Reading some of the post-fight reports following SHOWTIME’s telecast this past Saturday, it’s no wonder the best fighters in the world are sometimes hesitant to face one another.
There were mixed reviews coming out of Saturday’s SHOWTIME telecast, which saw Vic Darchinyan fall short in his attempt to snatch a major title in a third weight class. Current bantamweight titlist Joseph King Kong Agbeko had everything to do with that, slicing apart the face of the transplanted Armenian and piling up enough rounds to eventually earn a unanimous decision.
Heading into the weekend, the bout was marketed as the undisputed super flyweight king (Darchinyan) moving up in weight to take on one of the world’s best bantamweights (Agbeko).
Twelve rounds later, Agbeko needs improvement and Darchinyan wasn’t that good to begin with.
Gotta love the revisionist history mentality of today’s critics.
Truth be told, the end result shouldn’t change by much the status of either fighter.
The fact remains that Darchinyan is still the best super flyweight on the planet. No, he won’t be blitzing through weight classes as he had previously planned. But for the moment, the only fighter capable of beating him at 115 lb. hasn’t yet fought at the weight.
That will change next month, when Nonito Donaire moves up in weight for some interim title or another. The point being, a rematch may finally happen between the two.
Until then, Darchinyan returns home still the lineal super flyweight king. The only thing missing is the bantamweight belt for which he had already cleared space in his trophy room.
That belt remains around the waist of Agbeko, whose stock should immensely rise following his performance at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, FL this past weekend. The Ghanaian bantamweight entered the fight as a considerable underdog – according to odds makers and the majority of the media – and having fought just once since winning his title 22 months ago.
Agbeko hadn’t fought since struggling to a majority decision in his oft-postponed mandatory defense against William Gonzalez last December. Against Darchinyan, he looked considerably better, even if two of the three judges saw a closer fight than everyone else in the arena or those watching at home.
The fight itself wasn’t the third World War that so many had predicted, but it was enough to prove that Agbeko’s name deserves to be mentioned when discussing the world’s best bantamweights. Such should have already been the case when he gave then-top rated 118 lb titlist Wladimir Sidirenko all that the Ukrainian could handle before falling just short on the cards by night’s end.
It was and still remains the lone loss for Agbeko, whose since won six straight, including five in a row since returning to the ring early in 2007 following a 2 ? year layoff from the sport. Premium wins were lacking in his career until he manhandled Luis Perez in September 2007, the first of two times he would appear on SHOWTIME.
The second time came this past weekend, and by all accounts doesn’t figure to be the last. Where and against whom is hardly a question – barring his vacating the title, Agbeko’s next fight will be a mandatory defense against Yohnny Perez of Colombia. Like Darchinyan, perennial top-ten bantamweight Perez is promoted by Gary Shaw, which means Agbeko-Perez could likely wind up on Showtime in some capacity or another.
Beyond that, it is hoped by Agbeko to eventually land a lucrative payday, dropping such names as Juan Manuel Lopez and Israel Vazquez in his exclusive post-fight interview with Boxingscene.com. Lopez is a current undefeated super bantamweight titlist, while Vazquez’ long awaited return to the ring will presumably take place at featherweight, as he has severed all championship ties at 122, where he had reigned as lineal king since August 2007.
The mentioning of such names suggests plans for Agbeko to eventually move up in weight, although such a move would be strictly financially driven as he has no problem melting his rail-thin frame down to the bantamweight limit.
Plans also called for Darchinyan to continue to move up beyond Saturday, as there were already rumors of a possible fall clash with former two-division champion Rafael Marquez. Whether or not that still happens remains to be seen, though for the moment the wisest move would be to return to 115, where he all but revived his career in the past year and change.
Saturday night was a reminder of what led to his first professional loss, when Donaire knocked him silly two years ago, ending a flyweight title reign that had extended 2 ? years and with all but one of his seven championship wins ending in knockout.
Darchinyan went 4-0-1 following the loss; the draw coming in controversial fashion in his February 2008 clash with Z Gorres in the latter’s home country of the Philippines. Nobody else heard the final bell over that stretch. The first win was something of a gimme, scoring a 12th round stoppage of Frederico Catubay in his adopted homeland of Australia just three months after the Donaire debacle.
Following the Gorres fight, the Raging Bull went on a tear, racking up knockouts over one top junior bantamweight after another, barely losing a round against the trio of Dmitri Kirillov, Cristian Mijares and Jorge Arce over a period of just six months.
The devastatingly one-sided 9th round knockout win over Mijares put Darchinyan in contention for 2008’s Fighter of the Year, losing out only to Manny Pacquiao. Mijares himself was in the running for such honors before running into a version of Darchinyan the entire boxing world admitted had come a long way since losing to Donaire.
That same version showed up to deliver a beatdown of former lineal junior flyweight champion Jorge Arce earlier this year. None of that goes off of the table, although one loss seems to bring about amnesia to those who choose to only judge a fighter by his most recent performance, especially one in which the fighter – in this case, Darchinyan – admits to not implementing the greatest of strategies in the ring, and acknowledges that his opponent deserved the win.
We can expect to see plenty more of Joseph King Kong Agbeko, and hopefully sooner rather than later, as his career deserves better than to only average one championship fight per 11 month period.
What we should also expect to see is Vic Darchinyan finding a way to bounce back. We’ve written him off once before, only to watch him collect scalps and titles in blizzard-like fashion. What the future holds for the brash Armenian-turned-Australian is anyone’s guess, but history suggests we owe him one more chance to find out.
ON THE OTHER HAND…
One fighter we can expect to not make his way back to a major US network anytime soon is Anges Adjaho. The lightweight hopeful fought terrific for eight rounds of his title eliminator against highly touted Antonio DeMarco in the evening’s co-feature. A win would’ve put him in position to become the first ever boxer from Benin to win a major title.
