Berto Rises and Mayorga Falls...Yet Again

The HBO card on Saturday September 27, 2008 was, by a realfightfan's standards, nothing more or less than a chance to watch some boxers whose names we know. No belts at stake, no surprises likely. That said, there was no way I was passing it up because there's seems to have been so little to cheer about in the last few months. Having seen Calzaghe make a date with Roy Jones is a yawner and I can't sufficiently express my disappointment at Kelly Pavlik having set a fight with Bernard Hopkins. What a waste of time. All of that said, in truth I have only myself to blame for not having seen any good recent fights, because there was at least one...and I missed it because I didn't buy the pay-per-view of the Forrest/Mora rematch that apparently set all things right with the world. My own fault. To the card...

Stevie "two pound" Forbes has now apparently become the newest opponent for the elite and rising elite at 154. He's got a championship pedigree (safely twenty pounds south) and is committed but featherfisted. Andre Berto (22-0 coming in) was looking for a name to add to his resume. For the first few rounds, it looked like he was in a lot deeper than his camp had anticipated. Stevie countered well and his speed looked comparable to the lightning quick, but habitually inaccurate Berto. Even after the HBO team seemed to think Berto had taken control in the middle rounds, I didn't think Berto was landing almost any of his punches. He was also clinching and holding with his arms around Forbes' arms way too much considering that he was the faster, younger and stronger fighter. I had the fight for Forbes, four rounds to two, at the end of the sixth because he was counterpunching more cleanly and while Berto would throw combinations in lightning flurries, almost no punches in these barrages were landing. The crowd would ooh and aah, but Forbes was slipping, blocking and ducking, making Berto ineffective.

However, whether it was Berto's pressure, his greater strength (their physiques are a contrast, with Berto's bulging muscles and Forbes' sleek and undersized...for the weight...physique) or the opponent mentality that has begun to dog Forbes at least since the Delahoya fight, Forbes seemed to stop trying to win. Turning in a sparring partner's performance the last six rounds, Forbes seemed to go into survival mode and phone it in until the final bell. In this space, I decried the HBO announcing team after the Delahoya fight for calling Forbes out for his sparring partner mentality. Interestingly, they did it far less in this bout, but he deserved it more...at least after the sixth. At fight's end, I had it 116-112 and the official scorers had it unanimously 118-109, 118-109 and 116-111, all for Berto.

Where does Berto go from here? Well, Antonio Margarito was in the audience. If the Berto camp thinks he's ready for Margarito, I think they have another thing coming. By grabbing and fighting in spurts, as I've seen him do before, Berto is used to getting a chance not only to admire his work after his dramatic (but too often ineffectual) flurries, but to clinch and hold and catch his breath. Margarito will never allow that and is natural enough at the weight and aggressive enough to shoulder him off and rain down blows. If the Margarito who fought Cintron and Cotto shows up, Berto doesn't last six rounds. Jumping from Forbes to Margarito is a quantum leap to the highest echelon of the division. That said, if they make that fight I'll tune in...and while I'm virtually certain it ends badly for Berto...that's why they make 'em fight.

If I'm Berto's camp, I'd definitely go in next against a slightly lesser elite level fighter, if they're looking to step up. Of course, the problem for Berto is that there are so many elite level fighters in his division that every one is risky. Cintron? risky as heck...he can knock the iffy-chinned Berto out with one punch. Paul Williams? he will outwork Berto and if he doesn't get him in trouble, he'll outpoint him because Berto won't get his between-flurry rests. Miguel Cotto? If Cotto's spirit rebounds after being handed his first loss by Margarito, Cotto is the superior boxer with the heavier hands, notwithstanding Berto's speed advantage. Mosley? That's probably the guy I'd pick because while Shane still has some game at age 37 (see below), he's not as dangerous as he used to be and he's always seemed blown up to make this weight. He's a tough fight and a good win to add (by decision, probably), but not a great risk. But, as Shane implied after his own fight...he doesn't need Berto...unless he can't find anyone else to fight. That said, I bet Margarito was there not to watch Berto...but to get a fight with Sugar Shane.

