It?s a good thing Nonito Donaire and Fernando Montiel bypassed Showtime?s bantamweight version of a Super Six, judging by the bantamweight semifinals that ensued instead Saturday.
What we learned Saturday, as Abner Mares overcame a huge early deficit to outpoint Vic Darchinyan and Joseph Agbeko soundly outboxed Yonnhy Perez, was that none of those four can touch Donaire or Montiel, who will battle for the latter?s WBC and WBO bantamweight titles Feb. 19 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on HBO. Neither is the tournament even nearly on par with the network?s super-middleweight tournament that has starred Oakland?s Andre Ward.
The 118-pounders on Showtime were up against a 140-pound extravanganza Saturday on the aformentioned HBO at Mandalay Bay. Amir Khan nearly squandered a dazzling performance to narrowly oupoint persistent Marcos Maidana after one-time Maidana victim Victor Ortiz wound up with a majority draw against Lamont Peterson.
The Khan fight offered more drama than the others as Khan, who nearly finished Maidana in the first round with a left to the liver, got tagged in the 10th round and seemed ready to go the way he went against Breidis Prescott in 2008, the loss that drove the Briton Khan to work with Freddie Roach. Khan won by no more than three points over Maidana on any scorecard.
Ortiz scored two third-round knockdowns of Peterson (one year after Lamont?s gallant loss to 140-pound king Timothy Bradley). It seemed like an otherwise even bout, so Ortiz should have gotten the decision. The 95-93 judgment for Peterson was a bit out of line and the 94-94 count on the other two scorecards was only marginally acceptable.
Close thought their fight was, Ortiz and Peterson were a disappointment as the aggressor Ortiz couldn?t land combinations and the ever-retreating Peterson hit Ortiz surprisingly often with counter rights. Neither guy would be likely to beat Gilroy lightweight Robert Guerrero fighting thusly.
It seemed every bout Saturday was about someone overcoming a significant career defeat.
The best boxing performance among the four probably got the least acclaim as Agbeko avenged his 2009 loss to Perez by moving in and out and landing the lead right effectively against Perez. It was the more aesthetically appealing of the two bouts in Tacoma, Wash.
The first was the holding- and foul-filled Mares-Darchinyan match, in which Mares (who blew an early lead in his draw with Perez this year) appeared to be in the Eric Morel class, not the Donaire/Montiel echelon.
Mares dominated the second half of the fight after getting tagged too often by Darychinyan?s vaunted straight left and often being outquicked and outjabbed by the 34-year-old Armenian. Add the accidental head butt that bloodied Mares? scalp from the first round on, the flash knockdown in the second round and the point deduction for low blows in the fourth, and it was conceivable Mares trailed by five points. But he won most of the rounds thereafter, poking Darchinyan to the canvas with a jab in the seventh and generally staying much busier than the left-hander.
But Agbeko beat Darchinyan more convincingly last year, and of course Donaire beat Darchinyan more convincingly yet in 2007.
Still, Darchinyan was the only one of the Saturday bantamweight quartet whose charisma was more than a match for Tacoma. His consolation match with Perez might be more eagerly awaited than the tournament finale between Agbeko and Mares.
By then, of course, the real bantamweight kingpins presumably will have met. Although neither Donaire nor Montiel figures to stay at bantam after their meeting, that fight nevertheless diminishes the tournament.
