Not The Fight of the Year We Expected: Review, Ratings
By Cliff Rold
Going into last weekend, the anticipation for a potential “Fight of the Year” was palpable amongst fight fans.
They got one hell of a candidate.
It was not the one most were expecting.
Lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (52-5, 38 KO) was expected to, and did, defeat leading contender Michael Katsidis (27-3, 22 KO) on Saturday night. The difference in class, as measured by refinement and skill, was too heavily in Marquez’s favor. Where the men were equals was in pride, in determination, and Katsidis had the power edge. Mix it all together and it was the latest classic from both men.
Marquez is Marquez. Any fistic follower worth their spit bucket knows what he is, has been, and will be (a first ballot Hall of Famer with a bullet). Here a nod is given to the defeated.
Katsidis burst into fistic consciousness in 2007 with a sensational brawl against Graham Earl, followed it with an epic against Czar Amonsot, and then came up just short against the great Joel Casamayor in yet another classic battle.
In an era of belt saturation that exceeded comedy and crossed into farce long ago, Katsidis falls short for daring to challenge the real World champions at Lightweight. He is what every challenger should aspire to be in terms of effort and daring in his time. Katsidis is also the rare occasion to hope he picks up one of those other belts just to say he did.
Let’s go to the report cards for the Lightweight thriller and the best of the rest.
Grades
Pre-Fight: Speed – Hozumi Hasegawa A; Juan Carlos Burgos B-/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Power – Hasegawa B+; Burgos B+/Post: B; B+
Pre-Fight: Defense – Hasegawa B; Burgos C/Post: B+; C
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Hasegawa B+; Burgos B/Post: A for Both
Pre-Fight: Speed – Marquez B; Katsidis B/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Power – Marquez B+; Katsidis A/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Defense – Marquez B+; Katsidis D+/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Marquez A; Katsidis B+/Post: A for Both
Pre-Fight: Speed – Carl Froch B; Arthur Abraham B/Post: B+; B-
Pre-Fight: Power – Froch B+; Abraham A+/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Defense – Froch B-; Abraham B+/Post: A; D
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Froch A; Abraham B/Post: A; C-
Pre-Fight: Speed – Andre Ward A; Sakio Bika B/Post: A; B+
Pre-Fight: Power – Ward B; Bika B+/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Defense – Ward A; Bika C/Post: B for Both
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Ward A; Bika B/Post: B+ for Both
Marquez-Katsidis exceeded expectations. The fight between Froch (27-1, 20 KO) and Abraham (31-2, 25 KO) fell far short of them…at least as far as being a Fight of the Year hopeful. Froch, singularly, exceeded all expectations between the strands. One of two fights picked (really) wrong in last week’s report cards (and, seriously, Litzau over Caballero? Who saw that coming?); as far as wrong picks go, it was one of the more memorable to view.
Knockouts may move the turnstiles but seeing a genuine knockout artist completely defused is always a premiere occasion. It had never happened to Abraham like it did Saturday, not even in his previous disqualification loss to Andre Dirrell. In that fight, Abraham was coming on hard, scored an uncalled knockdown in the tenth, and had his man on the run. Froch was something else. He fought mostly flat-footed, stuck his jab, used subtle head movement to make Abraham miss, and then beat him up. Abraham had no plan B. He didn’t even have a plan A-.
Froch, who regained the WBC belt he lost to Mikkel Kessler in April, will move on to the “Super Six” Super Middleweight semi-finals to face former Ring Light Heavyweight champion Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KO). Abraham will move on to face WBA titlist Andre Ward (23-0, 13 KO). All indications are Abraham will go through with the fight.
If the Super Six has taught anything, it is don’t count on the next fight coming off. It’s also taught not to take any outcome for granted. Abraham-Ward may not have the luster it once might have, but it’s a match unique to itself and anything can happen. Abraham has not lost the bricks in his gloves. He simply needs to find a way to land them.
