by David P. Greisman
When it was announced that Acelino Freitas and Zahir Raheem would meet for the vacant WBO lightweight trinket, nobody expected a bout on the level of Diego Corrales’ legendary first war with Jose Luis Castillo.
Very few people asked for Freitas and Raheem to repeat Jose Armando Santa Cruz-Edner Cherry or Juan Diaz-Jose Miguel Cotto either, even if those match-ups were the two 2006 fights that, when combined with the Corrales-Castillo soon-to-be trilogy, have helped to make the 135-lb. division one of the most exciting in boxing today.
But with the talent and track records of Freitas and Raheem, their match had the makings of a good fight. If nobody expected a Corrales-Castillo I, they also didn’t foresee a Lilliputian presentation of John Ruiz’ greatest grabs.
Styles make fights, and on paper the slick boxing of Raheem and the boxer-puncher tendencies of Freitas gave the impression of an interesting meshing. Instead of meshing together, though, the fighters tangled for an hour of hard-to-score and even harder to watch action – action being a generous description.
A clash of heads in the opening stanza portended other bad things to come. Freitas rabbit punched and hit on breaks. Raheem consistently ducked down to a level lower than where promoters keep their morals, but in the process of dodging shots he left himself with shoddy balance. Referee Steve Smoger wiped a fallen Raheem’s gloves off so many times that a psychologist could have mistakenly diagnosed the third man in the ring with obsessive-compulsive disorder. And then there was Raheem’s hip toss of Freitas in the sixth, a highly effective if illegal way to escape a clinch.
And clinching counted for a majority of the action. If only it counted on the scorecards, too. With both fighters jumping in seemingly before their punches arrived, there was little in the way of combinations or even single, clean hard shots. For two young lightweights to have similar outputs of landed punches to a 40-year-old Bernard Hopkins is bad enough, but for their offenses to be the product of unintentional inaccuracy (and not frugality) changes their practicing of the sport from sweet science into something awkward and awful.
In the process, Freitas and Raheem squandered the opportunity to lend credibility to a wrongly vacated title belt.
The WBO title was formerly in the possession of Diego Corrales, the rightful lightweight champion who originally lifted that belt from Freitas in 2004. After Corrales-Castillo I, though, Freitas exercised a contractual option forcing a rematch. Corrales wanted to have a second go against Castillo following their May 2005 war, and as such Freitas was able to earn a title shot based solely off of his loss.
Sadly, Freitas’ performance prior to quitting against Corrales was better than the clumsy catastrophe that was his fight with Raheem.
Raheem, on the other hand, capitalized on his outpointing of Erik Morales last year, finally gaining enough recognition for his talent and Olympic pedigree so that he could fight for a title, even one that was now made out of paper.
A good fight would have given some value to an otherwise worthless trinket. It would have set Freitas or Raheem up as contenders for the winner of Corrales-Castillo III, or, if “Chico” and Jose Luis both move up to junior welterweight immediately after, as is expected to happen, it would have allowed the winner of Freitas-Raheem a claim to the lightweight throne until any eventual unification.
But on a night when Boxing After Dark made its return to the airwaves, the quality of the fighting was simply stated in the program’s acronym: it was bad. Freitas did win a close, clumsy fight, but no matter how proudly he wears his WBO trinket back in his home country of Brazil, the title belt will, for now, be merely an awkward and awful accessory.
The 10 Count
1. Speaking of bad: I appeared to have been one of the few scribes that didn’t enjoy Lennox Lewis’ color commentary job during the Judah-Mayweather pay-per-view. And as of this weekend, Lewis has yet to win me over.
Prior to the undercard of Andre Ward-Andy Kolle, play-by-play man Fran Charles mentioned the similarity in Olympic success between Ward and Lewis, both of whom won gold. Charles asked Lewis what to expect of Ward in terms of performance under pressure and expectations, and Lewis responded with a rambling monologue of eight clichés and little substance.
“You know, I think Andre Ward is doing the right thing,” Lewis said. “You have to go out there and basically win every fight. Each fight you have to really learn something, so, you know, he’s doing the right thing. You can’t please everybody every time. In the amateurs, you know you may be the best amateur in the world, but this is professionals [sic]. So you have to empty your cup and learn as much as you can. So that’s what he has to do out there.”
