I RECEIVED a very insightful reaction to my last column (?Freddie Roach is a seer,? Dec. 9, 2008) where I shared my definition of a mismatch.
Last Rounder Germz Caballo e-mailed his thoughts:
?I believe it is not necessary that the other fighter should be ?painfully inept? to have a mismatch. Sometimes the skills of the other are enough to make the other guy miss and look inept without being ?really? inept.?
Thanks for your e-mail sir. There are really no right or wrong answers when you start defining mismatches and so I?m not going to split hairs over a matter which is essentially subjective.
What qualifies as a mismatch to one person may not seem as one-sided to the person sitting next to you, even though you are watching the same event.
But there?s no contradiction really between your point of view and mine. Both arguments can easily be harmonized, but of course, it all really depends on what qualifies as ?painfully inept.?
In this context, allow me to cite two recent Pacquiao fights that might illustrate my point of view.
The first would be the David Diaz fight. Manny won by TKO in round 9 and he totally outclassed Diaz. But I would be hard-pressed to qualify that bout as a mismatch based on my definition because Diaz was not painfully inept.
He kept on fighting back even after Manny turned his face into a grotesque bloody mask. Manny himself admitted to being buzzed by a few of Diaz?s blows and the latter was still giving it his all up until the time that Manny landed the coup de grace.
Contrast that to the de la Hoya bout where the Oscar that showed up wasn?t even a shadow of the Oscar we have come to know in recent years. He wasn?t even punching back at times, and Manny admitted to having held back on his flurries out of pity for the ?Golden Boy.?
Trapped in a corner, Oscar could only meekly cover up and seemed resigned to his impending fate. He failed to win a single round. To me, his performance epitomized what could be termed as ?painfully inept.?
The bottom line then is that it becomes a question of degree.
A one-sided boxing event can take place when one fighter is superior in skill to the other but the losing fighter still manages to give a good account of himself, nonetheless.
But the mismatch becomes more apparent and pronounced if the losing fighter comes in and does so poorly, which is exactly what we witnessed last Sunday.
FALSE ALARM. A few minutes after Victor Ortiz bashed another hapless opponent in two rounds, I received a text message that Oscar de la Hoya had lost by TKO in round 3 due to cuts.
I debated whether or not to share the info with my friends who were waiting for the main event, so as not to stifle the excitement among the assembled throng.
But I eventually relented and bedlam ensued.
Almost in unison, some of them started texting on their mobile phones furiously, eager to make a quick buck despite the fact that I warned them that the titillating news still had to be verified.
Unfortunately for them, my favorite cellphone service provider did an Oscar that afternoon. The signal disappeared and no calls or text messages could be completed.
Thankfully, a confirmation was made all the way from Las Vegas courtesy of a good friend watching at ringside. A text message from dapper Cebuano businessman Sydney Carcel revealed that the fighters were still making their way to the ring.
The Oscar bettors breathed a sigh of relief, but this respite would prove to be ephemeral as Pacquiao would proceed to carve both Oscar?s face and his name into ring immortality.
LAST ROUND. It?s on Moonyen and Jed Dale who sent hearts aflutter when they exchanged ?I dos.? Welcome to the family Jed. Cheers!
