Lightweight Lightning

April 4, 2009

Frank Erwin Center; Austin, TX

Golden Boy Pay-Per-View

This is the third Pay-Per-View event that I’ve attended, following Miguel Cotto vs. Zab Judah (Madison Square Garden, 6/9/2007) and David Diaz vs. Manny Pacquiao (Mandalay Bay, 6/28/2008).

I have to talk about the Erwin Center first. That place is huge; it’s really tall on the inside, taller than the Garden if not as wide, certainly bigger than the Mandalay Bay. It’s cool from a visual setting—not a bad seat in the house—but if you get vertigo like I do then it becomes fucking insane.

Of course, I should also get to the other reason there wasn’t a bad seat…very little human obstruction. I don’t suppose Oscar De La Hoya had a hand in the promotion because, quite frankly, they really fucked up. I mean, I know Austin isn’t a boxing town, but they really could have gotten more people to show up. The Erwin Center wasn’t even 50% full by the time the Jesus Chavez fight started; ushers were actually moving people to empty seats nearer to the ring! Knowing how these corporate assholes work, they’ll likely use it as an excuse not to hold another boxing event here.

Anyway, on to the card…

Malik Bazille (Los Angeles, CA; Pro Debut; 153 ¾ lbs.) vs.

Juan DeLeon (Grand Prairie, TX; 0-1; 153 ½ lbs.)

4 Rounds – Super Welterweights

Referee: Gregorio Alvarez

This is your standard card-opener. A lot of the time, they get an amateur of reasonable hype to open a card in his debut. They’ll often match him up against a guy who, more often than not, hasn’t won a fight. And the hot amateur star will dazzle and impress the few people that got there early, winning all four rounds.

Thankfully, that doesn’t happen here. Bazille couldn’t keep DeLeon off of him after the first round, and DeLeon’s pressure attack earned him a majority decision and his first win.

Scores: Perry Hillin – 38-38; Jennie Cardenas & Rocky Burke – 39-37.

You know, I mentioned that I had an unobstructed view. Well, there was actually a boom camera in the way some of the time. How unprofessional! They normally have those cameras positioned near the fighters’ entrance, not near the audience. But I guess the news isn’t all bad: “El Mas Macho” Lupe Contreras is doing the ring announcing. Excellent!

Jermell Charlo (Houston, TX; 6-0 (3); 148 ¾ lbs.) vs.

Carlos Garcia (Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico; 3-2-1 (3); 147 ½ lbs.)

6 Rounds – Super Welterweights

Referee: Jon Schorle

Aw fuck, a guest announcer! Some guy that won a radio contest (the only little bit of promotion for the event, no doubt) gets to do ring announcing for one fight. Not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s a good thing this wasn’t televised. Seriously, how fucking hard is it to pronounce the word “caracter”? Joe Tessitore managed to screw that up, too. How the hell do you get “crocter” out of “caracter”?! Maybe I should mention Crocs being a corporate sponsor. Useless fact.

Charlo does as expected here; he boxes as Garcia mostly chases him. Six rounds of this. Charlo wins a unanimous decision. I was actually expecting the guy to call it a split decision.

Scores: Perry Hillin – 60-54; Levi Martinez & Rocky Burke – 59-55.

I always manage to end up at cards where nearly every fight goes the distance. Fortunately, the fights are good enough where it doesn’t matter. But one or two knockouts on an 8-10 fight card?! Come on; give a guy a break!

Ricky Lopez (Denver, CO; 2-0 (2); 123 ¾ lbs.)vs.

Felipe Ramirez (Houston, TX; 0-2; 124 ¾ lbs.)

4 Rounds – Super Bantamweights

Referee: Ruben Carrion

Well, we get our first knockdown of the night as Lopez gets decked seconds into the first round! This was a nice little back-and-forth kind of fight, and I was cheering for Ramirez, since it really is nice to see a guy get his first win after losing to start his career. As it was, a draw wouldn’t have been out of the question, but Lopez did fight hard enough to eke out a split decision. An actual one, too…

Scores: Chet Robbins – 39-36 for Ramirez; Jennie Cardenas & Anthony Townsend – 38-37 for Lopez.

