By Cliff Rold
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com

This was supposed to be the week I picked 2000 U.S. Olympic Silver Medalist Rocky Juarez (27-3, 19 KO) of Houston, Texas to be an upset winner over Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez (47-3, 35 KO, Ring Magazine #2 at 130 lbs., WBC titlist).  With a hand injury to Marquez postponing the now cancelled Saturday card, that pick is going to have to wait until at least December.  It’s a shame if you really know your boxing, because that bout headlined a solid professional card.

What to do then in a week like this?  There are no fights of note, here or abroad.  There is only the anticipation of things to come.  Sometimes, anticipation is a hell of a muse.

For me, anticipation is all about the best fight, on paper and in the ring, of the entire fall lineup: World super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 39 KO, WBO titlist) of Wales versus Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KO, Ring Magazine #1 contender, WBA/WBC titlist) at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on November 3.

That’s 51 days from today assuming you are reading this on Thursday. 

Perhaps you, loyal reader, have another choice for best fight of the fall.  You might prefer the Garden show (as in Madison Square) between former World welterweight champion Shane Mosley (44-4, 37 KO, #3) and current #1 contender of that class Miguel Cotto (30-0, 25 KO, WBA titlist).  It’s a fight worth anticipating after all; a classic battle of young lion versus old.

If style and mainstream appeal are your thing, perhaps you wait with bated breath for World welterweight champ Floyd Mayweather (38-0, 24 KO, WBC titlist) to attempt a second Dancing with the Stars victory in 2007 (his first coming against Oscar de la Hoya in May) with a victory over World jr. welter king Ricky Hatton (43-0, 31 KO) on December 3rd.  That’s a fair choice too; it’s two gifted athletes in their prime and the first battle between those division’s champions since Oscar lifted the welterweight crown from Pernell Whitaker in 1997.

There is also the chance that you’re going with the biggest bout on Super Saturday two weeks from now.  That of course would be the likely war for the World middleweight championship between champion Jermain Taylor (27-0-1, 17 KO, WBC/WBO titlist) and Kelly Pavlik (31-0, 28 KO, #3).  It’s a hell of a fight and one I look forward to slogging up to the God-awfulness of Atlantic City for.

Still, if I had to pick only one, if I had to cancel the whole fall slate and keep only one fight, I go with Calzaghe-Kessler.  It’s that good, that easy to anticipate and likely to be that much more in the ring.  It’s fights like this, like all of the above, that make waiting for the opening bell sometimes as much fun as the space between the bells.

I’ve got a long personal tradition of waiting out loud for the best fights.  When I was a kid, money was tight and we didn’t have extra sitting around for a subscription to Ring or KO.  Making matters worse, there weren’t any stores near my house in Southeast Fresno that sold boxing magazines.  I knew they were out there because the convenience store around the corner from my grandmother’s house in Salinas had them.  I’d buy a bunch of them any time chance allowed, reading and re-reading them until the next visit.

I made do without them the rest of the time by making my own.  I’d bug the school librarians, from elementary through high school, to photocopy the boxing articles in Sports Illustrated for me (back when SI still had regular boxing coverage) and then I’d clip the articles from the newspapers at school, with special care for Jack Fiske’s work in the San Francisco Chronicle and the local Fresno Bee, pasting it all together on white sheets of paper and putting them into a black three ring binder.  I’d read and re-read those tomes as well.

It was how I counted down the days, particularly in 1990 and 1991, as the inevitable, I thought, bout between then World heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson began to develop.  Every quote, every report, every prospective tale of the tape…all in my ‘magazine.’  It was in that binder that I counted the seconds to the opening bell, and in that book that I pasted one day a blurb from the paper with nasty word ‘postponed.’  I had no idea that it would be five years before that story would be completed. 

You might be wondering what all this has to do with the price of lead in China and I can explain. 

If these days were those days, given the family I grew up with and the boxing-crazed neighbors I was lucky to have, I’d be in the school library every day printing reams of paper for that little black binder full of the details of Calzaghe-Kessler.  This is a fight I was writing about and calling for a solid two years ago and as it approaches I find myself in a position I never thought I’d be as a kid: able to collect the words of the writers I respect and able to add a few of my own.

There’s a little vanity of course.  I was one of the first American writers to start pointing the eyes on this side of the Atlantic at Kessler.  There’s also the belief that this fight can easily be overshadowed by the others on the calendar so I trumpet it a little louder.  It deserves equal attention as it is of no less than equal merit.

