SBNation.com User Blog: VirtualBalboa

A contrarian viewpoint on Canelo/Trout

VirtualBalboa — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:31:50 -0000

In the main results thread, I posted a little thing about the open scoring controversy. I'll actually repost that here in the bottom because I feel like it is valuable enough to be said twice in regards to this contest, but it isn't really why I'm posting this. No, I came into the Canelo/Trout fight with certain suspicions and afterwards, they haven't really gone away

My prime contention, you see, is the idea that this bout elevated both men's status and validated the concept that they were elite fighters because it was close and competitive. Both men showed technical flourishes, both men enacted certain pieces of their game plan well at times, both fought on a huge stage; all that good stuff. The problem I have here is that we still have a 154lb division largely in turmoil with split belts and a completely confused set of rankings. I come to that conclusion by, you know, looking at super welterweight as a whole. Canelo and Trout had names on their resume, but the names they beat were not guys who were considered top 154 pound fighters. They had the names of older welterweight stars who had moved up in weight. After that, the ledgers become exceedingly thin. Canelo or Trout have never faced the other top competitors at the weight class, past or present. It isn't cleaned out. They're really just starting.

Last night in the ring, I actually found the fight pretty exciting up until the open scoring talk basically screwed up the last round or two of action. There wasn't a ton of action going on, but it was very tactical, and as Canelo proved in the middle of the contest, one of them could be hurt. Trout was hittable in the Cotto fight, but Miguel just didn't have the pop to cause Trout issues. Canelo did. As Austin Trout moves forwards and starts fighting guys who aren't Miguel Cotto but instead are, say, Lara or Demetrius Andrade, he's gonna have really big problems. Those guys can move like Canelo and parry shots or avoid the jab as Alvarez did, but they're not as likely to get bogged down into defensive shells. They're outstanding boxers and counter punchers, and their right hands will probably make contact with Trout's face.

I thought Canelo won the fight and actually did better "coasting" than he had trodding forwards. He seemed more fluid moving between defense and offense, which is something he simply wasn't good at against Trout. He allowed Trout to make close rounds closer in his favor by letting him unload punch after punch after punch thrown, even if none of them were landing and it was making Canelo look like Bernard Hopkins. But a 23 year old power puncher shouldn't be trying to mimic the activity rate of AARP-Hop. It didn't work for Bernard against guys who outworked him on the scorecards like Calzaghe, Taylor, and Dawson. As Canelo moves forward, he will find guys like Trout who can box and have fast hands but might actually be able to dent more than tomato cans. Also, what was with Canelo looking so tired 8 rounds into this fight? All those muscles look impressive and he can hit hard, but getting winded by landng 4-5 really hard right hands a round is ridiculous. Against old welterweights he might get away with that, but it isn't gonna last against better 154lb competition.

We've got two big fights at the weight coming up in the next few weeks - there's Carlos Molina/Ishe Smith and Erislanda Lara/Alfredo Angulo coming up, both of which will be televised. Demetrius Andrade/Zaurbek Baysangurov is also on the horizion for July. Any of those fights can very easily produce a serious, difficult challenge for either Trout or Canelo. And when I say "difficult", I mean someone who could beat them much more impressively than either Alvarez or Trout could against one another. They aren't lesser fights in quality, just not the same level of box office attraction. We've elevated Canelo and Trout above the fray because of their ability to sell tickets or beat guys who could, not because they beat the best.

Here's what I said about open scoring earlier too, BTW:

A few years ago, I remember the first real controversy of this era of open scoring. It was Mormeck/Bell II in ‘07. MSG picked it up to play live. Don’t remember how that happened, just that I watched. In the first fight, which was a classic,. Mormeck was well ahead on the card after 8 rounds but continued to push forward on Bell, walking into power shots. Bell ultimately wore down Mormeck and stopped him. Great fight, like I said. The rematch went much the same for the first 8 rounds, but after the 8th, Mormeck was allowed to know that he was (rightfully) up on points. He started to defensively box that last 4 rounds, survived, and won the cruiserweight titles back. Being a cruiserweight fight, it was lower profile, but a lot of people were upset. After all, if Mormeck couldn’t be sure if the scoring was correct, he might have continued forward and gotten mowed down again, or at least made the fight more exciting.

What I’m pointing out here is that the open scoring isn’t the problem. The problem is inept or bad scoring. Boxing fans and writers don’t like it because it reminds them that their scorecards effectively don’t matter, which is funny, because according to Boxrec or Fightfax, they really don’t matter. I say that because our scorecards, regardless of what they read, can’t force the fighters to change tactics or whatever in mid-fight. The fight is the fight is the fight. You or I can only score unofficially what appears in front of us.

