By Troy Ondrizek
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com
I can hardly contain my jubilation for the upcoming spring fight season. I know jubilation isn’t a manly term normally used in the context of boxing, but I am down right giddy over the spectacular match-ups in the next few months. Seriously, think about it for a bit, this Saturday we will have a possible fight-of-the-year candidate when Tomasz Adamek and Chad Dawson square off for the WBC light heavyweight title. Then we have “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Ricky Hatton basher Luis Collazo pitted against one another on February 10th.
Then less than a month later on March 3rd we have a super-fight that has me salivating like a St. Bernard when two Mexican icons literally do battle when Israel Vazquez puts his WBC super bantamweight title on the line against longtime IBF bantamweight title holder Rafael Marquez. During that same night on the Miguel Cotto-Oktay Urkal undercard, Edison Miranda will try to tag ESPN alum Allan Green with his first career loss.
Two weeks after Rafael Marquez fights Vazquez, Rafael’s older brother (Juan Manuel Marquez) will take on another Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera for Barrera’s WBC super featherweight crown. Less than two months after the mega-fight between Barrera and Marquez, the long awaited clash between last decade’s Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya and this decade’s Pretty Boy, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will go off on May 5th to celebrate a little Cinco de Mayo.
Four weeks later the welterweight division will have its second big fight of the year and possibly a unification match between WBO champ Antonio Margarito and WBA titlist Miguel Cotto. And to round out this season’s epic fight regimen will be Ricky Hatton and Jose Luis Castillo battling it out for the Ring’s light welterweight title; the date isn’t set as of yet.
Adamek stole the show on the undercard of Valuev/Barrett in his brawl with Paul Briggs and Dawson broke out with his amazing performance over the very respectable Eric Harding back in June. Adamek has a great straight right and works exquisitely off of his superior jab, but Dawson is as fast as they come at light heavyweight and is a very tall, strong, southpaw.
There is no doubt that the heart and desire of Tomasz is imbedded deep inside of him. Adamek rose from the canvas in the first against Briggs to basically stand in front and trade with the big Aussie. The skills to fire off shots and move before his opponent can counter and how to cover up is well within the Pole’s arsenal, but Adamek loves to fight period, and is willing to stay in the kitchen no matter how hot it gets.
As for Dawson, well he started his career as a middleweight and has fluctuated in weight until he has found a home here at light heavyweight. Dawson assuredly has the size to fight at this weight class (6’3”) and he seems to have the punch, but does he have the chin? Harding floored Dawson in the first and Harding only has 7 KO’s in 28 career bouts, a paltry 25%. However, I believe it was just a flash knockdown and Dawson fought back with a vengeance and a desire to win.
I see Chad Dawson as a fast version of Kelly Pavlik and Dawson as the clear underdog in this one, but the kid has loads of talent as does Adamek and Adamek is there to be hit, so this is a true baptism by fire for Dawson and a chance to truly shine for Adamek. I am not going to predict any of these fights, but I will definitely be enjoying this fight from ringside and can’t wait to see who comes out victorious with their undefeated record intact.
Fans wanted to see Shane Mosley in with a more notable opponent then Luis Collazo, but don’t at any time underestimate Collazo and his toughness. Like I previously stated earlier, Collazo battered Ricky Hatton in their May bout for Collazo’s WBA welterweight trinket, but Hatton walked away with a very debatable victory. Collazo is now trying to capitalize on his new found credibility by taking on a rejuvenated Shane Mosley.
Mosley made Fernando Vargas look like Quasimodo from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame in their first encounter last February. Then in the July rematch Mosley looked stellar and dropped Vargas with a devastating left hook that Vargas truly couldn’t recover from. Vargas though seemed a bit sluggish and maybe his back injury had finally caught up with him. Those are the words of Mosley’s critics, which there seems to be few, Mosley looked like he had fully returned in those two Vargas bouts and there are few who give Collazo more than a puncher’s chance.
