by David P. Greisman
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com
Joshua Clottey hit Diego Corrales with left hooks that pushed him backward and pulled him into a life-and-death battle. He hit Corrales with right hands that swiveled his head and wobbled his knees. He hit Corrales with uppercuts that snapped his neck and rolled his eyes.
He hit him with reality.
There will be no easy bouts at welterweight for Corrales, not when the opponents are bigger and stronger than before. He will, as always, take punishment in order to give it, but now his opponents’ punches are that much heavier, their chins that much sturdier.
100-87. 98-89. 97-90. The three judges saw Clottey winning in convincing fashion, but nobody needed the official tallies to see that. Not when one could look at Corrales’ face.
His lips, swollen. His jaw, possibly broken. A cut above his right eye sent a river of blood flowing down his face. And as the rounds progressed, one could tell that Corrales was essentially swimming upstream.
Corrales went ten rough rounds. He went to the body. He went to war. He was active and aggressive, but his combinations either bounced off of Clottey’s guard or were shrugged off and answered with violent volleys. Against a lightweight, Corrales would have ended up with his hands raised in the air. Against this welterweight, he instead found himself on the canvas, overpowered and overwhelmed.
Corrales hit the mat in the ninth, floored as much by the combination as by the accumulation of punches that were still hard and still coming. It was the twelfth time in his professional career that he had been sent down, and as always, he got to his feet. But the look on his face was of a man beaten up, a warrior struggling to survive.
Corrales went down again in the tenth, crumpled by a Clottey counter. The referee need not have asked whether Corrales wanted to continue. He’d go out on his shield, even one that had been shattered to pieces by bomb after bomb. The man, himself, could never be broken.
Neither may he ever be champion again.
At welterweight, Corrales is competent and competitive. But the painful reality is that he will neither be superior nor superlative.
Yet Clottey, even in victory, also has a painful reality to face.
Clottey’s December loss to Antonio Margarito could have been his coming-out party at welterweight, but the Ghanaian injured his left hand and Margarito came back and took the decision. Clottey had to wait another four months for the chance to show prospective opponents that he is a force to be reckoned with at 147.
He weighed in at 151.
Corrales tipped the scales at 149, so Clottey had to drop two pounds. But on fight night, Clottey showed up at an unofficial weight of 170 pounds. Clottey claimed after the bout that his jeans raised the reading, but it’s doubtful that his wardrobe caused that much of a malfunction.
It’s a shame that Clottey may have outgrown the welterweight division just as he finally established himself as a legitimate threat to any of the titlists. But even if Clottey can get down to 147, there is a lack of dance partners that bring him upward mobility.
The aforementioned Margarito is scheduled to defend against Paul Williams within the next few months. That card will probably be shared with a match between Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah. Floyd Mayweather has an upcoming fight that you may have heard about with some guy named Oscar De La Hoya. Kermit Cintron’s future is up in the air due to a disagreement with his promoter. And Shane Mosley fights under Golden Boy Promotions, a group that Clottey’s promoter Bob Arum refuses to deal with.
Even with all the punches landed Saturday, it’s reality that always hits the hardest. Diego Corrales is a shooting star who has burned brightly for so long. He will crash eventually, though his impact will be seen and heard. Joshua Clottey is a rising star who is looking to shine for years to come. That time, however, remains on the horizon.
The 10 Count
1. The weekend’s other big fight saw super middleweight king Joe Calzaghe extend his reign to 20 straight successful title defenses with a third-round stoppage of Peter Manfredo Jr.
After a feeling-out first round, Calzaghe began to find his rhythm in the second, jabbing nearly four dozen times while darting in and out of range. His comfort zone established, Calzaghe came out with a frenetic pace in the third, throwing 92 punches over the minute-and-a-half that the stanza lasted.
Many of those shots came in furious flurries with Calzaghe overwhelming Manfredo against the ropes. But while Manfredo did his best to bob and weave and wait for the onslaught to end, he wasn’t mounting any offense, forcing referee Terry O’Connor to halt the bout.
The stoppage – absolutely premature and somewhat controversial – may not have changed the eventual outcome, but it prevented Calzaghe from getting a truly signature victory that would have fully showcased his skills and further cemented the necessity of a clash with fellow 168-pound titan Mikkel Kessler.
Yet perhaps the stoppage actually underscores the overwhelming need for a Calzaghe-Kessler superfight. Calzaghe has held his WBO title for nearly a decade, but he didn’t really receive much respect until last year’s drubbing of Jeff Lacy. His crowning achievement would be a victory over Kessler, a win that would do for Calzaghe what knocking out Felix Trinidad did for Bernard Hopkins.
2. On the undercard of Calzaghe-Manfredo, cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli retained his title with a first-round stoppage of overmatched opponent Bobby Gunn.
Although Maccarinelli is yet to appear on American airwaves, he will continue to benefit by riding the coattails of Calzaghe. Maccarinelli has fought on the same card as his fellow Welshman eight times, an arrangement that allowed the former to shine Saturday in front of approximately 35,000 faithful fans, as well as numerous others who were watching on domestic television.
