The last few days have brought a few interesting nuggets that have slid entirely off the radar here in the midst of all the fights this weekend and the odd drama of the site. This isn't all groundbreaking stuff, but it is relevant and I am curious to see reactions. I know this isn't Mayweather/Pacquiao (or, should I say, Chavez/Pavlik), but let's clean up the rest of the industry news after the jump.

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This man is an undefeated 140 lber out of Argentina. He is unbeaten in 38 fights, though he has never fought out of Argentina and hasn't faced anyone of note there except for maybe Alex De Jesus. He won a relatively close decision over Jesus, but it was at home, I can't find info on the fight, and the judges must have been using a different system as... well... Just look at the scores:

Judge: Hector Bonifatto 119-112 | judge: Raul Sendra 118-115 | judge: Martin Cariaga 118-114½ ~

I can't find any info on him other than a bunch of joke posts about how he is Amir Khan's next opponent. Why is he often sarcastically listed as such? The answer lies within the numbers. Cuenca is 38-0 with 1 KO. 1. His opponent quit in the fight too so he didn't even really stop him.

The only other two fighters on his resume that I recognize are Jose Alfaro and Carlos Vilches, and I only know them because I watched them lose easily to a couple name fighters each.

Has anyone seen the guy? Is he the Argentinian Sven Ottke, or is he more of a Paulie? He's #4 according to the WBO and he holds one of their minor trinkets, so we may soon see him in a world title bout at 140 if he wants any part of it.

This is just a quick heads up as I don't know how to catch more eyes more quickly. Delete this tomorrow if you want. I don't remember who, but one of the contributors here said Rigondeaux was going to be bumped off TV in the weekend fight preview. That seemed strange to me since they were advertising the card as a triple header on the last show, so I investigated. Dan Rafael says all three fights will be on air in his chat today.

The excerpt:

"Justin (ATL)

Dan you said 30 rounds tonight. Which fights specifically will be on?

Dan Rafael:

Johnson-Mack (12), Parades-Hernandez (10) and Rigondeaux-Landeros (8)."

Even with minimal to no studio time that isn't simply a very difficult amount of fights to fit in two hours, it is a flat out impossible amount. If you're recording the show as I suspect many of you are, I'd go WAY over in terms of how long you set it for. I'm putting 90 minutes extra just to be safe. Look at it this way: 30 rounds of boxing is potentially 90 minutes of boxing alone. Add a minute after each of the thirty rounds and you're at the two hours. Nevermind studio time, time for decisions, or the longer commercial breaks. Either Rafael and their advertising were liars or this is being allowed to be a three hour show minimum.

Cheers. Should be a great weekend of fights and I didn't want anyone to miss tonights solid card.

The fight is officially off. Mediation has failed. Arum says Pacquiao will most likely be fighting Foreman on the 13th or 20th at 154. Golden Boy will most likely find another opponent for Floyd on the opposite date. I have no idea what HBO will do with two fights that must be on PPV on consecutive weekends.

My expert analysis after the jump:

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The ever handy (but often too relied upon) fight history database boxrec.com has 1072 middleweights in its enormous archives. The worst of these fighters in their view would be 0-17 Mexican middleweight Raymundo Verdugo. Of those seventeen losses, ten of them have been stoppages. Personally, however, if I had to pick a worst just based on these numbers alone I'd have to go with Australian middlewight Aaron "Baby Face" Ryan. Ryan boasts a "better" record at 0-11, but he has been stopped inside the distance in every fight.

In a way, in recent times, the entire middleweight division has gone 0-11 with 11 stoppage losses. Even a few years ago, in a time we thought of as a down era even then, the division was in a much stronger state. Jermain Taylor ruled the division with the undisputed championship....

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Lucian Bute robbed me of my joy last night. I had been looking forward all week to the late rounds to see if Bute had it in him to avoid a repeat of the first fight. With the added pressure Andrade was putting on in the first round rounds when compared to the first fight, I was even more excited at the prospect. I didn't have a preference on who won, but I wanted to see and expected to see the championship rounds and compare them to the drama of the first. When Bute knocked Andrade out, he knocked me out with pure shock. I had never considered that outcome possible and when it happened the knockout took a couple minutes to completely register. Wow. A star had to have been born on the international stage. Where does he go from here?

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We have a chance at something special here. Last night, we all know the history that took place. It was a night to compare with any other night in boxing history. It was the night where....

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The Super Six appears on its way to becoming a tremendous success. Clearly a lot yet could happen to derail the entire thing, but questionable scoring aside, the first night was as big of a success as can be. The fights were intense if not action pack and the atmosphere was fantastic. 168 will benefit tremendously from this. However, I would like to be the only person on the boxing planet to not be talking about The Super Six. I want to be that fool looking ahead to potential reincarnations before the first one even finishes succeeding.

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FanPost promoted by SC

This is one of the bigger shockers in recent memory. Surefire future star and new Golden Boy signee Jorge Linares was destroyed in slightly over a minute last night  in his adopted home of Japan by unheralded, but undefeated Juan Carlos Salgado of Mexico. Salgado now holds the WBA slice of the championship at 130.

Golden Boy must be kicking themselves now. Why couldn't they have just waited until after his fight? That question is a bit rhetorical because the answer is obvious. Salgado posed no threat to Linares, right? Linares had been tested and passed beyond all expectations. All Golden Boy had to do was get him active, healthy, and on US television. A cash cow and future P4P elite was the only outcome forseeable by most.

Yet, here we are. Salgado, a fighter who had not been tested and regardless of what happened in the fight did not deserve based on resume to get a title shot, throws a couple shots and the future is rewritten. This has to go down as even a more shocking upset than Khan/Prescott. Linares had succeeded way above the level that Amir Khan had been getting hurt at and Salgado was just as unknown as Prescott. In fact, I had even seen Prescott fight once before the Khan fight. These YouTube clips of this fight are all I have seen from Salgado.

Salgado could be legit (though I doubt it), but whether or not he is, this is a huge, huge boost for Mexican boxing. Finally, a young true contender has emerged for our amigos south of the border to rally behind. I can't think of a single win by any Mexican fighter under 30 to top this one.

Where does Linares go from here? I imagine he goes right back to what he was doing before after a soft touch. We've seen his talent and ability. First round KOs may be impressive, but they are also at times prone to flukish circumstances. I have little doubt that we will see Linares back with a belt fairly soon. He came out and was caught cold. He has had little history (I vaguely remember him being hurt only once before) of a bad chin and certainly has the talent to hide it if he suddenly has found himself in possession of chinaware below his cheeks.

Note from SC: I have only ever seen Salgado (21-0, 15 KO) fight one time, when he wound up bumped onto the televised portion of the Pacquiao-Morales III card back in 2006. That's a lot of time to improve, but while he looked promising defeating Marcos Licona that night, you wouldn't have ever guessed he would one day beat a guy like Linares in 73 seconds. First round knockouts are fluky by nature, but this is a real stunner. Linares (27-1, 18 KO) honestly shouldn't be affected too much by this, though; with Golden Boy, he can come in and build his name in the States. He's still a virtual unknown in America and the one loss isn't going to kill his prospects.

Video after the jump.

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