This fight is a “springboard” bout; either Mosley will use an impressive victory to get a mega-fight with De La Hoya (again) or Mayweather or whomever the fans want to see him in against. On the other side, Collazo could use this victory to really electrify his career and prove that he was better than Hatton and set up maybe a unification with Mayweather or the winner of Cotto/Margarito. Regardless of the outcome of this fight, both men have to prove themselves to the public in this one, and the fans will most likely be the winners in the end.
What do you get when a Colombian mauler meets up with an exciting prospect from the boxing hotbed of Oklahoma? Well you get the scary Edison Miranda up against the supremely confident Allan Green. Green came to fame when he stopped hot prospect Jaidon Codrington in alarming fashion back in 2005 on Showtime. That KO has been played over and over again and it must haunt Codrington wherever he goes, but it’s not Codrington that is in this fight.
Ever since that highlight reel stoppage, Green has been ESPN’s poster-boy on Friday Night Fights for the 2006 season. Green has shown several weaknesses, but he has power, especially that vaunted left hook of his, and he has all the skills expected of a champion, and that includes size (6’2”) and he has been fighting at a weight class one to the north of middleweight. To be honest Green very much reminds me of Jason Litzau and if Green isn’t extremely cautious and most importantly focused against Edison Miranda, Green too will lose his perfect record along with is consciousness.
As for Miranda, well this kid frightens me.
Miranda went over to Germany and garnered his first loss, but Arthur Abraham (Miranda’s conqueror) will never forget Miranda, even years into his pugilistic dementia. There is more fat on a supermodel than there is on Miranda and that man is more cut-up than Schwarzenegger was back in the early 80’s. Now Miranda isn’t as tall as Green and technically is naturally smaller, though you will probably not find a human alive who weighs 160lbs that can punch harder than Miranda.
Now Miranda’s boxing skills are crude and he just basically relies on that right hand, but as Teddy Atlas would say “Miranda has the ultimate eraser”. This fight isn’t for a title or really anything besides pride and recognition and quite frankly I respect both fighters for being willing to face such dangerous opposition.
Stereotypes are everywhere in today’s society and they are definitely prevalent in the realm of boxing. However, one of the positive connotations is that Mexican fighters fight with immense courage and heart. Both Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez embody the Mexican warrior. Vazquez has had moments of vulnerability. In his last bout against Johnny Gonzalez Vazquez looked horrible and it seemed that the smaller Gonzalez was going to stop Vazquez, but the grit and determination showed by “El Magnifico” proved to be the difference in a hotly disputed bout. Vazquez went on to stop Gonzalez in the 10th and that has set up this super-fight with Marquez. Marquez is theoretically the smaller man, but he carries a bigger punch then Gonzalez does and is a solid combination puncher.
For several years Marquez has had trouble making the 118lb limit and moving up to super bantamweight is the natural progression and at 31 its time for Marquez to be fighting the elite at his weight range. Now Silence Mabuza had moments of success against Marquez, but ultimately Mabuza’s face was shredded and his dignity blasted away as Marquez issued him out in nine. This fight should be the top fight of the night, but March 3rd is a busy date with Miranda/Green and Cotto/Urkal on as well, but unlike the other two fights, a whole country will be tuning in to see which one of their sons will raise up in excellence.
Just two weeks after the younger Marquez attempts to showcase his skills, the elder Marquez (Juan Manuel) will have a career defining struggle with future hall-of-famer Marco Antonio Barrera. Many wanted to see Barrera in against Pacquiao, but with all of Pac-man’s legal issues, Barrera is taking the next best fight. I actually love this fight from a technical aspect, Barrera let all of us see in his last fight with Rocky Juarez that he can deliver a boxing lesson just as easy as he can batter an opponent around. The stereotype of being a Mexican warrior actually came back to haunt Barrera after that bout because many critics lambasted him for boxing and not brawling.
As for Marquez, he has been known as a tactician for his entire career and in his most high-profile fight to date he picked apart a raw Manny Pacquiao after being knocked down several times to receive a draw; many thought Marquez did enough to win the fight though. However, it was in Marquez’ last fight with Jimrex Jaca that he showed a bit of the warrior-class fighter inside of him. With blood streaming down his face from a horrific cut above his right eye, Marquez ignored Laurence Cole’s dubious advice to stop fighting because he was winning and Marquez viciously took out Jaca in the ninth round.