Here's what I said about open scoring earlier too, BTW:

My trip to the Smith/Bundrage card

VirtualBalboa — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:11:12 -0000

I have a blog I post travel stuff on, and though I wrote this earlier in the week when it might have been timely, a great laziness passed over me and I never finished it. There's not a lot in terms of pictures, and the ones I have kinda suck because I took a super low rent chinese made P&S with me instead of something not crappy. Anyhow, here it is, hopefully no rules are broken and you as a reader instead watched the Glazkov/Scott fight.

http://realtalkguidetoawesome.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/tr-boxing-detroits-masonic-hall-2232013/

Gamboa named in PED Story

VirtualBalboa — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:39:29 -0000

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2013-01-31/news/a-rod-and-doping-a-miami-clinic-supplies-drugs-to-sports-biggest-names/full/

Or consider Yuriorkis Gamboa, a rising boxing star who won a gold medal for Cuba in the 2004 Athens Olympics before defecting to Miami two years later. Gamboa has compiled a 22-0 record and has won WBA and IBF featherweight titles since coming to the States.

In the 2009 notebook, Bosch outlines an extensive program he was shipping to Gamboa. In addition to protein powders and calcium/magnesium/zinc compounds, he included a six-day-a-week HGH regime, IGF-1, and a cream with 20 percent testosterone.

What's more, Bosch even notes that Gamboa's next bout is scheduled against Brandon Rios the following April and writes, "Start clean-up Dec. 1" — presumably giving the boxer enough time to pass doping tests. (The fight against Rios was later canceled, but Gamboa won two other fights by TKO and KO that January and February.)

Ruh-roh. Nothing official about this list, as it was leaked to the Miami New Times by a former employee after the feds busted it down, but certainly worth discussing as to how it might affect not just Gamboa but the continued perception of boxing as "clean". Honestly, I'm surprised more boxers aren't named, but perhaps the full document might give different names?

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2013-01-31/news/a-rod-and-doping-a-miami-clinic-supplies-drugs-to-sports-biggest-names/full/

Catching up from Saturday 12/22: Abner Cotto, Cesar Seda, Diego Silva

VirtualBalboa — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 15:49:41 -0000

Just wrapping up Saturday night's Spanish language boxing offerings. Why not, right? Long weekend here.

TELEFUTURA:

Cesar Seda TKO2 Lorenzo Trejo. Trejo hasn't looked good in a long time and this was a pretty shameful performance. The poor guy was never in the fight, went down a bunch of times, and the last knockdown that came early in round 2 looked bad. Not KO of the Year, "Wow I hope he gets up" bad, but like a guy who has been hit way too many times crumbling from shots in a way where you're really thinking that he has to get away ASAP from this sport. Seda is a really good fighter - the wide decision Narvaez got over him doesn't reflect the reality of that fight at all, IMO (I thought he was outworking the champ for the most part). He could and probably should seriously consider moving up to 118 to find better fights. He has impressive size and good hand speed.

Jose Lopez UD4 Eric Gotay. Lopez was 5-0 with 5 KOs but never really had Gotay in big trouble until just before the final bell. Boxer-puncher type, kinda vertical standing for my liking. He's all of 18 though, so there's lots of time to grow as a professional.

Abner Cotto TKO6 Sergio Perez. Perez is cut from a similar cloth to Trejo; tough journeyman type from Mexico that is game but generally lacks the physical talents to be competitive with world class opposition. There's a knockdown in the fight according to Boxrec, but don't put much stock in it- what caused Perez to end up on his back was tangling his legs with Cotto during one of Abner's flurries. There's not really any growth here from Abner compared to the Alejandro Rodriguez fight a few weeks ago - he still drops his hands when he punches in the worst of ways, doesn't move his head well, and presents a willing target for punches. He has very little punching power too. Perez quit after the 6th was over just coming up to the ref and asking Cotto to come over to him to, best I can tell, inform him he was better and he was done.

TyC Sports:

Lots of womens bouts on this card, which I basically skipped over. I don't really watch women's boxing. Not going to argue about it here because that's not the point of this post.