Thanks for clearing that up with your expert commentary, Lennox.
2. Speaking of Lennox Lewis… well, that’s something that Vitali Klitschko never stops doing, even in retirement. It seems that Vitali would make a comeback to boxing if – surprise! – if Lewis returned, too. Now it’s bad enough to call out retired boxers, but it’s even worse to do so when one is also out of the sport. Especially when one would rather come back to face Lewis instead of meeting Hasim Rahman, an active titlist who Klitschko was signed to defend against, only to have that bout delayed multiple times until Vitali finally called it quits.
3. At least Samuel Peter hasn’t contracted the same bug as Vitali Klitschko. In that case, after Peter disposed of seven-footer Julius Long in less than one round last Friday, he would have looked into the camera and called out Primo Carnera.
4. Peter, at 256.5 pounds, weighed 5.5 pounds more than Long, a journeyman with a height advantage of about one foot. At 13.5 pounds more than he weighed in for against Wladimir Klitschko last September, Peter can now at least claim half of the title of heavyweight champion.
5. Buzz went around that Felix Trinidad is pondering another comeback and hoping to face the winner of next week’s Ricardo Mayorga-Oscar De La Hoya pay-per-view main event. In case the news comes true, I’m more curious about which middleweight will be the next to send Tito back into retirement.
6. After nearly being knocked out by a tomato can of a former sparring partner, super middleweight Allan Green is not ready for a rumored challenge of Joe Calzaghe. But, as my father aptly put it, Joe Calzaghe is more than ready for Allan Green. In the meantime, I would love to see Green face Jeff Lacy so we can gauge whether Green’s skills can make up for a chin that is vulnerable to left hooks, Lacy’s weapon of choice.
7. Dear Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis:
Three years ago, Antonio Margarito stopped you in the second round of your last fight in America. After a 32-month layoff, you fought in your home country of Guyana, settling for a technical draw with Kenny Dalton. Recently, you and Dalton fought in a rematch, and although you were winning on all three judges’ scorecards, you quit in the seventh round because you needed to use the restroom.
So, my question is: which would you rather have been known for? Getting knocked out by Margarito and Ricardo Mayorga, and thus having Larry Merchant say that you had six heads but no chins; or being the fighter who crapped out of a boxing match in order to prevent crapping in one?
8. Now that Floyd Mayweather bought out his promotional contract with Top Rank so that he can look to possibly pulling in the big bucks against Oscar De La Hoya, what are the odds that Mayweather and Antonio Margarito will ever meet? If I’m Margarito, I’m setting my sights on the winners of Carlos Baldomir-Arturo Gatti and Luis Collazo-Ricky Hatton, and Zab Judah, too, if he’s still around with his worthless title belt that makes Acelino Freitas’ lightweight trinket seem as valuable as the Mona Lisa.
9. Perhaps Vitali Klitschko’s aforementioned hopes of Lennox Lewis returning aren’t too farfetched. Lewis’ fellow HBO color commentator Raul Marquez made a comeback after nearly two years away, stopping journeyman Miguel Hernandez in a middleweight fight. After a losing effort in 2004 against now-middleweight champ Jermain Taylor, Marquez hung up the gloves in favor of spending more time with the headphones on HBO Latino’s boxing selections. But after HBO canceled Boxeo de Oro, it seemed only natural that Marquez would seek to supplement his bank account. Now, though, that HBO has replaced Boxeo de Oro with Generacion Boxeo – on which Marquez works – how much longer will Marquez feel the hunger for training and fighting when he can stay at ringside and pull in a paycheck without the requisite physical punishment?
10. Luan Krasniqi outpointed heavyweight measuring-stick David Bostice, his first win since an unsuccessful title challenge against then-WBO champ Lamon Brewster. Krasniqi is ranked second by the WBO and could feasibly face one of the four titlists in the near future. Although Krasniqi is a capable challenger who deserves to fact Sergei Liakhovich far more than Kevin McBride (Liakhovich’s rumored next defense) does, I’m hoping for a rematch against Brewster, just so I can see if Lamon can surpass their first fight, when Brewster came from behind to knock Krasniqi out, not once, but twice.
