LAS VEGAS, Sept. 13th ? In his first fight at lightweight, former featherweight and 130-pound title holder Juan Manuel Marquez methodically solved the difficult puzzle that is Joel Casamayor and stopped the Cuban boxing master in 11th round to gain recognition as the lightweight champion by The Ring magazine in front of close to 8,000 partisan fans in the MGM Grand?s Garden Arena Saturday night.
The bout started out as chess match between two of the sport?s most experienced and savvy boxers, but turned into a sharp-shooting contest in the middle and late rounds, and ultimately ended with Marquez closing the show in dramatic fashion ? being the first professional fighter to stop Casamayor, a former 130-pound titlist who entered tonight?s bout as the reigning linear lightweight champ.
Casamayor, who had survived the best punches from much bigger lightweights like the late Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, was dropped by a left hook as he pulled away from an intense exchange two minutes into the 11th round. Casamayor got up and immediately tried to smother Marquez by holding, but the Mexico City fighter let his hands go in furious combination, repeatedly stunning the gutsy Cuban who fell into the ropes where Marquez measured him for a perfect right hand that sent him again to the canvas, where referee Tony Weeks waved the bout off at 2:55 of the round.
Marquez, who improved to 49-4-1 (36), is not as strong or powerful as former lightweight champs Corrales and Castillo but he?s a lot smarter and a better technician. He?s good enough to have earned praise from the fiercely proud Casamayor, who dropped to 36-4-1 (22).
?I fought like a real champion but Marquez was the best tonight,? Casamayor said after the fight. ?He knew how to control my counter punches.?
However, it took Marquez until the fifth round to be able to find range with his vaunted right hand. In the first four rounds of the bout, Marquez continually walked into counter lefts form Casamayor.
In many ways, the veterans? skill and experience cancelled out what they normally excel at. Casamayor?s educated jab was not a factor throughout the fight. Marquez, who is one of the best combination punchers in the game, had to settle with landing single shots until very late in the fight.
Marquez is also known as a top counterpuncher, but he was the one who was being countered for much of the fight. Casamayor made Marquez miss more than fans are used to seeing but the Cuban was also nailed with more clean punches than usual.
By the fifth round a cut over his right eye was opened and as the fight wore on an abrasion on the bridge of his nose bled along with the cut eye. Rounds five, six, seven and eight were rounds where Marquez took the initiative and landed straight punches from outside, but he was also nailed by Casamayor whenever he lunged forward.
In the late rounds of the bout, Marquez finally began to find his rhythm, adding his hook and choice body shots to his jab and straight right. The regularity with which the normally elusive Casamayor was being timed and caught clean produced a look of bewilderment and ultimately respect for a fellow boxing master once the fight was over.
?Casamayor has great counter punches,? Marquez said after the fight. ?I figured the fight would be tough to the end, but I was the more intelligent fighter.?
He was also the fighter who took more chances throughout the contest, which was very close on the official scorecards (two had the bout even, 95-95, after 10 rounds, while the third judge had Marquez ahead 97-93). Marquez?s willingness to take the initiative and gamble a little bit paid off in the 11th round and put an exclamation point on a fight that was less than exciting, and only entertaining to purists of the sport.
By knocking out one of the toughest, trickiest and stubborn boxers of the past 15 years, Marquez not only secured his ticket to the boxing hall of fame, but he made himself a more marketable fighter in a very deep and talented 135-pound division.
Luckily for fight fans, Marquez says he?s willing to take on the best.
In the co-featured bout of tonight?s Golden Boy Promotions pay-per-view card, Vernon Forrest regained his WBC 154-pound title with a decisive decision victory over Sergio Mora, the unbeaten winner of the first season of The Contender who shocked him this past July.
After their first encounter, Forrest said he had a bad night after being out-hustled to a majority decision loss that was one of the year?s biggest upsets. In tonight?s rematch Forrest had a better night ? a much better night ? as he was able to find his elusive foe with his jab and time him with hard right crosses, uppercuts and left hooks en route to a one-sided unanimous decision that earned his junior middleweight title back.
?Now you see the difference between a contender and a real world champion,? said Forrest who improved to 41-3 (29) by unanimous scores of 119-108, 118-109, and 117-110. ?My better was better than his better.
?Tonight it was basic Boxing 101; jab, jab, jab.?
Forrest?s educated left stick was a consistent punch throughout the fight. Even when the Atlanta-based veteran missed with his jab he remained in line and on target to fire off hard right hands and body shots, which usually found their mark.