Ward showed against Bika (28-5-2, 19 KO) how hard he is willing to work to make that happen. It was a fight that saw grappling, elbows, butts, shoulders, and forearms employed, not to mention some nasty left hooks, from both men. It was the latest reason to ask if Ward is a dirty fighter.
The answer is yes, but he’s the good kind of dirty fighter. Ward employs the full range of the subtly possible in the ring. Is he the heir to Bernard Hopkins in this sense? We’ll all find out over time. Ward doesn’t have the pop Hopkins had early in his career but his overall game, the ability to game plan and improvise on a per opponent basis, is excellent. If he gets by Abraham, whether he is facing Froch or Johnson in the final, it will be fascinating to see what happens when Ward meets someone on his level willing to get in the trenches with him when he resorts to the rough stuff.
Bika was a good gauge to say the rough stuff doesn’t faze him and the Cameroonian deserves kudos. There might be those who didn’t like the Ward-Bika fight and that’s understandable. Those who liked it know why they did: that was a fight. Pure and simple. It wasn’t pretty but those two guys were working their butts off in the ring at high speeds. It wasn’t the beauty of Marquez-Katsidis; it wasn’t that caliber affair at all. What Ward-Bika offered was a grind and neither man wilted under it.
The other really notable fight of the weekend, going into it anyways (cause, y’know, Litzau-Caballero is pretty notable), was the rebound of the former Bantamweight leader Hasegawa (29-3, 12 KO) from his knockout loss to Fernando Montiel earlier this year. Jumping up two weight classes to win a WBC Featherweight belt, Hasegawa was able to showcase a skill set that makes him still one of the 15-20 best fighters in the world while also answering question about the affects of the Montiel loss.
The answers were good. In some heated exchanges in round four, and with a thudding left in the seventh, Burgos (25-1, 18 KO) was able to test the chin of Hasegawa. The Japanese southpaw took the shots in the former well and got himself together after notably being rocked in the latter; impressively, he returned to boxing more that he has in recent fights and used great head and upper body movement to limit the volume of those sort of big shots.
Both men had eyes swelling and Burgos gets big credit for enduring a bevy of blows late. The Mexican looked like he might wilt but he did not. Hasegawa won’t have the weight advantage at Featherweight he had at Bantam and the power surge he experienced isn’t likely to follow him up the scale. His speed has and, outside Yuriorkis Gamboa, Hasegawa may be the second fastest Featherweight in the world. He can add a lot to the division. Let’s hope the world sees more of this fantastic fighter before his time is done.
Report Card Picks 2010: 35-14
Ratings Impact
Starting at Lightweight, the Katsidis loss sees him drop slightly in the ratings. It’s no slight. There are simply other contenders who now deserve their chance to face the real champion at Lightweight. One division lower, Jason Litzau gets a nice bump for the upset of Caballero while Caballero slips a bit at Featherweight.
Let’s face it. The big names wanted little to do with Caballero before. Now they have an “L” to back their play. That loss might as well make him unrated. It was a terrible night to have a terrible night. Hasegawa slides in low in the Featherweight ratings.
At Super Middleweight, Ward stays in the top slot while Froch bumps up to #2. That’s past undefeated IBF titlist Lucian Bute and the man who defeated Froch one fight ago, Kessler. Why the bump? Froch has fought, in succession, Jean Pascal, Jermain Taylor, Dirrell, Kessler, and now Abraham. Dirrell and Kessler were very close, for and against Froch, but that’s to be expected when facing tough outs consecutively. 4-1 with that group is highly impressive, among the most impressive runs of quality competition in all of boxing at the moment.
Neither Ward nor Bute can claim as strong a run yet in their careers. Ward maintains his edge because he beat Kessler in so one-sided a fashion. Bute may yet prove to be the division’s most talented man, but for now his lack of a true marquee win like Ward has, or a string of rugged competition like Froch, means the three spot.
These moves and more are reflected in the latest ratings update.
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