To the main event. For a fight that started so promisingly and ended so satisfyingly, HBO commentator Larry Merchant's statement in round ten was fair: that is was a grueling rather than an entertaining fight. After Mayorga thrilled with his trademark wild headhunting in the opening frame, he lapsed into a hugging, clutching, complaining parody of his best days while Mosley struggled to time him and land between Mayorga's occasional bombs. With Mayorga ten pounds heavier on fight night, even when he had the fight well in hand, Mosley struggled to back Mayorga up. Meanwhile, the bullying wild tactics that elevated Mayorga to the stage in his career where he apparently remains the knockout opponent of choice for the aging elite made for a difficult fight to watch. Few punches land and when they do, we all hope they will chop Mayorga down. The sixth was almost a 10-8 round because this was clearly knockout territory for Mayorga (to BE knocked out). This is approximately when Delahoya took him out and apparently this is about where his aging elite level opponents figure him out and begin to tattoo him at will. Mosley indeed punched him cleanly in this head repeatedly in the last minute of the round and although he seemed to put him in trouble, he didn't put him down.

Interestingly, Mayorga seemed emboldened by the fact that he didn't get knocked out and had something of a resurgence in the following round, raising his arms triumphantly, apparently celebrating that he was still in the ring. The fight remained a mostly ugly hugfest until Mosley caught up to Mayorga with almost no time left in the 11th. I suspect that Mayorga, slowed from some clean shots (but not as many as you'd think) and mostly out of gas, just felt he'd put in a long enough night and went down. Don't get me wrong...Mosley KO'd him, but Mayorga didn't struggle to get up, instead dropping his head back to the mat with one second left in the round, forcing the referee to wave the fight off. When a fighter doesn't try to beat the bell, he ought to be waved off...and Mayorga was.

Was this a big win for Mosley? Who cares? All it did was give us a fight to watch, give Mosley a good workout and allow him to stay active and add his name to those of his contemporaries Trinidad and Delahoya, who've knocked out Mayorga too. Worth mention is that HBO commentator Jim Lampley suitably incredulously conveyed to the audience that one ringside judge named Pat Russell had Mayorga ahead on points at the time of the KO. This must have been the Don King judge. I say that not in jest, because there seems no reasonable way any observer could have had Mayorga ahead. I had 7 of 10 rounds for Mosley, with three of those Mosley rounds as close rounds...but 2 of the 3 scored for Mayorga were close too. Keep an eye on Russell, folks. That scorecard made no sense.

Let's look for Mayorga, at age 35 to get KO'd by a few more top level fighters before he fades into the sunset. Fans love him because he throws bombs and is willing to go out on his back. That said, another repeat or two of his hugging and complaining performance through the middle rounds of this fight and he'll stop becoming the opponent of choice to KO because no fighter wants to risk the headbutt cuts that Mayorga's bullrush hugging and butting routine is too likely to cause.

As for Sugar Shane, it's a good thing for him that he took Mayorga out. By taking him down with 3:01 to go in the fight, he went from "well, he couldn't take him out, his star is fading" to "he's still got it and can bring fans and excitement to any match." I think we'll see Margarito make a fight with Mosley in the next month or two. Berto may want him (and that's no slam dunk for Berto, by the way), but Margarito will see Mosley as a great marquee name to add to his record, not too great a risk and a good draw. The fight makes sense for Mosley too. Now that Margarito has Cotto's belt, Mosley can fight for the title again. Mosley lost to Cotto, so the odds are long on him beating Margarito, who himself beat Cotto...but that is a fight any realfightfan will tune in to see.

Boxing Scoring is a Joke (in Houston on 9/5/08)!

