Usually, when lots of fights are scheduled on weekends, The Cruelest Sport posts ?Aftermath,? a column with a rundown of all the action. Unfortunately, the fights aired last night were so dreadful that TCS gave up watching after the woeful Kayode-Iannuzzi polka. So, this will be a ?10 & Counting? instead.
Schadenfreude is a difficult temptation to avoid when writing about boxing, but when Sergio Mora lost a decision to elemental clubfighter Bryan Vera at the Convention Center in Forth Worth, Texas, it was hard not to feel good. At one point, Mora, another of the seemingly endless parade of spoilers whom people take seriously or misidentify as ?slick,? stopped to jaw?mid-fight?with Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore at ringside. If all it takes to win a fight is arrogance, then Mora would be undefeated forever. While ?The Latin Snake? preened in the ring, Vera punched him in the face as often as his wildly inaccurate fists would allow him to. Mora made a late run, digging to the body and winning the last two rounds with ease, but he could not overcome his own hauteur and lost by split decision. Vera, 18-5, and absurdly described as a ?veteran? by Tessitore, may not have much skill, but he has the right amount of humility to do what needs to be done in the ring in order to make things tough for his more gifted opponents.
As for Mora, now 22-2-2, this is all you really need to know about his future prospects: He had to fight in the backyard of the B side opponent last night. Still, the smug look never left his face.
*****
Unfortunately, Mora was so woeful in losing to Vera, that it makes Shane Mosley, who struggled to a draw with Mora last year, look like a man who should not even be allowed to watch Manny Pacquiao from ringside, much less than face him between the ropes. Oh, how quickly the ?pound-for-pound? best, like Mosley, thus anointed as recently as eight months ago by the knowing blogoscenti, fall!
*****
On the undercard of the Vera-Mora ?slugfest,? lauded Charles Hatley and Chris Chatman fought to a majority draw over a ragged eight. Chatman is another one of these fighters who is described as a switch-hitter, but who can barely fight in either stance. He did well to survive a first-round knockdown and even returned the favor in the eighth, flooring Hatley with a wild left. Again, one fighter was all business?Chatman?and the other thought all he had to do was pose like a runway model.
Chatman, 9-1-1, squares up, advances with his chin in the air, moves his feet before throwing a punch, and has poor balance, but he showed heart, determination, and a TCB attitude. Hatley, 14-0-1, has fast hands and a quick counter right, but seemed more interested in being Charles Hatley than in actually fighting to win. It is astounding to see some people declare this a good action fight. In the late 1980s you could see better scraps on the streets of Times Square or the Lower East Side.
*****
On ShoBox, Lateef Kayode scored an unpopular 10-round decision over Nick Iannuzzi in a fight so bad it hardly matters who won. Only a handful of clean punches landed throughout the bout, one where, incredibly, two bogus cruiserweight titles were at stake. Kayode, now 16-0, is another tinfoil prospect. Lumbering, one-dimensional, and clearly not MENSA material, Kayode is also an example of one of the worst boxing trends to come around over the last few years: the showboating fighter who cannot fight.
In the early rounds, Koyode thought he was cute by playing Chief Thunder Feet, tapping out some silly rhythm on the canvas with his shoes. Other than his dance routine, however, Kayode moves like one of the creatures from Day of the Triffids. Meanwhile, Iannuzzi, 16-2, stuck to his game plan?borne out of a lack of talent?to keep away from his opponent and to flick out clumsy shots whenever it seemed safe to do so. He was winded after four rounds and let Koyode take the play away late. Not content with being left out of Bizarro World, referee Raul Caiz Jr. deducted a point from Iannuzzi after the fight was over for landing a late punch. That last flurry?the one where Ianuzzi was docked?was almost comical in its ineptitude.
*****
It takes no small amount of courage to step into the ring, and, as has been repeated here nearly ad nauseum, all fighters deserve respect, but when a certain class of boxer is held up as a prospect or when fights are nationally televised and receive the usual drooling attention from the boxing ?media,? correctives are in order. Those who cheer the glut of second-rate boxing on television like to pretend they are ?aficionados,? but they are actually closer to what Don King would call ?afoxidandos.?
*****
Speaking of televised boxing, Empire Sports recently signed a deal with Fox Sports to air monthly cards that might even make So-Low Boxeo look good. Is that even possible? Anyway, the first bout will air on February 24 and features MMA reject and indecipherable buffoon James Toney against Kansas rotisserie circuit pug Damon Reed.
How bad is Damon Reed? Well, Reed once lost to a New York stiff named Richie Melito. There was a certain odor surrounding many Melito fights, and when similar fishy scents began to waft before his scheduled bout with Bert Cooper in 1997, the New York State Athletic Commission visited Cooper in his dressing room and gave him a little pep talk. Cooper, who was mart enough to know indictment is worse than incitement, flipped the script and demolished Melito in less than two minutes. Robert Mittleman, who was involved with Melito, was found guilty of fixing fights and was given a light sentence for his misdeeds?house detention, a fine, and a few years on probation.
Toney, 42 and fat, has only one thing going for him these days: a big mouth. In some ways of course a big mouth is all you need to get ahead in boxing. Everybody welcome Empire Sports to the wonderful world of televised boxing!
*****
Golden Boy Promotions and Solo Boxeo continue their wretched, wretched ways. God knows what an opponent with only 10 fights was doing in the main event of a televised show, as was the case when Michael Perez stopped 6-3-1 Marcos Herrera, but Telefutura will be airing another woeful main event next week when Peter Quillin takes on human flotsam and jetsam Dennis Sharpe. Sharpe has not won a fight in over seven years and has not stepped into the ring in nearly four years. If you wonder why one guy from Brooklyn and one guy from New Jersey are fighting in Fairfield, California, it might have something to do with how corrupt, incompetent, and amoral a particular state commission is. California gets high marks for all the aforementioned.
*****
No sooner did Devon Alexander bow out of his dud with Tim Bradley than talk began about Amir Khan and Bradley mixing it up. But there are a few financial stumbling blocks?the kind boxing specializes in?that might be in the way of the next great SUPERFIGHT.
Bradley was paid roughly $1.25 million to fight Alexander. Khan reportedly has a $1-1.25 million guaranteed minimum from Golden Boy Promotions. Bradley, despite the fact that more people eat their own hair in America than watch his fights, thinks he is ?top dog? in the junior welterweight division. Khan, by virtue of his win over Marcos Maidana, also thinks he is A-list material (and when you are paid like a star, that kind of logic makes sense, one supposes) and has recently earned a reputation as a skinflint. Both fighters will be promotional free agents come May. In addition, Khan has never been a big pay-per-view draw in the U.K. and with his major fights now airing in America, it will be harder for him to shift PPV units at home when his fights are broadcast in the dead of night. With HBO getting Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley together only by offering them a deal that makes some CEO severance packages look weak by comparison, this fight might be harder to make than imagined.