Diego Silva MD10 Julian Aristule. Want a close fight? There's this one. Want an actual "fight" fight? Don't watch this one. About as exciting as watching paint dry or a Miguel Vazquez title defense, these guys basically didn't throw punches for 9 of 10 rounds. They'd switch taking the lead foot on and off and Silva generally seemed more effective in a very slow paced bout. The best round of the fight was, by far, round 9, in which Julian Aristule was able to land effective overhand rights on Silva and get him moving. Silva's biggest moment as a fighter was a 3 round KO loss to Fernando Montiel while Aristule never fought outside Argentina in his career.

Just wrapping up Saturday night's Spanish language boxing offerings. Why not, right? Long weekend here.

TELEFUTURA:

TyC Sports:

Lots of womens bouts on this card, which I basically skipped over. I don't really watch women's boxing. Not going to argue about it here because that's not the point of this post.

2012: How The Pundits Were Dead Wrong (and we were all better for it)

VirtualBalboa — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:46:22 -0000

I'm not intending right now to write something that talks about how the boxing media missed the mark about fight predictions. This isn't about the media picking the wrong stars of the future and pushing them (sup Broner). No, not at all. Stuff like that doesn't matter. What "matters" is the general health and well being of the sport itself. Back when 2012 began, the boxing media at large often took sides (sometimes because of where checks were drawn) or stood back in mock horror as the sport of boxing seemed to be on the verge of splitting in two. Showtime had become the new home for Golden Boy and Al Haymon, while HBO was essentially turning into Top Rank Central. Each would house star fighters with fears that the two sides wouldn't meet. This schism was seen as being yet another nail in boxing's coffin, further proof the sport was deeply corrupt beyond repair, and hopelessly entrenched in self destructive behavior. In fact, as the year progressed, we even got a ground zero for that self destruction: September 15th, Las Vegas.

How the year actually progressed is the truly untold story - in case you've not paid attention, boxing has managed to somehow, in spite of that awful schism and competition between promoters, create new stars. Robert Guerrero had a star making performance against Berto. Martinez/Chavez was a fairly big success on PPV. Canelo Alvarez packed MGM just a couple miles away and also managed to make himself a bigger star that night. Adrian Broner, Andre Ward, Austin Trout:These are just some of the names that have come from 2012 and established themselves as relevant in the US. Boxing is back on network TV. We're getting more TV cards than ever before from the premium networks. Not only that, we're seeing more fights than before and in many cases better fights than we have in years.

It turns out that the night of boxing's self destruction was a sort of turning point for 2012 and the sport of Boxing. The first half was riddled with controversy, corruption, and bad fights. The second half was outstanding, punctuated by several epic battles. Showtime has elevated itself in the boxing public's eyes with several fantastic cards and is now considered by many the equal to HBO, something that's never really been the case prior. Even when Showtime spent megabucks to court Don King and Mike Tyson (separately) they never had this pull or attraction. Now they do. The spark of competition has led to enormously stacked cards on Showtime- the "official" show often televises 3 or 4 fights, with a preshow of dark matches showing 2-3 more. This has led HBO to shift how it does its business. Once upon a time, one fight cards with HBO were common. Not this year.

For all the negativity put on Al Haymon and Golden Boy, and some of it is deserved, you have to recognize that their empowerment at Showtime is likely one of the major reasons we've seen this increase in action and sheer number of bouts. This wasn't dumb luck. I'm sure they, like a lot of MMA fans, saw Strikeforce's purchase as being its death knell. Rather than assume than ignore that potential pot of money,wandered into Showtime's offices and offered them access to some of the best boxers in the world in return for a piece of that action. That investment by Showtime has managed great returns. And with it, we've seen a wide shift in the way boxing in the US is televised, much to our benefits as fans. Is anyone here as reliant on Youtube videos of the international feeds anymore to see hot fighters like Nathan Cleverly as they once were?

2012 is the year boxing was supposed to choke on its own mistakes, and instead we come into the new year stronger and more exciting than its been in years. It's a good time to be a fan.

Roberto Vasquez/John Mark Apolinario analysis

VirtualBalboa — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:36:30 -0000

Just a few brief thoughts about this show from TyC last night -

-Show opener for TyC was Fernando Saucedo/Cristian Palma. Palma was an undersized Chilean opponent brought in to take a whooping against occasional world title contender Saucedo. Palma gave an honest effort in this fight and was really game, even if he was super wild. Didn't matter. After about 3 good rounds, he wasn't as willing to trade and hurl bombs at Saucedo, who worked a steady groove until hurting Palma in the 7th round, dropping him a couple times, and stopping him. with Palma basically quitting This is one of those fights where the guy looking to get highlighted just doesn't come out looking that great. You see this and go "Of course he lost 12 of 12 rounds to Chris John".

