News and Views: The Marquez-Vazquez weekend

Israel Vazquez provides the crowd with a McDonald's Fillet-O-Face courtesy of his scar tissue and Rafael Marquez' punches. Thankfully, it looks like there won't be a best of five in this series.

Some thoughts on the recent happenings in the world of the Sweet Science:

News: Rafael Marquez knocks out Israel Vazquez in the third round of their featherweight clash Saturday after two hellacious cuts render Vazquez unable to see.

Views: This is why, even as a huge fan of both guys, I did not want to see this fight. There’s a reason it took both guys over a year to fight again after they completed their awesome trilogy in 2008. Vazquez, especially, looked very shaky his last time out against Angel Priolo last October; for that matter, Marquez certainly didn’t look like the pound-for-pound world-beater he was when he beat Jose Francisco Mendoza either, and that was a year ago. It was obvious to all but the blind that their three fights together had taken too much out of them, and to expect some kind of war this time around was fool’s gold. When Showtime analyst Antonio Tarver (who is really solidifying his place as the best ex-fighter doing color commentary today) took one look at Vazquez’ left eye and said it looked ready to open up prior to the fight even starting, you knew this one wasn’t going very far. The fight was barely two minutes old when that eye opened up, and Marquez (who was always the more skilled of the two) had more than enough to get Vazquez out of there two rounds later. Add yet another cut on Vazquez’ other eye in the third round from a headbutt, and the valiant Mexican just couldn’t see. The gruesome cut that Vazquez sported after the fight looked like it was done with a machete or something. The outcome was not satisfying at all and was actually a little sad, which is what I was afraid would happen.

News: While there was talk of a fifth fight between the two after the fight (the series is tied at 2-2), Vazquez’ manager, Frank Espinosa, said Israel would likely have to retire instead.

Views: Finally some smart talk from someone who genuinely cares about his fighter. At the very least, Vazquez will need major reconstructive surgery on that right eye just so he won’t look like he spent 20 years in the WWE. Given that prospect, why put him in the ring again? It’s too great a risk. He made a lot of money during his career, and no one is disputing his place as one of the great Mexican warriors in the history of boxing; we’ll remember his three fights with Marquez forever. How excruciating must it have been for his family to watch Vazquez’ face get carved up like a Christmas turkey? Sometimes, enough is enough, and it looks like it’s time for Vazquez to call it a career. There’s nothing more to prove between he and Marquez; they’ve both proved their greatness whether they do another thing in the sport or not.

News: On the undercard, bantamweights Yonnhy Perez and Abner Mares battled to a spirited draw.

Views: Anyone else excited about the 118-pound division these days? We already have Fernando Montiel, Vic Darchinyan, Hozumi Hasegawa and Joseph Agbeko at the top of the division, and now you can add both Perez and Mares to the mix. Yes, Perez did look like he was in trouble at the end of the fight (and the Finito had it 116-112 Mares), but Perez made it a fun scrap to watch and landed quite a few shots of his own. There were several close rounds, so the draw was a pretty good call. Not only is this one begging for a rematch, but you wouldn’t mind seeing either guy in with the names mentioned above instead, either. While each fighter has great skills, both have enough flaws that would make any combination of those matchups fun to watch. The biggest hurdle that Perez and Mares faced was getting a lot of TV time; that really shouldn’t be a problem from here on out.

News: Ruslan Chagaev decisions Kali Meehan to garner the WBA’s mandatory challenger to new titleist David Haye.

Views: So let me get this right: Chagaev gets destroyed by Wladamir Klitschko and loses his title, so now he gets to fight Kali Meehan (who’s ranked #1 by the WBA for some inexplicable reason) and get another shot? You would think that any organization would look at that beat down and decide that Chagaev needed to win a few more fights to get back in the title picture. No, friends this is the WBA! Instead, Chagaev gets to earn another shot by beating a guy who’s best known for losing every significant heavyweight fight he’s ever had. It’s just silly at this point, and it makes me wonder why fighters take these sanctioning bodies and their titles seriously. Yeah, sure the gold looks nice to carry into the ring, but by charging thousands every fight just to keep it, that belt seems just a tad overpriced. No wonder “Money” Mayweather told the WBA (stands for We’re Beyond Asinine, I think) to take a walk rather than pay the sanctioning fee for Shane Mosley’s title.

News: Manny Pacquiao is diagnosed with a mild stomach ulcer Monday.