Now we see two fighters, who quite possibly are heading in the opposite direction career-wise, but the winner gets the unenviable task of facing Manny Pacquiao again, but I guarantee you that neither man is afraid of that fight.
The biggest fight in years is set to go off like fireworks on Cinco de Mayo. When today’s pound for pound champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. and this generation’s cash-cow Oscar De la Hoya fight on the 5th, everyone in the world will be watching. It took three hours for them to sell the MGM hotel out. The fight probably won’t live up to the hype, but the significance of it isn’t measurable by the punches thrown, but is palpable by the tension it creates between fans of both fighters and by boxing scribes around the globe. Many questions remain for both men.
Will Mayweather be able to handle the naturally bigger De La Hoya? Is Oscar really back to old form with his knockout of Mayorga? Can Mayweather dance around the “Golden Boy” for the entire fight even though De la Hoya is skilled enough to keep up and has some pop in his fist? Can De La Hoya make one last stand against an elite fighter and prove to all his presumptive greatness? We won’t know the answers until roughly three months from now, but the anticipation is building and I can only hope the fight lives up to expectations.
Antonio Margarito has been living off of the reputation of being the most “ducked” fighter at the 147lb level for some time now. Bob Arum and Margarito have made numerous statements on how Floyd Mayweather Jr. wouldn’t fight him at any cost, and the fans have bought into that, and truthfully most agree that Mayweather fights only hand-picked opponents, but that is an argument for another time. Now many are proclaiming that Margarito is the one who is “ducking” his mandatory Paul Williams. Ha, I mean seriously, I like Paul Williams and find the kid exciting to watch in the ring, but a fight with Miguel Cotto means so much more to boxing, the division, and to Margarito in terms of profile, importance, and money.
Miguel Cotto is a much more dangerous of an opponent than Paul Williams and this fight has slugfest written all over it. Imagine what a squared up Margarito is going to land on the somewhat shaky chin of Cotto’s. Or how about Cotto landing some debilitating body shots on Margo’s long torso or his powerful combinations to Margarito’s head (because Margarito isn’t hard to hit), the same combinations that left Paul Malignaggi and Carlos Quintana disfigured.
All of this is contingent on Cotto getting by mandatory Oktay Urkal, but I imagine Urkal won’t recognize his face after he meets Cotto either. Margarito is most likely going to be stripped of his WBO belt for not fighting Williams, but seriously who cares, Mayweather is the true champ at this weight-class anyways and trinkets can be bought and sold in antique stores.
The date isn’t set yet for Hatton/Castillo, but Dan Rafael is reporting it will be either June 2nd or June 23rd. At moments Ricky Hatton looked like a dynamo against Juan Urango, and at moments he looked sloppy and vulnerable, especially from the bodyshots. Jose Luis Castillo looked even worse on the undercard in a fight where I had Herman Ngoudjo winning 115-113. Now I know there were some close rounds and I have no issues with the verdict rendered, but Castillo didn’t seem to get up for that fight.
As for his fight with Hatton, expect to see a completely different Castillo. I can picture left hooks to Hatton’s body coming from every angle imaginable and to see Castillo put on a blistering attack early to Hatton’s body to take away the legs and pace of the English fireball. I can also envision a slick boxing attack from Hatton mixed with some good ol’ fashioned dirty tactics and vicious body to head combinations as well. I don’t really see this fight going the distance, but I don’t care if it does, I simply can’t wait to see this fight.
There are definitely more fights out there that peak my interest and I’m sure there are some that you would be more interested in, but these eight fights are undeniably attractive match-ups from top tier competitors. Not all of these fights are for meaningless titles; some are just for bragging rights and to earn respect from the fans. As history shows not all of these fights will be classics, but all have the potential to be and if a fight fan can’t get excited over these bouts, then you need to go see an endocrinologist to fix your adrenal gland.