Of course, I also think it’s better than that.  Here are three reasons why.

1) Less Question Marks: Unlike every other bout on the schedule, there’s less on the table for either to prove about who they are as professionals.  A scan of either man’s record shows utter dominance of the 168 lb. class, through some weak periods and on into this, the strongest collection of talent in the division in almost fifteen years.  Five of the current Ring top ten has fallen to either Calzaghe or Kessler and there are still others who wore the mantle of contender or alphabelt titlist who lost that position at these two men’s fists. 

All the other major fights have significant question marks.  Taylor-Pavlik carries questions about Taylor’s legitimacy and Pavlik’s experience; Cotto-Mosley carries a cloud over Cotto’s chin and potential skepticism about Mosley’s age and wear; some think that Mayweather-Hatton is a one-sided bloodbath in favor of Floyd (that’s dead wrong but more on that another day).  There’s no such negative spin that can be added to the positives for Calzaghe-Kessler.  Both have proven already to be at the top of their game and so the only question is whose game is tops. 

This is for Calzaghe, the elder of the two at 35, his Carlos Monzon-Rodrigo Valdes moment; a chance to add the punctuation mark to a ten-year run atop the division, declaring firmly his right to greatness.  It is for Kessler a chance to place himself at the head of the class not only at 168 lbs. but perhaps for all of boxing’s new crop of stars.  One can’t ask for much more than that.   

2) Less Chance of a Letdown: Given the reasons above, the question becomes one of styles and again this fight trumps all others.  Both men rank among the very best combination punchers in the game and neither has been shy about punching while being punched at.  While Calzaghe can be lured occasionally into bouts full of grappling, the best chance for either man to win here is to use their best game and that will involve punches in bunches.

That each can take a shot is proven and to the viewer’s advantage.  Calzaghe has been down only twice and gotten up both times to win; Kessler has never been down and when buzzed has come back fiercely.  Neither is a one-shot KO artist either, so the likelihood is that the bout goes rounds and lots of them.  Again, it contrasts well against every other bout this fall.  Recent experience highlights that any bout with Jermain Taylor or Floyd Mayweather can become tedious.  It’s almost impossible to envision a tedious Calzaghe-Kessler.  And finally…

3) It’s my Honeymoon: I found the right girl.  When I told my fiancée that this fight was signed she reminded me why she’s the best decision I’ve ever made.  She looked me square in the eye and said, “What a great way to start our honeymoon.”  That was baby making music to my ears.  We’ve got tickets and plans to go pubbing among the European faithful post-fight, which means for the first time in a while I can enjoy a fight almost solely as a fan.  And even if as a fan I’m disappointed, if I’m dead wrong about everything I’ve said about this fight, if it devolves into a bore or ends on a single shot in the first, I’ll still have two things no one can take away from me: great beer and a better girl. 

So it’s 51 days until November 3rd….16 days until Taylor-Pavlik…58 until Mosley-Cotto…86 until Mayweather-Hatton…and no matter which you most look forward to, none of those days can pass fast enough.  I might even have to see if I can dig that old black binder out of storage for old time’s sake.

Cliff’s Notes…

Witter-Harris: I never knew crushing left hooks had a narcotic value until Vivian Harris started making excuses for his loss to Junior Witter.  In case you missed it, Harris is claiming Witter was doped up on the way to his seventh round KO victory last Saturday.  Whatever he was on, they should name it after Witter on the street.  “Hello, I’d like a dime of ‘undisputed number one contender to Ricky Hatton at 140 lbs.’ please”…

Ha: I got a good laugh this week when I read that Ring Magazine World lightweight champion Joel Casamayor was being allowed an optional defense of his ‘interim’ WBC belt at 135 lbs. before a mandated ‘unification’ of the WBC title with ‘regular’ titlist David Diaz.  Fiction is more believable than boxing sometimes…

Contender: This third season of the Contender is the best they’ve done so far through two episodes.  I’ll actually watch the whole season before the semi-finals this time around…

Emma: On a sad note, I end this with condolences to the Lucio family, the afore-mentioned boxing crazed neighbors.  The matriarch of their clan, Emma, passed away last week, succumbing to her battle with cancer.  I spent many an hour in their home watching great Mexican fighters do battle and observing their personification of the American dream.  Immigrants from Mexico, Ed and Emma Lucio raised a family full of successful sons, daughters and grandchildren that carry on today the legacy of hard work and integrity that gave them their world.  She will be missed.   

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