Ricardo Castillo (Empalme, Mexico; 36-7 (25); 126 ¾ lbs.) vs.

Andres Ledesma (Miami, FL; 15-12-1 (10); 126 ¼ lbs.)

8 Rounds – Super Bantamweights

Referee: Gregorio Alvarez

Ricardo, of course, is the younger brother of former World Lightweight Champion Jose Luis Castillo. Ricardo does well early, keeping Ledesma cornered and on the ropes. But near the end of the first round, an exchange initiated by Castillo ends with Ledesma scoring the knockdown! Castillo fights back, but is clearly shell-shocked throughout the rest of the fight, with Ledesma fighting harder with each passing round.

Somehow, they manage to give this one to Castillo. Wow, my first ever bad score live.

Scores: Jennie Cardenas & Chet Robbins – 76-75; Levi Martinez – 78-73.

Really, Mr. Martinez, 78-73 for Castillo? It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but this kind of thing is what I *politely* call, “Creative Scoring”. Of course, informally I call it something else.

And why was this fight so low on the card? I would have put it as the last preliminary fight before the Pay-Per-View. But I would have also had the Jesus Chavez vs. Michael Katsidis fight as the main event; because, you know, Chavez is from Austin. But that’s marketing strategy, and Golden Boy managed to fuck that up long ago.

Keith Thurman (Clearwater, FL; 8-0 (8); 147 ¾ lbs.) vs.

Francisco Garcia (Mexicali, Mexico; 5-2 (4); 150 lbs.)

6 Rounds – Super Welterweights

Referee: Ruben Carrion

Well here’s something a little different. The fight ends in 2:15 when an accidental head clash draws enough blood out of Garcia that the fight is stopped. Frankly, I don’t think it should have been stopped. Even watching it on the screen, I couldn’t see that much blood, and certainly not enough to stop it in the first frigging round! But anyway, since this occurred before four rounds were completed, the result is a No Contest.

For some reason, Contreras called it a No Decision. Now these usually occur when a decision is announced, but then something happens after the fact that affects the outcome. For example, James Toney’s decision over John Ruiz was changed to a No Decision after they found drugs in his system. A rare misstep by Contreras, but it was actually the fault of the Texas Athletic Commission. Well, what do you expect with people who only watch (college) football?

Adrien Broner (Cincinnati, OH; 7-0 (5); 132 ¼ lbs.) vs.

Angel Rodriguez (Houston, TX; 3-2-1; 132 lbs.)

6 Rounds – Lightweights

Referee: Jon Schorle

This is your last preliminary bout and first Lightweight bout of the evening. It’s also the first knockout of the evening as Broner dominates Rodriguez, scoring a third round knockdown before stopping him at 0:23 in the fourth round; a little late in this observer’s opinion.

And now, the Pay-Per-View portion of the card begins. I should mention that this event is being sponsored by Tecate, Southwest Airlines, Pizza Hut, H-E-B, some local bank that I forgot, and Hooters. You can’t forget Hooters, especially with Contreras plugging the damn place all night, and somehow it just didn’t seem right.

The top contenders from Texas are announced at ringside: Lightweight contender Juan Diaz and Featherweight contender Rocky Juarez from Houston, and Super Welterweight contender James Kirkland from Austin. Juarez is a true badass, and Diaz is about as tough, but doesn’t seem to like the sight of his own blood. But I don’t like Kirkland. First off, he’s trained by that foul-mouthed butch Ann Wolfe. Secondly, I just don’t dig those stories about fighters that came up hard in life and are angry. It is the most annoying cliché in sports in general, and boxing in particular. I love seeing these posers get exposed by real boxers!