Views: Between running for Congress in the Philippines and having to negotiate with Floyd Mayweather, I’m surprised the man doesn’t guzzle Tums by the box! Seriously, though, many Pac-Man fans have always worried that he’s spreading himself too thin with all the commitments he has going on. Between politics, fighting, movies, ads, charities and everything else, he makes the Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man In the World” look like a burger flipper at White Castle (heard their burgers will give you ulcers, too). We all want Pacquiao to be thrilling the boxing world for years to come, but he may need to dial it back a bit if he’s going to jeopardize his health. He needs to be a threat to his opponent’s health, not his own.

The Finito Five 5/20/10

It's not known where Amir Khan ate Saturday night, but he sure had plenty of Italian earlier that evening. Khan showed that he was adept at swarming the "Magic Man" with punches as Malignaggi usually is with his opponents.

With even more letters (really, just a few more) than Krzysztof Wlodarczyk - Giacobbe Fragomeni II, it’s the Finito Five!

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1. Amir Khan do it

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All right, no Monday-morning quarterbacking here, you just didn’t see Amir Khan looking this good, did you? Going into Saturday night’s 140-pound clash of British import Khan and the always exciting (if sometimes unpredictable) Paulie Malignaggi, there weren’t a whole lot of boxing fans or scribes predicting the domination that Khan laid on the NYC native. As a matter of fact, as good as Malignaggi looked last time out in avenging his suspect loss to Juan Diaz, there were more than a few who thought that Khan might be in for a rude awakening. Though the only knock on Khan was a possible suspect chin (exposed inside of a round by Breidis Prescott a couple years back) and no one figured that feather-fisted Malignaggi would be able to test it, Khan had never faced anyone of Malignaggi’s considerable skills. At this point, the “Magic Man” might be the division’s ultimate gatekeeper. Beat him, as Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton did, you show yourself to be on the elite level; lose to him, as Edner Cherry, Juan Diaz and Herman Ngoudjo did, you’ve shown you’re not quite there.

If that’s the true litmus test, let it now be said: Khan has arrived. While Malignaggi has lost before, he never was beaten at his own game, which Khan was able to do in spades. He got off before Malignaggi, hit him harder, more often, and sometimes, almost seemingly at will. “King Khan” obviously has been paying attention to his trainer Freddie Roach, because his overall offensive and defensive game is miles above where it was around the Prescott loss. It just goes to show that even the best of talents can improve their ring skills, and it pays off like Lookin’ at Lucky did in the Preakness that same day. Malignaggi, however, looked more like Super Saver, beaten down and beaten up to the point that he was contemplating retirement after the fight. That seems premature; he’s still too entertaining and can beat too many fighters for that. It just looks like Khan might be one of those that will beat a whole mess of really good fighters before he’s done.

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2. Worst choppers ever, Part 2

Last time out at the Finito, it was chronicled just how shockingly (and I mean like the first time you heard Mike Tyson speak shockingly) terrible Mikkel Kessler’s mom’s teeth were. If you study the tape of the Kessler-Carl Froch fight carefully, you can see several startled witnesses covering their children’s eyes at ringside as Mrs. Kessler opened her mouth. As frightening as it was for all of us, none of us were prepared for the sequel, as Amir Khan’s dad, Shah Khan (who’s Amir’s mom, Chaka Khan, then?), flashed a gap-tooth that you could fit an honest-to-God Concord grape into. Seriously, that space was big enough that you could see the man’s actual tonsils through it. And you thought eyes were the window to the soul! What’s the deal with the lack of orthodontistry in the boxing community? Perhaps there should be a doctor at ringside during fights, then an orthodontist in the locker room after the fight to check out the fighter’s relatives. Just an idea.

3. Victor Ortiz returns to “Vicious” form

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Anyone who had a chance to watch “Vicious” Victor Ortiz’ last two fights (a KO over Antonio Diaz and decision against Hector Alatorre) wouldn’t have been wrong in thinking that Ortiz lost his killer instinct when he got knocked out by Marcos Maidana. Certainly, the Diaz fight was against a fighter who’s likely finished, and Allatore was a journeyman that Victor just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on. The thought was that Maidana might have knocked the fight out of the 23-year old, as Ortiz both looked and talked like a guy who didn’t know if he wanted to be a fighter going forward. It was surprising then, that Ortiz roared back to form in beating Nate Campbell from pillar to post over ten rounds to stake his own claim at jr. welterweight. Now Campbell, who is 38, might be as done as Diaz was, but Ortiz acted as if he wanted this one, throwing harder and with more purpose than the aforementioned last two forays into the ring. At his best, Ortiz can be a don’t-go-to-the-fridge type of fighter, but it may always be mental with him, much like Kendall Holt’s Sybil-like ring performances lately. Let’s hope that Victor remains “Vicious” from here on out, because he will be headlining cards and exciting boxing fans for years to come if he can just keep the focus he had against Campbell.

