Now that the Scorpions are the WBC's “honorary ambassadors for peace”, maybe we can finally figure out if all the band members collectively weigh as much as James Toney did for his MMA fight last month.This pressing questions in the fight game, from Mora’s running to the Scorpions’ rocking:
Q: After all the negative press the fight has received, was Sergio Mora-Shane Mosley really that bad?
A: It depends on how you look at it. In terms of the fight itself, it was pretty terrible until about round ten when Mora finally decided he actually wanted to make a determined effort to win. The last three rounds did have some good action back and forth, so it wasn’t as bad as Manny Paquiao-Joshua Clottey, for instance. In that fight, Clottey didn’t show up for any round at all, and ran constantly just to make it to round twelve. With Mora, his feinting and clinching style was a definite game plan, he just had no offense to go with it. But all in all, it was a lot of Mosley trying to make the fight and Mora trying not to, so it was pretty hard on the eyes.
Q: If it was so one-sided, how did it end up a draw?
A: Because the judges (well, at least two of them) were absolutely awful. I have not yet seen anyone score this fight towards Mora more than 116-112 Mosley except for Kermit Bayless (115-113 Mora) and Lou Moret (114-114), and unfortunately, their scores counted. I had the fight scored 118-110, and there were only two other rounds I thought were close enough to possibly give to Mora. Other than that, there was no way you could give Mora any more than five rounds (4, 7 & 10-12), because he was not competitive in the others. This was not a fight with a lot of close rounds; Mosley clearly did enough to win and got shafted. HBO’s Jim Lampley called the decision atrocious, and he was right.
Q: With all that said, what does this mean for each fighter’s career at this point?
A: For Mosley, everyone will probably consider this fight a victory, if not on the scorecards. Sugar Shane clearly isn’t what he was ten years ago, but he still has world-class skills and a willingness to get in there and fight. For Mora, the thing he now has in common with Clottey is that he won’t see a big stage ever again. You would think with millions at stake if he had won the fight, the “Latin Snake” would have fought like his life depended on it; instead, he fought like his afternoon nap depended on it. Not only did he show up three pounds heavy at the weigh-in, he used none of his natural size and reach advantages to press the action during the bout. I’m not even sure he even threw a meaningful body shot until the second half of the fight. In the post-fight interview, Mora said he respected Mosley too much. Respect for your opponent should never get in the way of being a professional, and now Mora will have plenty of time to think about that on those Solo Boxeo and Friday Night Fights cards to which he’ll now be banished.
Q: Does this fight take any luster off of Floyd Mayweather’s victory over Shane?
A: It shouldn’t. Like I said before, Mosley has seen his best days, but he still fights at the top level and is a Hall-Of-Famer. The fight with Mora was one of those bad stylistic matchups, so you can’t kill Mosley too much for it; besides, Mosley did his best to bring the action and did win for all intents and purposes. Until someone dominates Mosley like that again, you have to consider Mayweather’s victory a significant one.
Q: Speaking of Mayweather, do you think he’s going to fight again now that three felony counts have been brought against him?
A: Apparently you didn’t read last week’s Finito Five. Floyd is not going to be mentioned here unless it’s for some actual in-ring action. Until that happens, I couldn’t care less if he ends up in jail or not.
Q: OK, then back to the PPV. Maybe the main event was terrible, but didn’t the undercard fights (all KO’s) take away some of the stench?
A: Yes! For all the bad the feature fight gave boxing fans, the three fights before it were absolutely thrilling. You’d have thought the French Revolution was in full swing the way the heads were rolling. Daniel Ponce De Leon showed that he’s becoming a real boxer in addition to his awesome power by wiping out fellow featherweight Antonio Escalante in three rounds (back to FNF with Mora, Antonio!). “Vicious” Victor Ortiz won the battle of the “Vicious” nickname by knocking down Vivian Harris four times on the way to a third-round knockout. Ortiz really looks like he’s getting some of that swagger back he lost against Marcos Maidana. And as for 154-pound Mexican redhead Saul Alvarez smoking iron-chinned Carlos Baldomir in round six, what more needs to be said? Baldomir is long in the tooth, sure, but he hasn’t hit the deck in more than ten years, and has certainly never taken a ten-count. With the buzz generated by those fights, fans were chanting Alvarez’ name while Mora was doing all his running during the main event. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.