Then came the ninth round. Instead of visions of being the first to cross the finish line, Adjaho suddenly opted for the exits.
DeMarco was already chipping away at the early lead Adjaho built up, overcoming a horrendously slow start to work his way back into the fight. He was well on his way to winning the ninth before forcing Adjaho into retreat mode late in the round, courtesy of a left hand shot. Adjaho was in the process of taking a knee when DeMarco let loose one more punch, which appeared to graze the back of his challenger’s head.
Rather than plead his case of being struck with an illegal blow (even if it barely landed), Adjaho instead opted to flop to the canvas face first while referee Telis Assimenio counted over his fallen body. Adjaho showed no signs of wanting to continue before the third man opted to wave off the bout, at which point the Benin lightweight arose to offer a furious protest.
Way too little, way too late.
It was a sorry end to a lightweight fight that appeared to finally get going before the crazy ending. On a night when one of boxing’s bravest warriors in recent memory, Arturo Gatti was found murdered, a more fitting tribute to his legacy should’ve been offered by Adjaho than opting to tap out.
HEARD BUT NOT SEEN
The most puzzling call of the weekend still remains the decision to not allot airtime to the cruiserweight elimination bout between former titlists Steve Cunningham and Wayne Braithwaite.
Cunningham, who won a decision in convincing fashion though nowhere nearly as lopsided as suggested by the three ringside judges, acknowledged after the fight that their bout should’ve been paired up with Tomasz Adamek’s lineal cruiserweight title defense, which was taking place 1200 miles north in Newark, New Jersey.
The two threw down in one of the best fights in 2008, with Adamek winning enough rounds and scoring enough knockdowns to eke out a well-earned split decision and the lineal crown.
Saturday’s fight with Braithwaite was Cunningham’s first since the war with Adamek, and also the first with trainer Naziim Richardson, rapidly becoming the most-sought after corner man in the game on the strength of his work with Bernard Hopkins and recent quick fix of Shane Mosley.
Like most of his career fights, the Braithwaite fight came before the cameras began rolling. The Adamek fight took place on VERSUS, the only time Cunningham has fought live on an American network. The Philly boxer is long overdue for another televised appearance, which hopefully comes in a highly anticipated rematch with Adamek, for whom he is now the mandatory challenger.
AND HOW EXACTLY DID YOU SEE THEM?
One thing that continues to render as baffling is the number of Monday morning columns recapping boxing action from the around the world for the prior weekend.
It’s easy enough to transcribe what you personally watched on television or in attendance. But what about those shows taking place half a world away? What is your source of information when telling your audience what happened, according to what you attempt to pass off as your own point of view?
And how about all of those bouts that occur well before the cameras begin rolling and aren’t possibly available for download or DVD trade from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon?
Case in point: a number of news outlets seemed to have one opinion or another on Steve Cunningham’s aforementioned win over Wayne Braithwaite.
Website coverage is one thing; there were a number of online scribes on hand at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, with the press section nearly full by the time the two cruiserweights set foot in the ring.
But as far as print publications and mainstream coverage – aside from a few local newspapers, the cupboard was bare.
Of the 60 or so journalists who covered the event, the biggest names in the room among them were probably Karl Freitag (Fightnews.com Managing Editor) and Boxingscene.com’s own Lyle Fitzsimmons.
Yet somehow, nearly everyone had an opinion on select bouts from the undercard.
Something to keep in mind the next time mainstream hacks refer to the coverage provided online as “irresponsible responsible” or “more junk than journalism.” Because among many of these major news outlets, the next time one actually attributes a source will be the first.
Or perhaps they only taught that in the online journalism course.
POINT OF CLARIFICATION
Breaking ranks for a second, I shall now go into first person mode, something I generally try to avoid when covering the sport.
While it was an honor to be tabbed for SHOWTIME’s press row scoring for the second time in my writing career (the first coming four years ago for Jeff Lacy’s hometown title defense versus Robin Reid), the main event scorecard attached to my name seemed to produce more confusion than praise.
With that, I clear the air…
Press row scoring is now done electronically, a far cry from the last time I performed the task, when we were simply asked to hold up “10” for one side and 10 or less for the other. The software now calls for scribes to score each round for either Red Corner or Blue Corner.
The evening’s co-feature had Don King’s fighter (Adjaho) in the blue corner and Gary Shaw’s fighter (DeMarco) in the red. Even though it was thoroughly explained by Gordon Hall, Executive Producer for Showtime, who was in what corner for the main event, yours truly instead went into auto-pilot mode, scoring an early round for “Blue” thinking it was Agbeko.
Through six rounds, my running tally had Agbeko ahead 58-56, giving Darchinyan rounds two and four. It wasn’t until a slew of e-mails flooded my inbox questioning how I had the fight even to that point did I realize my mistake.
The Showtime crew worked feverishly to correct the error before the seventh round had ended. So quick that by the time the 9th round rolled around, Agbeko was back up by 3 points on my scorecard.
Problem solved, or so I thought. Instead more questions came about, namely how could I have scored all three rounds (7, 8 and 9) for Agbeko when one of them saw his being called for a knockdown (however bogus the call may have been).
For the record, I scored the 7th round for Darchinyan, though only giving him a 10-9 round since I otherwise had Agbeko taking the frame. It had nothing to do with the knockdown being a blown call by referee Tommy Kimmons. Official judges are instructed to not evaluate the severity of a knockdown or ignore the call made in the ring. Even if you see a low blow produce a knockdown, if the latter is the official call by the referee, it is to be honored by the scoring judges.
I say all of this in case anyone really cares. My suspicions are that nobody does, which is why I generally avoid writing from a first-person perspective to begin with.
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at [email protected].