4. The fight that never was, and the rematch that won’t happen

There are two type of no-contest bouts in boxing: those victories that get nullified due to some pre or post-fight shenanigans, and those that are stopped early due to some strange circumstance and never get off the ground. With the first type, at least, there is usually a complete fight to judge whether said shenanigans would have changed the outcome of the bout. The second kind, however, leaves everyone wanting to know what could have happened, and we all too rarely seem to get an answer. For three rounds, the Paul Williams-Kermit Cintron jr. middleweight tussle was anything but, as both fighters didn’t establish much offensively. Then, of course, just as they started to throw some actual punches in round four, a strange tie-up caused Cintron to fall out of the ring an onto a table, injuring himself too severely to continue. Now, because of the stupid California rules that say the fight can go to the scorecards after only three rounds (not the usual four), Williams won, but clearly there was nothing decided here, right? Wrong, as now boxing fans will never get to find out what happened, as the Williams camp is taking the win and splitting. Maybe this was karma for Cintron’s weak draw against Sergio Martinez (and there are some that have said Cintron should have lobbied harder to continue after his fall), but how can Williams and promoter Dan Goosen not even talk about a rematch? Now they’re acting like the “Punisher” had some kind of quality win, and are just moving on to greener pastures. Come on. This fight decided nothing, and boxing fans deserve to see how it would have played out. It’s not like Williams was handing it to Cintron before he took his spill, anyway. Williams struggles enough to garner fans as it is; he doesn’t need to do this kind of cut-and-run job.

5. Bet you know if Sonny Liston was really hit with that punch, too, Teddy

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Teddy Atlas is half the reason boxing fans love ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights so much, with his passion, expertise and experience covering all aspects the fight game. Lately, though, Atlas seems to have taken his predilection for getting into fighters’ heads to a new and inappropriate level. First, two weeks ago, he insinuated that Shane Mosley might have lost so decisively to Floyd Mayweather because it was his first fight off steroids. If that wasn’t speculative enough, he then insinuated a week later that it was possible that Kermit Cintron was looking for a way out when he was carted off on a stretcher after a fall out of the ring against Paul Williams. While both of these scenarios could certainly be true, Atlas, who is no journalist, had absolutely no concrete information to back this up other than his spurious “I’ve been around, and I’ve seen how a lot of fighters act” schtick. While he does have a knack for seeing things in fighters like all trainers do, most of what he said flies in the face of actual logic. Forget that Mosley has actually [I]lost[/I] a handful fights since he would have allegedly been taking PED’s. Forget that Cintron had to have known he had no chance to beat Williams by begging out of the fight when it was stopped. Those are just logical scenarios that get in the way of all the insinuation. Teddy needs to stick to the action in the ring, and leave the journalism to the journalists.

The Finito Q & A – May edition

Even though Sugar Shane had Mayweather reeling in the second round, from that point on it was Floyd who reeled Mosley in like a fish.

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This month’s ten burning questions, from Mayweather’s straight right to Mikkel Kessler’s mother lack of straight teeth:

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Q: Pretty impressive performance by Floyd Mayweather in beating Shane Mosley this weekend. Surprised that he dominated so thoroughly after nearly hitting the deck in the second round?

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A: I wouldn’t say surprised, because most of us figured he may have had this in him, we just never had the opportunity to see it. That probably speaks more to “Pretty Boy’s” talent and career as a whole than anything else. Still, when Mayweather was rocked for the first time anyone can remember (and if you don’t believe he was one more right from tasting canvas, check the video again), he responded like the Hall of Famer he’s going to be. He took Mosley, who is going to Canestota someday himself, apart from that point on, and by the end of the fight Sugar Shane was out of gas and out of answers. Except for perhaps the first Vernon Forrest fight, Mosley’s never been in that position. It was simply an excellent performance against the welterweight champion.

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Q: But what about Mosley being on the downside of his career? Surely this might have been a different fight had it happened eight years ago?

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A: That may be the case, but for once, you can’t hold that against Floyd. He took on the Ring Magazine 147-pound champ, and beat him, simple as that. Besides, no one’s going to know if Mosley is shot until he fights a couple of more times. If he comes back looking like he did against Margarito, then it looks more impressive for Mayweather. If Mosely’s next fight is a shellacking like he took against Miguel Cotto, then we’ll know his best days are behind him. Either way, Mayweather took on a real welterweight, which is what he always needed to do and will have to continue going forward.

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Q: So does this now usher in an era of Mayweather fighting the best in and around welterweight?