Q: The Top Rank Live card this last Saturday had two fights with world title implications, but the Jorge Arce-Lorenzo Parra jr. feather clash was only in round three by the supposed end of the show at midnight. Many a DVR owner must have been frustrated. What happened?
A: First off, it’s a live sporting event, so DVR users, get used to extending your recording times an hour (or start it an hour early if it happens to be on ESPN!). Secondly, this was just par for the course with Top Rank Live these days. While boxing fans are eternally grateful to Bob Arum for putting these shows on, the production often resembles cable-access programming. If you look at any ESPN or Telefutura show, there are absolutely no more than 22 scheduled rounds of boxing for any given show. Why? Because the fights themselves (barring knockouts, of course) take about 90 minutes, leaving 30 minutes for ring introductions, fight analysis, ads, et cetera. The card Saturday, between Omar Chavez and Humberto Soto’s fights before the main event, totaled a ridiculous 30 scheduled rounds, which would run at exactly two hours for just in-ring fight time. If Chavez hadn’t ended his fight in round four, the show would have lasted almost three hours. Not very good planning by the Top Rank folks.
Q: So the Arce-Parra fight was a draw then wasn’t a draw afterwards, so what did fans miss?
A: What was missed was a complete mishandling of scorecards, which again is indicative of just how messy some of the Top Rank Live shows are. It was bad enough that rounds three and ten didn’t come back from commercial break until a minute into their respective rounds; but when the fight was over, and seemingly in a rush to end the show, an obviously confused ring announcer Lupe’ Contreras just said the fight was a draw and the show ended. No scores, no explanation, nothing. After the fight was over, officials at the fight said the scorecards were added up incorrectly and Arce was the winner. A day or so later, the Culiacan Boxing & Wrestling Commission said the original draw would stand for now, and there’s to be a hearing. So in other words, no one knows who won right now. And given that Arce dominated the fight from pillar to post, I’m not really sure how there can be that much confusion with the result.
Q: Cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli got knocked out once again against Alexander Frenkel this last weekend. Why is he still being allowed to fight?
A: He shouldn’t be, at least not for a while. The British Boxing Board Of Control really needs to get on this before something really bad happens to Maccarinelli. Frenkel absolutely crushed him with a left that eventually ended up with doctors giving the Welshman oxygen on the canvas. This is the fourth time in eight fights that he’s been brutally knocked out, so much so it should give his team (Joe Calzaghe’s father, also named Enzo, is his trainer) some pause about putting him back in there. It’s one thing to have a run of getting stopped in fights, but it’s another when those knockouts end with you sleeping on the canvas. The only reason he’s allowed back in the ring every time speaks to how celebrated Maccarinelli was for years in Britian prior to his facing David Haye. Perhaps Maccarinelli should find another line of work before he starts sounding like Tommy Hearns or worse.
Q: Did you see the WBC gave rock band the Scorpions an honorary championship belt? The Scorpions?
A: Yes, I did see that. As if the WBC doesn’t do enough strange things already with their belts and rankings, now apparently Klaus Meine and friends are “honorary WBC ambassadors for peace”, which garners some sort of belt. What in the world the Scorps have to do with boxing (yes, I know they have played at Klitschko fights in the past) or what the WBC has to do with world unity seems is comparable to what Oscar De La Hoya has to do with Antarctic exploration. I suppose, though, when you have four champions in one division and have been known to rank dead fighters, giving rock bands their own belts is not such a stretch. I just hope this doesn't mean that if I ever need to replace my "Love At First Sting" CD, there isn't an extra sanctioning fee that goes along with it!
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