-Israel Perez (who was listed as Ivan Perez, I think) beat up Orlen Padilla next. Perez has a couple decent wins, and much as in the same bout, you could see a serious difference in muscularity between him and Padilla. Padilla has fought no one anyone's heard of and been KOed most times he stepped up. This was one of those KO losses. Perez was on him like white on rice early. Ref jumped in during an exchange and I think could be argued as "early" but this was a mismatch with Padilla being dropped repeatedly anyhow.

-Cesar Velez/Azael Cosio was the most fun fight by far, though I question the result. Cosio looked much bigger and had a puffier record, and Velez dropped him 20 seconds in with a wide overhand right. There was a couple headbutts in this fight, one of which looking rather intentional, and I couldn't tell exactly when the large cut that ended the fight in the 3rd started. In any case, Cosio was stopped midway through the 3rd with blood gushing out and Velez got handed a victory.

-Not a lot of expectations for the main. You've got a Panamanian fighter fighting for a belt from a Panamanian sanctioning body with "Visit Panama" ads everywhere, and the opponent fighting him for some interim BS belt is a no name from Southeast Asia. Obvious walkover, right? Wrong. Vasquez has always been a step below the best and at this stage of his career he's well, well below the best. He's not remotely elite. While he came forward each round and tried to land some decent punches, Apolinario stayed on the defensive, blocked most of the seemingly slow punches coming in, and returned fire with crisp, straight counter shots that often hit the mark. The scoring I can see being close because of Vasquez's forward movement, Apolinario's relative lack of activity, neither guy really shaking the other up much, and no visible damage really occurring. Maybe I should have totally nerded out and scored the fight?

Apolinario won 115-113 on the TyC scorecard and took home a draw on the official cards with the deck stacked against him. I'd guess he probably won the fight based on what I saw. Vasquez looks old. Trying to decipher whether a guy's legs are shot based on mediocre quality video beamed into my house by DirecTV from South America is a tough call, but I look at him and he screams "shaky". Apolinario is a decent fighter but he's gonna have trouble at 118 being successful long term. No matter what, people are filing out of that division fast. Moreno may move up to 122 permanently. Santa Cruz is really talented. Kameda's always had a lot of pop and brings offense. Agbeko is at a strange stage of his career, but I'd expect him to outwork the young Filipino easily. I just don't know where he fits in.

Just a few brief thoughts about this show from TyC last night -

Is it wrong to like Escalante/Juarez?

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:35:47 -0000

Every once in awhile I go onto Fightnews and see a listing for a main event on a spanish language network that just wilds me out. Usually, you have a fight between a couple guys that 3-4 years ago would have headlined on Showtime or HBO, or been straight up money as a undercard attraction on a PPV. This week, we as boxing fans get one of those moments because two really good featherweights that were never quite good enough to win a featherweight title are gonna fight each other.

Now, I know, it is not ideal. Juarez is deep into potential palookavilla. If I were willing to be honest with myself for a moment and really consider his well being as a human, I might be horrified to show such excitement when it comes to watching a guy who rightfully should have lost 8 of his last 9 get in there with Escalante and his punching power. Juarez is 32, but he's an old 32. He didn't look at all good against Andrew Cancio in a losing effort in that fight, and Cancio himself has subsequently been exposed as mediocre. Escalante's 2 round termination of Leonilo Miranda sure looks a lot better than anything Cancio has done or might ever do, and he's lining up to take on a Rocky Juarez more and more likely to be affected by punches.

But I gotta level with 'ya. I'm one of those people - the people that was okay with Juarez getting a million title shots that he never won at. One of the people who was excited to see Juarez underachieve time and time again in the ring. Sometimes, guys achieve. They hit the peak suddenly when everything comes together, and for however long that wave can be ridden, they hop aboard and take it. In recent years, we've seen that at a variety of weight classes. Oleg Maskaev cleaned himself up and managed to knock out Hasim Rahman at the very worst possible time for Hasim and earn himself a little money and credibility for once. Nate Campbell rebounded from several bad losses, including the astoundingly embarassing KO defeat against Robbie Peden on Fox Sports, to beat Juan Diaz and claim a bunch of belts at lightweight. Jorge Arce's career has been buried more times than I can count, and yet he's now the most desired opponent for the best 122lb fighter in the world.