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A: Not so fast, my friend. I’m still convinced that Mayweather was damn sure he had Mosley right when and where he wanted him, because that’s how “Money” makes fights. Whether it was the year-plus long layoff, overtraining due to his winter training camp in preparation for the Andre Berto fight that never happened, or simply that he was 38, Mayweather took this fight knowing that he would have some kind of advantage. He could have fought Mosley just about any time in the last decade, and the fact that he took this fight now was a calculated move. Mayweather may talk a lot of nonsensical crap, but as far as business goes, he’s no dummy.

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Q: Will that mean Mayweather won’t fight Manny Pacquiao until he thinks he has Manny at his weakest point?

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A: Yes, something like that. Whether it’s Pacquiao running for elective office in the Phillipines, perhaps doing another movie, or becoming Emperor of Manila, there’s every chance that Pac-Man might have a period of inactivity or suffer in his training due to having so many irons in the fire. Believe me, team Mayweather is watching this. Even if Manny agrees to the Olympic-style drug testing, I don’t think we’ll see the fight with Mayweather actually happen until Floyd sees some kind of flaw in Pacquiao’s armor. It may just be perceived on Mayweather’s part, but it will need to be there before the contracts are signed.

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Q: How about the media coverage surrounding the event? It seems like a lot of mainstream media were actually talking about and covering the fight.

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A: The coverage was welcome, and should make boxing fans feel good to be boxing fans again. While it’s hard for me sometimes to listen to non-boxing people talk about the Sweet Science without cringing, the mainstream media really did a fair and honest job of covering the fight as the event it was. For once, all the talk was about the action in the ring and not about how boxing is dying sport. That was refreshing, and nice to see. Hopefully, this will be a trend that continues.

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Q: Going back ten days or so, looks like your streak continued in the Super Six tournament. What did you see in Kessler that made you think that he’d beat Carl Froch?

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A: Well, put simply, I went with the home team on this one. I figured it would be a close fight, and it was that; the raving Danes (would that be a fantastic name for a punk band or what?) filling a packed house gave him a shot in the arm, I believe. Besides, Kessler has never had two bad fights in a row, and he bounced back from the loss to Joe Calzaghe pretty well. So after Andre Ward dusted him up, you had to figure that Kessler would be ready and desperate, although Froch actually fought much better than he did in his win against Andre Dirrell in the first round of the tournament. Look, one thing that’s becoming apparent is that anyone can beat anyone in the Super Six, there are NO easy nights. Ward had better watch out against Allan Green next month.

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Q: So what was more surprising to watch, Froch’s humble response to his first loss or Kessler’s mom’s awful teeth?

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A: While Froch actually giving credit to Kessler post-fight after sounding like Floyd Mayweather’s understudy for the last year was surprising, Kessler’s mother and her Choppers of Doom have to win this one. Seriously, Mikkel? You’re the biggest athlete in the whole damn country, make millions of dollars (or kroners), and your mom’s mouth looks like the Carlsbad Caverns? Get her some orthodontistry, dude! Man, I bet it wasn’t hard for her to keep the kids in line whenever she flashed those things in anger. Don King’s hair just told me that it relinquishes its title as Freakiest Thing In Boxing for as long as Kessler’s career lasts. Yikes.

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Q: Since Fernando Montiel went to Japan and lifted a bantamweight title from Hozumi Hasagawa with a stunning fourth-round KO, would that qualify as the upset of the year so far?

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A: Maybe not the upset of the year, but perhaps the surprise of the year. If anyone remembers, Montiel hasn’t exactly looked like a world-beater in his last few fights, and Hasagawa hadn’t lost since he was fighting four-rounders. Montiel just crushed Hasagawa with a massive left hook in the fourth round, and the Japanese fighter was absolutely out on his feet (somebody actually saw him on Queer Street having a beer, I hear). Great win for Montiel, but this one is begging for a rematch, because it was a single punch that changed the fight. Given that fighters from North America and the Orient don’t fight much (it was fortunate this fight ever happened in the first place), don’t be surprised if that doesn’t materialize, unfortunately.

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Q: Showtime’s Shobox play-by-play man Nick Charles announced on last Friday’s telecast that his cancer is back, and he’ll have to take another leave of absence from the show. This really isn’t a good sign, is it?

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A: No, cancer the first time or the tenth time never is. He beat it once, so we know he’s a fighter, and I think I speak for the boxing public when I say I hope he does it again. There’s no better ambassador for the sport or sports in general, for that matter. Charles is class all the way, adds a smooth professionalism to any broadcast he’s been a part of and is liked by just about everyone. I can remember him all the way back to the extra-curly haired CNN days; I sure wish we get to see on camera once again with that short-haired chemo look, because that would mean he’s returned from being down once again. Go beat this cancer again, Nick, and hopefully, this thing won’t need a trilogy.