck Chisora, there's also no world class or even top domestic competition on his ledger. Two wins over the corpse of John McDermott and decision wins against Zack Page and Rich Power does not a great record make. And yet, in the lightly talented heavyweight division, Fury is very close to a title fight.

PLEASE GOD, I NEED MONEY (first tier): This tier is dedicated to guys who have practically no intention of really fighting competitively for titles. Well, at least, that is what I assume they are doing. They are opponents or men seeking to be opponents, perhaps looking at how Shannon Briggs was able to attain two solid paydays and world title fights he didn't deserve and looking then to emulate his late career course of action. They are bigger names at the end of the road.

First among them, the only true heavyweight of the bunch - Samuel Peter. He's lost by KO twice in a row and is .500 over his last 8 fights. The only remotely talented fighter he has a win over recently is Nagy Aguilera, who also happened to have lost decisions to Mo Harris and Antonio Tarver, and was recenty KOed by Cris Arreola. As a former belt holder with the WBC and the guy who came closest in recent years to beating Wladimir Klitschko, the mammoth power punching eating machine will always draw interest from fans for bigger fights. However, he is squarely an opponent now, and even with a career resuscitating string of wins over bums, may not get much more than another KO loss in Europe for his efforts. 

We then move to former Cruiserweights - Jean Marc Mormeck won the unified cruiserweight titles of the world in the twilight of his prime and lost them to David Haye on what I'll always contest was a rabbit punch. No matter, he lost. Since that loss, Mormeck took 2 years off and returned a heavyweight, hoping to be the french Holyfield. While his record shows three wins, one of them was an abject robbery (Fres Oquendo), another a simply disputed decision (Timor Ibragimov) and a third a completely unimpressive removing of rust with Vinny Maddalone.

Finally, the man who was perhaps the most talented cruiserweight of the last decade- Juan Carlos Gomez. Incredibly, Gomez was the one who tested positive for Coke after an Oliver McCall fight, which shows the level of dedication that he has to boxing if he is doing more coke than McCall. At 38 in official Cuban years, Gomez's prime was wasted on an ill fated attempt to escape the bonds of Universum and head to the US and join up with Bjorn Rebney and Sugar Ray Leonard. Combined with an embarrassing loss that somehow managed to validate Yanqui Diaz as a real heavyweight for 5 or 6 minutes, and Gomez went nowhere when he should have. To further complicate matters, Gomez looked effectively abyssmal against Vitali Klitschko in his one big payout fight. Wins over lots of European contenders (and Oliver McCall) litter his record,  but 52 fights into his career, the ex-Cuban amateur standout and longtime cruiserweight belt holder is just out there hoping against sound logic that someone, somewhere gets him a money fight. Where and why would be uncertain, and ultimately Gomez may be left on the vine fighting Brazilian heavyweights (he has fought almost every relevant one in the last 10 years but Luciano Zolyone) until he becomes so old, no one believes he poses a threat. Want a scary thought? Juan Carlos Gomez may fight on as a professional as many as 4-5 more years before disappearing.

I know divisional breakdowns are a dime-a-dozen, but in this new internet age and a world of thousands of TV channels, it is for easier for me (and everyone else) than ever to keep up with the splintered world of boxing. With that in mind, I've decided to give my own personal breakdown and list, by division, of the fighters there-in and where future challengers and prospects stand.

I decided to go in order down the weights because, well, that seemed like a smart idea. That means, naturally, I start with the heavyweights. One could write lotes of flowery prose about how the heavyweight division is a classic glory division of boxing that has fallen in public favor in the US due to a myriad of problems, bad fights, and flat out bad luck, but the odds are good that if you are planning to read this post, you're already aware of all of them. No reason to beat the dead horse. 

THE CHAMP:

Wladimir Klitschko is the Ring Magazine, IBO, IBF, WBO, and WBA world heavyweight champion. Yes, his brother has a belt, and if you want to get really technical about it, there is some claim to linearity that exists as a result of him beating Corrie Sanders for the Ring Magazine title waaaaaay back in 2004. Personally, I don't care about his claim to linearity and you as a fan probably shouldn't either, but it can't totally be ignored in writing an honest piece about the heavyweight division. Klitschko in world title fights over his career is 17-2; his present reign features 10 consecutive successful defenses, tying Lennox Lewis' number of successful defenses. One more successful defense means that Klitschko has defended his heavyweight belts more times in a row than anyone since Larry Holmes. 

And if Wladimir Klitschko was the offensive machine he had been during his WBO Heavyweight title reign in the early part of the 2000s, people would probably be excited to see him make these defenses in the US. At the time, Wladimir had excited the fanbase to the point where Lennox Lewis and Wladimir co-starred as the heavyweight championship bout being held during Ocean's Eleven. But that offensive style came with defensive liabilities - he had been KOed early in his development famously by Ross Puritty, hitting the deck multiple times. He then was dropped 4 times en route to losing his WBO title to Corrie Sanders, and KOed again by Lamon Brewster in an attempt to regain it. Emanuel Steward retooled his style to more of a jab-and-grab style, and the KOs seem to have put Klitschko in a shell where he is somewhat unwilling to engage or throw repeated combinations. His complete lack of body work is also a well known theoretical liability. 

Any liability, it should be noted, is purely theoretical. Klitschko hasn't realistically lost more than 6-7 rounds total since the Samuel Peter fight in 2005. Klitschko may not always be enthralling, but the fact that no one is willing to wade through the jab because it alone scares them that much is telling about just how good Wladimir is. At 35, his athletic peak has come and is now going, however given his dominance and the lack of skilled opposition in the heavyweight class, Wladimir may be the champion for a few years yet. Talk is now revolving around Wladimir making an easy defense against Mariusz Wach since the opportunity exists, he's relatively unmarked, and none of the sanctioning bodies are making any serious demands.

Much, much more after the jump.

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