Diaz v. Katsidis

Okay, so this may seem like a needless repetition of a truth to the casual observer of the fight game. However, while many occasional boxing fans routinely ride down boxing for it's corruption, and while there is indeed some truth to that well-worn belief...I've always considered the kind of "home cooking" that we see in olympic boxing if not exactly the exception, then at least not exactly the rule in professional boxing. That said, if it's true at all, certainly Saturday night's HBO undercard fight in Houston was the exception that proved the rule. Meanwhile, the main event was so thoroughly the polar opposite of home cooking that it seemed to prove another far more depressing point: boxing scoring is a joke.

The undercard fight between Houston's Rocky Juarez and Jorge Barrios was somewhat more than mildly entertaining. Juarez has been the opponent of choice for the elite level in his division, taking losses against three of the division's best fighters, amounting to the four losses on his record. With all due respect to Rocky, who is a class act in and out of the ring, those elite tests have seemed to drain him of the fire he displayed when I saw him take the first of those losses to Marco Antonio Barrera. Of course, he was an undefeated fighter then and that can sometimes make all the difference, but I've never seen him look the same since. On Saturday night he looked a step slow against an aggressive and tough, but wild fighter in Barrios. Juarez was clearly the superior technician, but that doesn't matter if you don't let your hands go. Barrios overwhelmed Juarez, throwing wildly and instead of taking advantage by countering up the middle every time with shorter punches, Juarez layed back too much. Barrios carried the fight on sheer aggressiveness.

Now...to Juarez' credit, by the tenth round, Barrios looked as if he'd punched himself out. That's not to say he stopped punching, but that he was no longer close to landing. As if by plan, Juarez started vigorously countering with the short hard punches straight up the middle that he should've been throwing all night long. Why he chose to ratchet up this strategy toward the 9th and 10th rounds, I can't say. By then, Barrios should have had no less than 6 or 7 of the first 9 rounds in the bank, solely on aggressiveness. But he didn't. When the scorecards were reviewed by HBO after the fight, Juarez was ahead on all three scorecards by a wide margin! Also, the referee in the ring has deducted two points from Barrios during the course of the fight for low blows. Neither looked legitimate in real time and upon replay, neither was worse than a non-damaging beltline shot. Juarez not only didn't look hurt...the first time, he seemed surprised that the point was being taken. However, even those deductions wouldn't explain the scorecards. Juarez should have been way behind at fight's end. Instead he was in a position to win. It felt like home cooking all the way.

Fortunately, it didn't matter. Juarez opened up an ugly gash in Barrios' right upper lip, reminiscent of Heath Ledger's recent Joker mock-up. The HBO team described it as "hard to watch" when the slow motion captured the blood spurting from Barrios' seemingly widened mouth. Lennox Lewis described this as resulting from Barrios taking a punch with his mouth hanging open. Obviously, the ringside physician stepped in and stopped the fight with just 8 seconds left in the 11th of 12 rounds. Lewis correctly observed that, if the fight had been allowed to continue, Barrios would have been "drinking his own blood." A TKO resulted and Juarez legitimately won what would have been a gross miscarriage of justice, had it lasted the full 12.

That said, in Rocky's defense (and he's easy to defend because he's a class act...and I've been guilty of only really watching the fighter I like...not in this case), his having waited to pounce until (arguably too) late in the fight did work: Barrios was clearly being battered. While I have no doubt that Barrios would have lasted until the 12th, I'm not at all certain he could've survived the 12th (I mean, if he'd not suffered that ugly fight-ending cut). All's well that ends well, right? Well, kinda...because the main event was still to come.

