Bad Break For Fernando Montiel, If Not Bantamweight
By Cliff Rold
Remove the Klitschko’s from the Heavyweight division with some sort of injury and the class would mostly go from struggling for relevancy to ‘wake me when they get back.’ The same goes for the suddenly shallow Welterweights; take away Manny Pacquiao (and the occasional) guest appearance from Floyd Mayweather) and…
…zzzzzzzz…
Are they back yet?
Reporting from BoxingScene’s Jhonny Gonzalez on Monday confirmed that WBC/WBO Bantamweight titleholder Fernando Montiel (43-2-2, 33 KO) fractured a leg in a motorcycle accident. Montiel wrote on his personal twitter page that he fractured his tibia in the accident.
Let’s skip discussion of the wisdom in riding a hog during the year of the ‘Are you kidding me? Another postponement/cancellation/failure to launch/all of the above.” For Montiel, a career year is cut short before he could seize the opportunity to pick up a fourth straight knockout win in 2010. With one of those knockouts coming against Hozumi Hasegawa to unify belts, Montiel was in the running for “Fighter of the Year.”
He still might be.
This won’t help his chances.
Montiel will rehab the leg and hopefully stick to public transit for a minute. 118 lbs. will be forced to handle the loss of its leader, Montiel earning the nod as the best in class until proven otherwise. Unlike what happens to a Heavyweight or Welterweight when their best are removed, Bantamweight will roll on without the Mexican champion.
It’s the difference between a genuinely good division and a narrow, superstar driven field. Being honest, Bantamweight doesn’t move the meter outside fight fan circles either except for in regions where the Bantamweight champion is a big man on campus. That’s okay. For the first time in a while, Bantamweight is moving the meters it can.
To much publicity, Showtime’s mini-tournament featuring IBF titlist Yohnny Perez (20-0-1, 14 KO), World Jr. Bantamweight champion Vic Darchinyan (35-2-1, 27 KO), former IBF titlist Joseph Agbeko (27-2, 22 KO), and 2004 Mexican Olympian Abner Mares (20-0-1, 13 KO), kicks off in December. It’s a high point for the winter close of the boxing year.
If it all looks a little familiar, well, then the look is being taken with a fight fan’s eyes. These four men have already been engaged in a bit of a round robin. Darchinyan lost a decision to Agbeko; Agbeko lost his belt to Perez; and Perez and Mares battled on even terms. All of these bouts have taken place in the last year and a little less than half, the least of them being Agbeko-Darchinyan.
And that one wasn’t so bad.
December 11th’s four-way will kick off with Perez-Agebeko II and Darchinyan-Mares. If that’s all Bantamweight had, just those two fights, it would be enough of an example of why Bantamweight can live without Montiel for a while.
It’s not all.
One week before the Showtime four, talented former Flyweight titlist Nonito Donaire (24-1, 16 KO) faces his best opponent since Moruti Mthalane in 2008. He’ll face former WBA Bantamweight titlist Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2-2, 7 KO) who, while showing age at 34, still has only officially lost to the man that took his strap, Anselmo Moreno.
The officially is thrown in because Agbeko had a strong case for victory in a decision loss to Agbeko a few years ago. Regardless, Donaire-Sidorenko…yeah, that’s pretty good.
A leg fracture isn’t the end of the world. It’s easy to guess Montiel already knows that as he sits with his leg in a doctor-dictated elevated position. When he’s back up, and ready to get in the ring, he’ll find what was there when he went down.
The best division in boxing.
And it won’t miss a beat.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