Your commentators for the evening are Golden Boy executive and former two division World Champion Bernard Hopkins, Barry Tompkins of Fox Sports, and Doug Fischer of maxboxing.com, whom I’ve nicknamed “Blax Kellerman” because he reminds me of Max Kellerman. These things write themselves.

Julio Diaz (Coachella, CA; 36-4 (26); 136 ½ lbs.) vs.

Rolando Reyes (Oxnard, CA; 30-4-2 (19); 135 ½ lbs.)

10 Rounds – Lightweights

Referee: Gregorio Alvarez

Judges: Rocky Burke, Perry Hillin, Anthony Townsend

Diaz is a former IBF Lightweight titlist and Reyes—who steps in for the injured former World Champion Joel Cassamayor—is a former IBA Lightweight titlist. Like the other two non-title fights on this card, this is a crossroads kind of fight and they both start out carefully. This fight really brings out the assholes in the audience. And this is what happens when you don’t promote the event to the boxing fans, you only get the casual fans that boo any lull in the action and would probably rather watch soccer.

For the real boxing fans among these fools, this is an intriguing chess match. However, both fighters look kinda cold, since it took them too goddamn long to start the fight, and neither fighter gets the upper hand for the first three rounds, although Reyes looks to be in control of the few exchanges.

Then in the fourth, Reyes lands a right-left combination that sends Daiz down. At this point Diaz looks unable to continue, but the ref lets it go and Reyes scores another knockdown. Diaz probably could have risen had there been a count and may have survived the round by holding, but it is indeed stopped without a count at 2:17.

This could best be described as a minor upset. Diaz, for the time being, may have to join his brother Antonio on Telemundo cards in order to rebuild. Reyes, on the other hand, likely becomes the top contender to the WBC Title.

Carlos Hernandez (San Antonio, TX; 43-7-1 (24); 135 ½ lbs.) vs.

Vicente Escobedo (Woodland, CA; 19-1 (12); 134 ¼ lbs.)

10 Rounds – Lightweights

Referee: Ruben Carrion

Escobedo is the substitute for Jorge Barrios, who has been pretty much unreliable of late as far as being able to fight. The substitution, however, does not diminish the quality of this particular fight! There’s a certain kind of fight that I like; the kind with blood, two-way action and knockdowns. This was one of those fights.

Famoso started it in his usual exciting style, going right for Escobedo. But Escobedo managed to box well enough to keep Hernandez off, and scored the first knockdown toward the end of the round. The second round featured more of the same, with the same result. Hernandez looked like he was ready to go, and was cut, but he fought back and survived the round.

Rounds 3-5 featured the two-way action that I like in these fights. Carlos Hernandez has never been in a bad fight, no matter who it was against, and this was no exception. Round 6 featured what looked like a knockdown of Escobedo, but replays later revealed it to be an unintentional trip. It was kinda disappointing, really.

The final four rounds weren’t as close, since Escobedo managed to outbox Hernandez, who was reduced to landing the occasional power shot. These four rounds likely determined the fight, as Escobedo won a hard-fought unanimous decision.

Scores: Perry Hillin – 96-91; Levi Martinez – 94-93; Chet Robbins – 95-91.

It was sad to see Carlos Hernandez lose. He seems to be a genuinely good guy who came into boxing the hard way, yet fought his way to top contention. Along the way, he won the IBF Super Featherweight title. But it would be his biggest win; Hernandez usually comes really close in other big fights, but ends up on the wrong end of close fights because of that ‘Creative Scoring’ I mentioned earlier. I’m not sure if he really wants to continue fighting, but I hope he does, at least one more time. It would be great to see him win another belt and be able to go out on that.

Jesus Chavez (Austin, TX; 44-4 (30); 136 lbs.) vs.

Michael Katsidis (Toowoomba, Australia; 24-2 (20); 135 lbs.)

