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By Cliff Rold - The fight comes first.
We know that much.
But there’s something else that might be at play this weekend.
The third bout, this Saturday on Showtime (9:30 PM EST/PST) between World Jr. Featherweight champion Israel Vasquez (42-4, 31 KO) and former champion Rafael Marquez (37-4, 33 KO) could be the least of their three and still be worth every second, every drop, of emotion invested into it. Just thinking about how many fewer people have seen their first two bouts, will see this rubber match, and what that means to their bank accounts in contrast to what is commanded by something like last Saturday’s Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov Heavyweight bout is depressing.
What is also depressing is what this fight might mean in the big eyes of history. Never wanting to avoid a cliché, this could be the end of an era.
Eras of course are hard to define. Time never stands still and thus is never easily divisible. The reigns of individual fighters are often referred to as eras (the Louis era, the Ali era, the Robinson era). They are also though the broader canvas of a remarkable career. Put another way, would it really have been an ‘era’ without the central cog?
Jr. Featherweight, 122 lbs. if you will, is different. The title this week provides two dates; those dates represent two fights; and those two fights represent a bookend that can very well be defined as an era. If we look backwards, fondly, to 02/03/1996, it lives up to one definition of an era. It was “a date or an event forming the beginning of a distinctive period.” It was the day that Mexico’s Marco Antonio Barrera truly exploded on the boxing consciousness with an off the floor, twelfth round stoppage of former U.S. Olympian Kennedy McKinney.
Between that fight and this Saturday, 122 lbs. has experienced an era that stands tall alongside any in history. It has produced fighters, and fights, that will stand the test of time. In a short piece for this site a few weeks ago (CLICK HERE), I wrote about the new crop emerging behind Vasquez-Marquez III. They’re a good group of young fighters but they don’t look like what preceded them.
It’s been that good.
That’s why it is so deserving of both a nod of appreciation and a bow of recognition for the chapter that appears to be closing.
Here are the ingredients that earned such reverence. [details]
We know that much.
But there’s something else that might be at play this weekend.
The third bout, this Saturday on Showtime (9:30 PM EST/PST) between World Jr. Featherweight champion Israel Vasquez (42-4, 31 KO) and former champion Rafael Marquez (37-4, 33 KO) could be the least of their three and still be worth every second, every drop, of emotion invested into it. Just thinking about how many fewer people have seen their first two bouts, will see this rubber match, and what that means to their bank accounts in contrast to what is commanded by something like last Saturday’s Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov Heavyweight bout is depressing.
What is also depressing is what this fight might mean in the big eyes of history. Never wanting to avoid a cliché, this could be the end of an era.
Eras of course are hard to define. Time never stands still and thus is never easily divisible. The reigns of individual fighters are often referred to as eras (the Louis era, the Ali era, the Robinson era). They are also though the broader canvas of a remarkable career. Put another way, would it really have been an ‘era’ without the central cog?
Jr. Featherweight, 122 lbs. if you will, is different. The title this week provides two dates; those dates represent two fights; and those two fights represent a bookend that can very well be defined as an era. If we look backwards, fondly, to 02/03/1996, it lives up to one definition of an era. It was “a date or an event forming the beginning of a distinctive period.” It was the day that Mexico’s Marco Antonio Barrera truly exploded on the boxing consciousness with an off the floor, twelfth round stoppage of former U.S. Olympian Kennedy McKinney.
Between that fight and this Saturday, 122 lbs. has experienced an era that stands tall alongside any in history. It has produced fighters, and fights, that will stand the test of time. In a short piece for this site a few weeks ago (CLICK HERE), I wrote about the new crop emerging behind Vasquez-Marquez III. They’re a good group of young fighters but they don’t look like what preceded them.
It’s been that good.
That’s why it is so deserving of both a nod of appreciation and a bow of recognition for the chapter that appears to be closing.
Here are the ingredients that earned such reverence. [details]
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