Now, Juarez probably isn't going to achieve. He's probably not really gonna test Escalante in any serious way. The truth is that he's more game than a post-Wittier Vivian Harris, but that probably puts him at far greater risk physically. But truthfully, if Juarez was really thinking about his health, he would never have boxed in the first place. Or he would have walked away after, god, the Litzau fight perhaps? I understand that by watching the fight on Telefutura and being bombarded with Tecate advertisements, they got me like the dumb mark that I am. I even am willing to concede that perhaps this isn't the best thing for Rocky Juarez too by getting in the ring. But he's a grown man, and I'm a guy watching boxing. We've both made our choices, and if we continue to do what we do, we're going to have to live with those consequences. His will be physical, mine moral. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm hoping for a lively contest on Telefutura against all hope, and if that makes me a bad boxing fan, well, I'm not sure there's such a thing as a good one to start with.

Has history figured out Roy Jones Jr. yet?

VirtualBalboa — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:44:05 -0000

This isn't a fully formed argument either way, I gotta admit. I generally prefer to do that sorta thing, but this was something I just thought about while reading about the upcoming Kimbo exhibition. Back during the 90s when Roy was dominating, one of the strikes against him was not fighting the top competition in his division/outside the division that he could have been getting in with, and instead fighting "public servants". Years later, Roy is basically shot and playing the part of professional opponent, taking some really bad beatings, often against much bigger fighters, and KOs that are really surprising given how risk adverse he seemed to be during his prime. Does the last several years of mind numbingly bad performances and ugly KOs start to take that argument away from him? Or does it simply tack on that Roy was a guy who never fought the best during his prime because he feared to get hurt, never left the states because he feared he'd get robbed, and only did both of those after he was finished as a serious contender because he got desperate (to no success)?

The Random ESPN Classic Fight of the Week: Mauricio Aldana/Vito Antuofermo

VirtualBalboa — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:35:10 -0000

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.

Cleaning Out the DVR: Vol. 5 (Enrique Quevedo-a-Go-Go)

VirtualBalboa — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:21:11 -0000

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?

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RESULT: Atzin Unanimous Decision

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

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

RESULT: Castaneda TKO Round 3.

RESULT: Quevedo TKO Round 1.

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

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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.

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.

RESULT: Ruvalcaba TKO Round 2

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

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

RESULT: Quevedo TKO Round 6.

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

Cleaning out the DVR Vol. 4 (The Other Arce/Ruiz 1 & 2)

VirtualBalboa — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:29:56 -0000

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.

The Random ESPN Classic Fight Of The Week: Chuck Davey/Rocky Graziano

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:56:51 -0000

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.

Procrastination Files: Solo Boxeo 12/16/2011

VirtualBalboa — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:11:43 -0000

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.

Cleaning Out the DVR: Vol. 3 (Cayo! Farias! DiBella monologue!)

VirtualBalboa — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 04:02:55 -0000

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.

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

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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.

TyC 12/17: Ladies's Night at Parque Eva Peron (Results)

VirtualBalboa — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:09:59 -0000

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.

Livebloggin': Marroquin/Valcarcel on FSE

VirtualBalboa — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:29:15 -0000

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.

TyC 12/16: Angulo back in the win column

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:07:34 -0000

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.

The Random ESPN Classic Fight Of The Week: Duran/Pazienza II

VirtualBalboa — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:53:38 -0000

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.

A challenge: DEFEND THE INDEFENSIBLE

VirtualBalboa — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:51:49 -0000

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.

As an example, A DEFENSE OF CHAD DAWSON:

Cleaning out the DVR: Vol. 2

VirtualBalboa — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:50:13 -0000

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.

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TV ALERT: Rios/Murray and Wolak/Rodriguez on HBO Latino TONIGHT

VirtualBalboa — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:41:06 -0000

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.

Lemieux vs Alcine: 12/10/11 WE LIVEBLOGGIN'

VirtualBalboa — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:10:16 -0000

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.

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.

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

TyC 12/9: Bopp retains, Monterossa loses

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 07:57:50 -0000

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.

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

Telemundo 12/9: The other Donaire

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:40:28 -0000

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?

The Random ESPN Classic Fight Of The Week: Johnny Bratton/Rocky Castellani II

VirtualBalboa — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:37:21 -0000

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.

Cleaning out the DVR: Vol. 1

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:48:18 -0000

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.

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Procrastination Files: Solo Boxeo 12/2/2011

VirtualBalboa — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:20:49 -0000

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.

Procrastination Files: Fight Night Club 12/1/11

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:58:59 -0000

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.

The Random ESPN Classic Fight of the Week: Pinklon Thomas/James Tillis

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 03:31:39 -0000

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.

Procrastination Files: Arce/Angkota II

VirtualBalboa — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:03:24 -0000

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.