The main event featured Houston's own Juan "Baby Bull" Diaz against Micheal Katsidis, he of the trojan war helmet ring entrance, haymakers and face first style. Now, if both guys hadn't been diminished by their most recent respective fights, this promised to be a great fight. Both fighters had lost the zeroes behind their records in their last fights: Diaz to Nate "the galaxy warrior" Campbell and Katsidis to Joel Casamayor (by late round KO in a fight he was winning). Being defeated after getting into deep water in their division, as had just happened to both of these fighters, can be a spirit-crushing experience. Both of these guys had, after being touted as no less than a match (or more in Diaz' case) for their opposities, lost convincingly. Diaz lost his lightweight WBC title belt to Campbell when Campbell beat him at his own game. Campbell pressured the pressure fighter, outboxing the boxer. To Diaz' credit, he never gave up, but by the end of that fight, he was clearly the badly beaten man. Katsidis on the other hand led most of the way on the sluggish Casamayor, dropping Casamayor and imposing his hyper aggressive will on the Cuban...until Casamayor caught him flush, put him in trouble and finished him. Being KO'd, depending on the fighter, can be even more devastating than being thoroughly outboxed and punished, the way Diaz was. These circumstances made the fight all the more interesting a match. Would either fighter show signs of diminishment in the wake of a first loss? Neither did.

On paper, this was a great match. Diaz, with his go forward at-all-times volume puncher style against the heavy-handed lead-with-your-face style of Katsidis. If both came prepared and showed no signs of wear, it would surely be a barnburner. At the outset, like HBO's Max Kellerman, I too couldn't wait to see it even though it was just about to start. However, as it unfolded and the course of the fight became clear, I was reminded of the old maxim that a good boxer will beat a good brawler every time. Going in, I'd failed to give Diaz credit for the fighter he had showed himself to be before Nate Campbell fought the fight of his life to beat him. Diaz is not just a workrate fighter, he's a tactician. He uses range and proximity to his advantage and counters thoughtfully. He answers tactics with tactics and is aware of his location in the ring. To know the need for these kind of tactics is when sitting in front of the TV or when typing before a computer screen is one thing, but to do it at full speed with a puncher like Katsidis in your face is quite another. Diaz proved that he is 100% back from the Campbell loss.

Bottom line, Diaz is one hell of a good boxer. He had an answer for all of Katsidis' bullying tactics (most of which are legal, to Katsidis' credit) and Diaz never once allowed Katsidis to move him to the ropes or land unanswered. Diaz punched in combination, with shorter straighter punches. He beat Katsidis to the punch and deliberately turned him around and around the ring when Katsidis bull-rushed. It was a pleasure to watch for a realfightfan...at least for a few rounds. Then frankly, it got a little monotonous. With a fighter as skilled as Diaz, the odds that Katsidis would get to land the kind of fight-changing punch that put all the KOs on his record was pretty remote. Knowing that Diaz made his bones as a championship level workrate fighter who could put in 12 rounds of heavy volume punching routinely, there was virtually no chance that he would fade. He did not. He deflected everything that Katsidis had to offer and controlled the fight from start to finish.

While Katsidis fought valiantly, throwing far more frequently than Diaz, he landed far fewer punches than did Diaz and by fight's end, was clearly the more badly battered. That hadn't slowed him, but it looked like he could barely see out of his swollen eyes by fight's end. I had every round, except a close first, for Diaz. I should add that I'd picked Katsidis to win the fight, thinking that his aggressiveness and heavy hands, combined with the potential soul-draining beating administered to Diaz the last time out, would lead to a flash KO of Diaz. Even if it didn't, I figured on Katsidis' aggressiveness to wear the desire to fight out of Diaz. It didn't.

However... the fight I saw apparently wasn't seen the by the three ringside judges. Unbelievably, one (whose name I recall from past fights...Glen Hamada) had the fight for Katsidis 115-113. That score literally had my jaw hanging open as if unhinged. The next two, both for Diaz, were so close that they too had me staring numbly at the wrap-up, as Max Kellerman rightly intoned that this scoring was perhaps the worst he'd ever witnessed. Even the 116-112 and 115-113 scores for Diaz, giving him the split decision, were ludicrous. This fight was dull because it was a runaway! I cannot imagine what Hamada saw during rounds 8 through 12 when he gave them all to Katsidis! On my scorecard, in round eleven, I wrote "boxing clinic - not a mark on him (Diaz)". Meanwhile Katsidis kept advancing, being turned and pummeled with hammering short shots, his right eye blackening nastily.

What can I say? It hurts to say it about a sport I so enjoy, but boxing scoring is a joke.