The way Juan Manuel Marquez overcame Juan Diaz amid all kinds of adversity Saturday in their lightweight showdown has to make that the best candidate in sight for fight of the year.
Ricky Hatton has never been in a fight as good as Marquez-Diaz, and that includes his ugly signature win over Kostya Tszyu in 2005. He?ll be grabbing and gouging Manny Pacquiao on May 2 in a manner, or lack thereof, that will preclude that fight?s rising to the aesthetic levels of Marquez-Diaz.
Marquez, 10 years older, in only his second lightweight bout and looking less sturdy than Diaz, was behind after seven rounds, bleeding from left hooks sustained after Diaz would back Marquez into the corner. Not to mention that Marquez was bucking Diaz?s hometown crowd of 14,500 in Houston. Yet Marquez won. Diaz was sensational, raising his stock in this fight despite suffering the knockout loss in the ninth. That?s how special Marquez had to be.
Fight of the year or not, that lightweight showdown was undeniably your Welterweight Champion?s fight of the month choice for an otherwise-disappointing February.
Like January?s best fight, Shane Mosley?s upset of Antonio Margarito, the winning bout aired on HBO World Championship Boxing. Although regular readers must have noticed the way your Welterweight Champion unabashedly favors HBO, others have been critical of HBO?s boxing programming in recent months, citing several lackluster events last fall including Mosley?s hammering of the odious Ricardo Mayorga. Saturday?s card, including Indonesian Chris John?s featherweight draw with Rocky Juarez, had to satisfy even those critics.
With HBO?s Boxing After Dark coming here to San Jose this weekend for Robert Guerrero?s fight with unbeaten Indonesian Daud Yordan, and two other bouts showcasing junior middleweight James Kirkland and junior welterweight Victor Ortiz, my bias toward HBO only intensifies. In fact, with my press credentials for this card in my own city not assured at this writing, I might be groveling.
It must be said that Boxing After Dark was pretty shaky Feb. 14. First, Mayorga backed out of his featured match with scary up-and-comer Alfredo Angulo, who then crushed a hapless replacement. Lightweight champion Nate Campbell failed to make weight (after loudly chastising Joan Guzman for the same offense last fall), relinquishing two belts and then barely winning the fight against unsung South African Ali Funeka. And the one good fight, longtime welterweight Kermit Cintron?s move to super-middleweight to take on southpaw up-and-comer Sergio Martinez, resulted in a draw made all the more unjust because it was swung by a ridiculous 12th-round foul call against Martinez.
Still, the most disappointing fight of February, even more so than Jorge Arce?s utter capitulation to Vince Darchinyan in their super flyweight attraction, was Andre Ward?s ShoBox bout win over once-beaten Henry Buchanan. It was an utter mismatch as Buchanan mounted no attack while Ward buffeted him in every round. And I drove all the way to Lemoore, Calif., in the Central Valley, to cover that one.
My nominees for best fight of the coming month also betray my local bias. They are Guerrero?s fight in his home county (Santa Clara) against Yordan (if he?s anything like Chris John) and San Leandro-based IBF flyweight champion Nonito Donaire?s March 21 title defense in the Philippines against Raul Martinez of San Antonio. Be on the lookout for a good heavyweight fight Nov. 21 as Vitaly Klitschko (the older one back from the four-year absence) fights once-beaten Cuban emigre Juan Carlos Gomez.
The worst in March? First, the runners-up: Former featherweight champion Kevin Kelley, 41, is coming to Sacramento on March 26 to fight 19-1 Woodland, Calif. lightweight Vicente Escobedo. Fernando Montiel, whose March dream fight with Donaire in the Philippines fell through, is fighting at bantamweight March 21 in Tijuana against Diego Silva, who is 24-1-3 with 12 knockouts against VERY limited opposition, mostly at home in Argentina. Another letdown regarding that card in Tijuana: It was shifted from Cancun, which some find more pristine.
Tijuana might be preferable, in March anyway, to Saransk, Russia, the site of our worst bout of the month. That would be heavyweight plodder Oleg Maskaev?s fight with Rich Boruff, (17-2, 10 knockouts), who is coming all the way from Kokomo, Ind. Boruff is 37 and in August 2007 lost in one round to 241-pound, 39-year-old Michael Moorer.
Saransk is only about an hour flight from Moscow, but with that bout it will seem a fur piece indeed from Marquez-Diaz.