10 Rounds – Lightweights

Referee: Jon Schorle

Judges: Rocky Burke, Jennie Cardenas, Levi Martinez

This is your unofficial main event of the evening. Chavez, of course, is the local hero and former two-time world titlist. Katsidis is coming off two losses to top Lightweights; then-World Champion Joel Cassamayor and former titlist Juan Diaz. It’s not known if he can handle the top Lightweights. Chavez isn’t really a top Lightweight at this point in his career, but he’s a big enough name that it seems Katsidis will get tested reasonably.

It’s another Pier Six brawl, for the first few rounds anyway. Chavez shows off some boxing skill, moving and jabbing while Katsidis tries to find his rhythm. Once it happens, however, Chavez becomes a sitting, bleeding target. Chavez, of course, gives as good as he gets, and Katsidis happens to be a bleeder. Plenty of blood!

Chavez began to tire in the second half of the fight. The blood was coming down enough that the doctor began looking at the cut after round 6. Katsidis worked on the cut well enough…which is not to say that he didn’t have help. Katsidis is one of those fighters we can do without; the kind that use their head as a third fist! And after a particularly nasty clash at the end of the seventh round, Chavez decided not to continue.

For many in the arena, the night was over. But inactivity was bound to catch up to Jesus Chavez. Katsidis was ahead on all cards by the end of the fight.

Scores: 70-64, 69-64, 68-65, respectively.

With Jesus Chavez apparently considering retirement, it’s not likely that big time boxing will return to Austin. Many of the people that showed up left after that fight. Chavez, however, will likely remain a local hero, which is a good thing. It’s either him or James Kirkland, and I’ve explained why that whole prospect sucks.

MAIN EVENT

Edwin Valero (Bolero Alto, Venezuela; 24-0 (24); 134 ½ lbs.) vs.

Antonio Pitalua (Monteria, Colombia; 46-3 (40); 135 lbs.)

12 Rounds – Vacant WBC Lightweight Title

Referee: Laurence Cole

Judges: Don Griffin, Juergen Langos, Gale Van Hoy

I’m not gonna mince words…Edwin Valero is a straight up badass. 24 wins, 24 knockouts, 19 in the fucking first round! I don’t care who you fight, the numbers don’t lie. Edwin Valero will be the man to knock out Manny Pacquiao. You read it here.

Antonio Pitalua is one of those Colombian KO artists who’s records you have to be suspect of; a lot of knockouts, but against barely competitive opposition. But a few of them manage to surprise every once in a while. Will this be one of those times?

Nope.

After a cautious first round, which saw Valero utilizing boxing technique taught by Roberto Alcazar, Valero landed a vicious—and lightning fast—right on Pitalua, sending him down. For some reason, Pitalua got up. He was met with a flurry of mostly missing punches and sent down again. Pitalua beat the count again, but was cornered and hit with another flurry; this time, the punches landed! Laurence Cole—who got a massive heel reaction due to fucking up the Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Jimrex Jaca fight in 2006—stopped it at that point.

Edwin Valero is YOUR new WBC Lightweight World Titlist!

What? No house mic? Lazy Idiots! Next time, make HBO or Showtime produce your Pay-Per-Views, Golden Boy!

Final Analysis

Getting to see a live boxing event in my new hometown was a great experience, aside from a couple of the results and the bad promotion/production. The best part about it, of course, was that I didn’t have to stay in some cramped hotel room (NYC) with a poorly functioning toilet (Las Vegas), and that I didn’t have to fly/bus home!

The crowd was not as interested as I would have liked, which spoiled the environment somewhat. Fortunately, that didn’t take away from the quality of the fights, which were all great, making this the best card I’ve been to as far as fight quality goes.

I also like the arena; it’s really tall, and even though that vertigo thing can get to you, the best remedy for that is to not get up as much if you don’t have to.

I really hope promoters are willing to overlook Golden Boy’s mistakes and realize that there are fans here; you just have to market to them. I guess if another card does come to Austin, it’ll be a Top Rank card. The bad part about that, however, is that the card will not likely take place at the Frank Erwin Center.

Thank you for reading.