Mora?s constant in-and-out and upper-body movement made it hard for Forrest to land more than one punch at a time, particularly in the early rounds of the bout, but the constant well-timed jab enabled the two-division champ to back the younger man to the ropes where at least his body was easier to find.
The main problem Mora had during the 12 rounds of sporadic action was that whenever he made Forrest miss, he seldom made the 37-year-old vet pay with a follow-up punch. Whenever Mora did let his hands go, his punches appeared to have considerably less impact or effect than Forrest?s shots had on him.
Near the end of the seventh round, a stanza in which Mora was scoring well in spots, the 27-year-old titlist walked into hook-uppercut hybrid that wobbled him into the ropes, where referee Vic Drakulich appropriately picked up a count, counting the fall into the ropes as a technical knockdown.
Throughout the fight Forrest was able to snap Mora?s head back with jabs, looping overhand rights, and hooks that landed in-between thudding body shots. Mora answered back by flaring up with single jabs and left hooks to the body ? and late in the fight the East L.A. native got off with clean right long-rage hands ? but these offensive bursts were too sporadic for the judges to score the rounds in his favor.
It was a frustrating night for Mora, who came in two pounds over the junior middleweight limit at yesterday?s weighin and had to engage in a quick workout to drop from 156 to 154.
?My weight didn?t come out the way it usually does,? said Mora, who lost for the first time, dropping his record to 21-1-1 (5). ?I only had six weeks to train [for this fight] and I usually have 10. It was a short camp and I worked too hard.
?This guy is old, I should have won.?
Junior welterweight prospect Victor Ortiz stalked and methodically chopped Roberto Arrieta, stopping the smaller veteran at 2:25 of the fifth round, winning the NABO?s 140-pound title in the process.
Ortiz, who recently signed with Golden Boy Promotions, patiently chopped up the face and punished the body of the cagey Argentine with accurate compact combinations, but the Kansas-born Oxnard, Californian had to work on cutting off the ring in order to do so.
Arrieta, now 30-14-4 (13), was dropped hard by a straight left at the start of the second round and got on his bicycle for the remainder of the fight, trying his best to circle away from Ortiz?s powerful left.
Unfortunately for Arrieta, Ortiz?s right hand?s got some decent pop, too.
Arrieta was repeatedly hurt by right hooks in the fifth and a right hook-right uppercut combination finally put the journeyman away near the end of the round.
?During the fight he was telling me I was too young and that I would never be a world champion and that he was the champ,? said Ortiz, now 22-1-1 (17), after the fight. ?In that same round I knocked him down and I said ?Now I?m the champ!??
In the first bout of the pay-per-view telecast, San Diego?s Danny Perez scored a minor upset by out-boxing and out-hustling the listless Julio Cesar Garcia over 10 one-sided rounds.
Perez, a late substitute for veteran Yory Boy Campas, who was denied a boxing license by Nevada State Athletic Commission, won the pedestrian-paced bout by scores of 100-90, 99-91, and 97-93.
Perez, a former welterweight title challenger, took almost three years off before coming back to the sport with an eight-round decision victory this past July. The tall and rangy boxer has been in the gym all this year and his hard work paid off when he got the last-minute call to fill in for Campas last week.
From the opening bell, Perez fired a hard, crisp jab that backed Garcia up and put the young (he?s reportedly 21) banger into a defensive shell. Starting with the second round, Perez began to walk Garcia down behind his sharp jab and hard body shots. Perez avoided most of Garcia?s sparse return fire with nice head movement and countered well with his right cross.
As he put rounds in the bank, Perez increased his pressure and opened up with two- and three-punch combinations, doubling his jab before shooting an arrow-straight right hand from the outside and then going to Garcia?s fleshy midsection whenever he was in close or had the younger man?s back to the ropes.
Garcia tried to mount a rally beginning in the seventh round when he uncorked a heavy left hook upside Perez?s head, but the San Diegan shook his head to let the Mexican national know that he could take it as well as he can dish it out. The two traded along the ropes in the late rounds, but Perez got the better of his sluggish foe by throwing and landing more quality.
?I felt really tired,? Garcia, now 41-4 (34), said afterward. ?I had an eight month layoff and my technique just was there, but Danny Perez is a good fighter.?
Perez, who seems re-energized from his layoff, was elated.
?I?ve been training hard,? said Perez, who upped his record to 33-5 (17), ?I knew I would win. I feel blessed, awesome and great.?
