By Tom Donelson.
A championship fighter goes through many paths. At the beginning of his career, it is like traveling through the expressway as he builds up an impressive resume at record speed as he moves towards a championship shot. By the time his career ends, he is traveling off of dirt roads and looking for whatever table scraps that are left.
Two weeks ago, Arturo Gatti hit the end of the road against Carlos Baldomir. Fighting what was supposed to be weakest of the current Welterweight champions, Gatti got smoked. It wasn't even a close fight as Baldomir simply ignored Gatti's best shots while delivering heavy blow after heavy blow. The dominating defeat should end any future run at a title.
Beginning his career as a junior lightweight, Gatti fought in one division too many. His speed advantage was neutralized by Baldomir's persistence and Gatti's power showed no effect upon the defending champion.
No matter what Gatti hit Baldomir with, nothing affected the Argentine fighter. During the latter part of the fight, Gatti was bleeding with a sore wrist and HBO's Jim Lampley joked, "Gatti has Baldomir where he wants him." There would be no Gatti's miracle that evening as Baldomir nailed Gatti with a picture perfect left hook in the ninth to begin the end.
Like the great warrior he has always been, Gatti got up but the end was near. Larry Merchant concluded, "Gatti's heart did not give out, it was his body."
Too many wars and too many rounds of taking hard punches after hard punches, Gatti no longer had that one final ounce of energy to make one more heroic stand.
Which brings us to Carlos Baldomir. Baldomir lost nine fights over the first five years of his career, but since 1998, no one has defeated the Argentina slugger. Baldomir does not have the most powerful punch, as his 13 knockouts in 43 victories would attest too. Baldomir does not the quickest pair of hands and he rarely moves out of the way of punches. What he does have is steadiness and coolness under pressure along with a granite chin.
Baldomir is one of those fighters who learned their craft over time, as he manages to give himself just enough space to punch. One of the most effective inside puncher in the game, Baldomir wears out opponents with volume punching. This is what he did against Zab Judah and Gatti. As one boxing pundit noticed, Gatti was the favorite by over a 2-1 margin.
Most of us have not seen Baldomir, because much of his work was done overseas. It was as if the Judah fight was just an exception to the rule, but the reality proved different. Baldomir fought around the world and won many battles in his opponents' backyards.
Baldomir is the world Welterweight champion and everyone else are contenders. And after pounding both Arturo Gatti and Jab Zudah, he strengthened his claim upon the title. Would he be the favorite against Antonio Margarito and Floyd Mayweather? No. Bbut a fight against Margarito would be one exciting affair with two of the stronger welterweights slugging it out at close range.
And a Baldomir-Ricky Hatton tiff would be an even more intriguing fight, since both of these guys love to brawl. Baldomir's chin serves him well and gives him a chance to take his opponents late in the fight where his endurance and strength aids his cause.
Fernando Vargas is marching on a similar path to Gatti, but he is not there quite yet. Mosley tore Vargas apart as Vargas appeared to be the older fighter in their battle, regardless of the fact that he is still under 30-years-old. Not yet having reached 30 and only 27 fights behind him, Vargas looked like a fighter who fought triple the amount of bouts on his record. Having survived many wars and injuries, Vargas is closer to the end of his career, but he still has options.
Vargas next step is to move up into the Middleweight division, and his career there will be short lived. He has already defeated the WBA Middleweight champion Javier Castillejo once and he certainly could be competitive with many of the top ten fighters in the division. Plus, Vargas is still a draw but with his style and eroding skills, it is hard to predict how much more he has left.
The Middleweight level is a deep division with bigger and stronger fighters than the type of fighters Vargas has tangled with in the junior Middleweights. Vargas still has a couple of big paydays left but beyond that, the future becomes murky.