If Maccarinelli can remain at the top of his game, then he might eventually find himself the rightful successor to Calzaghe’s “Pride of Wales” nickname.
3. Maccarinelli’s easy win only accentuated the dubiousness of Gunn having been ranked fifteenth by the WBO in a weight class otherwise filled with excellent fights and exciting fighters.
Gunn turned pro in 1989, compiling an 11-2 record in and around the junior middleweight division. Gunn was out of the Sweet Science from 1993 to 2004, though the now-notorious story tells of the man competing for years in unsanctioned matches.
But while Gunn’s grit is undeniable, his credentials remain questionable. The win that apparently merited Gunn’s inclusion in the WBO rankings was, well, his March 2006 no contest against Shelby Gross.
Gunn-Gross was a travesty of pugilism from the opening bell. Gunn knocked Gross down early in the first, and the latter spit out his mouthpiece and received a respite. Gunn, however, continued to unleash a one-sided beating that culminated in the stanza’s second knockdown. Gross, however, was given a long, slow count reminiscent of the favorable treatment Luan Krasniqi received against Lamon Brewster.
Gross, on unsteady legs, stayed upright for the round’s remaining seconds. He then was granted another respite as the second round was set to start, as the turnbuckle advertisement in Gross’s corner came off. The rest must have helped, because Gross landed a Hail Mary left hook that shook Gunn. Gross followed up – and followed up some more after flooring Gunn, standing over his fallen foe and raining down punches in his best impression of a mixed martial artist.
The referee threw Gross off of Gunn, and the latter decided that he, too, reserved a mouthpiece break. Another Gross left hook put Gunn down for the second time, leading to the kind of stagger perfected by Zab Judah. Gunn, thoroughly disarmed, hit the mat a third time, his head crashing to the canvas with frightening force. With the round at its end, Gunn wobbled, shuffled and forced the referee to wave the bout off.
It was dramatic. It was bizarre. It didn’t count.
Gross failed a post-fight drug test. Gunn went on to knock out Shannon Landberg, a man who had been kayoed in his previous fight by comebacking 47-year-old Thomas Hearns. That win also put Gunn in the WBC’s top 15.
It could’ve been worse. We could have just as easily seen Maccarinelli-Hearns.
4. Even worse than that? A rematch between Hearns and Virgil Hill.
5. Sticking with the cruiserweights, prospect Matt Godfrey took another step toward becoming a contender with his second-round stoppage victory over Felix Cora Jr.
Godfrey belongs to – and in – what has once again become a stacked division full of fighters who thankfully haven’t migrated north to the larger men and larger purses at heavyweight. But before Godfrey challenges any of the titlists, I’d love to see him in Boxing After Dark- or ShoBox-type match-ups against guys such as Johnathon Banks, BJ Flores and Darnell Wilson.
6. Joe Calzaghe wasn’t the only longtime champion in action this weekend. Lineal flyweight ruler Pongsaklek Wonjongkam fought Friday, retaining his title for the 17th time with a seventh-round stoppage of 10-1 Tomonobu Shimizu.
We never saw Wonjongkam face Jorge Arce. We’ll probably never get Wonjongkam against Vic Darchinyan. Let us, then, not only hope that Wonjongkam will end up in the ring with Japanese upstart superstar Koki Kameda, but that the boxing world will ultimately realize that there is a wider world of boxing oft overlooked by the majority of fans and media.
7. On that note, compliments must go out to the regional MSG Network if, as ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael noted in his weekly chat, the outlet airs, live from Germany, Saturday’s heavyweight title fight between Nicolay Valuev and Ruslan Chagaev.
Valuev-Chagaev may not end up aesthetically pleasing to watch, but this recent showing of foreign fights is a good trend that also brought to us last month’s enjoyable rematch between Jean-Marc Mormeck and O’Neil Bell.
8. Not that there isn’t plenty of boxing to watch in America. This week, after all, brings the season premiere of ESPN2’s Wednesday Night Fights, as well as the first of six tape-delayed bouts from March’s “The Contender Challenge: UK vs. USA.” The first episode of the latter is scheduled for Tuesday night on ESPN and features second-season contestant Walter Wright against British fighter Anthony Small.
9. Dancing with the Stars Update: Week three brought Laila Ali her first humbling experience, with the competition’s judges criticizing Ali and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy for breaking the implicit rules of the tango. The duo’s choreography included an extended split between the dancers, leading the judges to award Ali and Chmerkovskiy a total of 21 points.
The score put Ali and Chmerkovskiy in a tie for sixth place, which, when combined with the audience vote, was nevertheless good enough to keep them alive for at least another week.
10. Caron Butler has a broken hand. Gilbert Arenas tore his lateral meniscus. Even Tough Juice and Agent Zero, it seems, were no match for what Tony Kornheiser once termed the “Curse O’ Les Boulez.”
David P. Greisman may be reached at dgreisman@aol.com
