By Cliff Rold
Opportunity knocks and sometimes doors swing wide. Others, they weigh down like heaven tugging to keep the Devil out.
Opportunity knocked for a pair of veterans scheduled to face off this Friday night in Mexico City. They were not good enough to answer.
And yet, there they will be, ring center, at the Vivo Cuervo Salon, ears to the door, waiting for one more rap along oak growing thicker by the waged round, both looking to turn wins in their most recent fights into a winning streak.
Mexico’s 35-year old Cosme Rivera (32-14-2, 23 KO) and Colombia’s 41-year old Antonio Pitalua (52-5, 46 KO) might never get the knock they’re looking for. In the meantime, fight fans get something all too often underappreciated: an honest prizefight between old warhorses with nothing more than pride on the line.
The Welterweight battle will air as the main event on Spanish language network Telemundo at 11:35 PM EST/PST.
Of the two, Rivera’s knocks have been fewer by one but grander in scale. In 2005, after stopping Hercules Kyvelos to earn an IBF mandatory, Rivera got a crack at the undisputed Welterweight Championship of the World then held by Zab Judah.
Judah stopped Rivera in three rounds.
If Rivera’s relevance had ended there, it would have been okay. He got there. He went out on his shield. There is honor in that. However, even in losing six of eleven contests since his title shot, Rivera has arguably done more to etch himself into the minds of fight fans than he did before the Judah defeat.
In consecutive thrillers between 2006 and 2007, Rivera came within a hair of stopping then rising prospects Joel Julio and Andre Berto. He dropped Juilo twice and lost a split decision. He dropped Berto once and, though losing unanimously, showed the first cracks of vulnerability in the protected future WBC titlist. He didn’t have the same luck against rising Jr. Middleweight banger Alfredo Angulo but, as was the case against Judah, he went out on his shield.
It was only the second time he’d failed to finish a fight.
Pitalua has had two title shots in his career. The first lasted the route, a 2000 decision drop against Artur Grigorian at Lightweight for a WBO strap. The last, and probably more recalled, was devastating.
Fans around the world and YouTube viewers everywhere had been wondering when then-rising phenom Edwin Valero (deceased) would face a legitimate foe on U.S. soil. Pitalua, for a vacant WBC belt at 135 lbs., was the answer in April 2009.
There was every reason, before the fight, to think Pitalua had a fair shot. He hadn’t lost in near a decade. He was coming off a stoppage win over the man who should have been lineal World Lightweight Champion, Jose Armando Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz only two fights removed from a Robbery of the Decade candidate against then-Lightweight Champion Joel Casamayor).
Valero blasted Pitalua out in two rounds. It was, and remains, only the second early end for Pitalua, his only other knockout loss suffered the year Jerry Garcia and Warren Burger passed.
Pitalua has fared better than Rivera since his being stopped for a title, losing only once in a dubious decision against Ed Paredes last year. He also posted a Knockout of the Year candidate in 2009 against Jose Reyes.
He’ll give up some natural size, and youth, to Rivera this weekend, youth being relative. The winner will exit with WBC Latino belt, probably to be handsomely paid for in sanctioning fees and rewarded with a rating somewhere. As aging fighters hoping for one more shot, and one more of the checks that go with it, it’s worth it.
And for fans turning the dial on Friday night, it should be as well. Even close to their last professional legs, Rivera and Pitalua are what they have always been at their center. They show up, they fight, and they shake hands at the end of the night.
They are real professionals, knocking for our attention in the twilight of their careers. Who’s getting the door?
The Weekly Ledger
But wait, there’s more…
Berto Cuts By Zaveck: https://www.boxingscene.com/-bloody-good-show-berto-cuts-stops-game-zaveck--43361
Welterweight Landscape Stays Same: https://www.boxingscene.com/-cut-too-short-weekend-review-ratings-update--43415
New Divisional Ratings: https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/view.php?pg=boxing-ratings
Picks of the Week: https://www.boxingscene.com/boxingscenecoms-television-picks-week--43422
Cliff’s Notes… Since Grigorian came up, something about the upcoming Nonito Donaire-Omar Narvaez fight reminds me of Grigorian’s failed attempt at defeating Acelino Freitas late in his career. After feasting on mostly b-talent for years, the talented Grigorian (who holds the general record for consecutive title defenses of a so-called major title at Lightweight) was cashed out. How might history have been different with an opportunity earlier for Grigorian? Let’s hope Narvaez is aiming for glory, and has enough left to truly try for it, rather than just a nice severance check…Big prediction time: If the WBC actually ever orders Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to fight Sergio Martinez, he’ll either vacate his belt or ‘outgrow’ the Middleweight class…Bob Arum says Gary Russell will be another Andre Berto? Whatever. Bob Arum said Tye Fields was going to be good…If Boise State is the only team with a “0” at the end of the NCAA Football season, they will probably deserve a crack at the national title. If they aren’t, schedules will probably dictate they don’t. It’s really that simple. That doesn’t mean they aren’t the best team in the country in a one-off right now and it says here Kellen Moore might just be an NFL QB after all…The C.M. Punk push seems to be dead. No one knows how to kill a good idea these days like the WWE…Only a few days until Vitali Klitschko-Tomasz Adamek. It’s okay to be excited no matter how many Heavyweight fights have disappointed in recent years. Hope for carnage springs eternal...or something like that.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com