Boxing: Barrera vs. Marquez

The biggest bout of this weekend takes place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where 130 lb fighters Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez square off in a 12-round main event attraction.

On paper, this is perhaps one of the biggest fights that could be made in this division. Besides a rematch with either Barrera or Marquez against Manny Pacquiao, this is the pre-eminent fight in the class. Erik Morales appears to be on the downside, and these two are among the best of the lower-weight fighers.

But for some reason, I'm not buying into this fight. Barrera, while being a marvelous fighter, isn't quite as entertaining as he was in years' past. He's become a more technical boxer, and it's served him well. I bought his last fight against Rocky Juarez and was thoroughly disappointed. His new style may allow his career to last longer, but it isn't exactly crowd pleasing.

Marquez has ascended to the top of the Featherweight division. He lost his title belt a year back to Chris John in Indonesia. Varying reports say that he was robbed, but I've heard that Dan Rafael may have been mistaken in designating that bout a robbery. But like Marquez, he has been fighting a tactical style as of late.

I've been reading around, and expert opinion is split. Both fighters appear to be on the relative downsides of their careers. Nevertheless, I like Barrera and his suberb jab to win a unanimous decision.

As a true fight fan, I should be excited about this fight. However, I'm not sure I can justify the $50 price tag of the HBO PPV card. I resolved not to purchase these types of sub-standard cards in the new year. Most likely, I won't purchase a major PPV until Mayweather/ De La Hoya in May.

In other news...

Evander Holyfield fights again this weekend against Vinny Maddalone. I had to chuckle when I heard that ole' Evander tried to purchase HGH under an assumed name. I might watch this fight, since it's on for free on Comcast TV. But the guy he's fighting is a total tomato can. He lost twice to a guy named Brian Minto. Texas appears to be the only state that will issue Holyfield a license. New York had the good sense to suspend Holyfield's license after that embarrassing display against Larry Donald a few years back.

Also, the MSG network may be re-airing the live fight between O'Neil Bell and Jean Marc Mormeck. Bell scored a 10th Round KO last year, and are rematching in France this weekend.

{Note: I may get the John Duddy fight. It is half the price of the HBO PPV, and should be at least as exciting. Sad that Holyfield is reduced to competing against a club fighter/journeyman like Maddalone. He "called out" Shannon Briggs a while back on live TV. When Briggs accepted the challenge, Maddalone chickened out.)



FRIDAY - at Salem, New Hampshire (ESPN2) - 12 rounds,
featherweights: Cruz "Cucho" Carvajal (28-13-1, 15 KOs) vs. Eric Aiken
(16-5, 12 KOs).

FRIDAY - at New York (PPV) - 12 rounds, middleweights:
John Duddy (18-0, 15 KOs) vs. Anthony Bonsante (29-8-3, 17 KOs).
10 rounds, middleweights: Giovanni Lorenzo (22-0, 14 KOs)
vs. Robert Kamya (15-6, 4 KOs).

FRIDAY - at Hollywood, Florida (Telefutura) - 12 rounds,
WBA super bantamweight title: Celestino Caballero (25-2, 18 KOs)
vs. Ricardo Castillo (27-3, 17 KOs); 10 rounds, heavyweights:
Michael Moorer (48-4-1, 38 KOs) vs. Crawford Grimsley
(22-4-1, 20 KOs).

SATURDAY - at Levallois Perret, France - 12 rounds,
WBA & WBC cruiserweight titles: O'Neil Bell (26-1-1, 24 KOs)
vs. Jean-Marc Mormeck (32-3, 22 KOs).

SATURDAY - at Corpus Christi, Texas
(CN8 - Comcast) - 10 rounds, Evander Holyfield
(40-8-2, 26 KOs) vs. Vinny Maddalone (27-3, 19 KOs);
10 rounds, heavyweights: Calvin Brock (29-1, 22 KOs)
vs. Ralph West (17-10-1, 14 KOs).

SATURDAY - at Las Vegas (HBO PPV) - 12 rounds,
WBC super featherweight title: Marco Antonio Barrera
(63-4, 42 KOs)vs. Juan Manuel Marquez (46-3-1, 35 KOs);
10 rounds, welterweights: Demetrius Hopkins (25-0-1, 10 KOs)
vs. Steve Forbes (32-4, 9 KOs); 12 rounds super bantamweights:
Daniel Ponce de Leon (30-1, 28 KOs) vs. Gerry Penalosa
(51-5-2, 34 KOs).

I ordered the fight. My younger son and I will enjoy watching the card, which really should be on the 17th, all things considered.

The guy butted Duddy a few times in the early rounds. He pulled Duddy in, and their heads hit. For once, John came out looking better from a butt. It left a cut on the top of the guy's forehead.

After the end of 9, the fight was called, and they went to the score cards. Duddy was way ahead. He looked a little rusty, stood in front of the guy, dropped his hands, and was too easy to hit. But he is hard to hurt, and was too strong for this guy.

I haven't seen much of Duddy. I know that he's Irish and likes to fight at the MSG in New York City. I pretty much figured that Duddy would win an easy contest.

Just out of curiosity, what network and announcers covered the PPV broadcast? For sure, it wasn't the typical HBO or Showtime crews.

I'm still torn on tonight's Barrera/Marquez. By all accounts, it is a significant fight that should be competitive in nature. Unfortunately, the PPV networks are banking on a high audience of Mexican buyers. As a HBO main event, I would be loving this fight. But as a PPV main event, with a relatively weak undercard, may not be worth the $50.

it was Al Bernstein, Gerry Cooney, and Barry McGuigan. I think it is an independant group that promotes the annual St. Patrick's Day card at the old Felt Forum.

I don't see the fight tonight as anything I'd pay for. It should be on the regular HBO. But I'm sure it will make money off the target audience. It is a potentially very good fight.

A major title fight involving two heavy-hitting freight trains. I'm just amazed that no major network had it on, as I think it had the potential to be a pretty entertaining fight. I'm not familiar with the Madison Square Garden network (MSG). Is that purely local in the New York area or can that be seen throughout the U.S.?

Pretty entertaining fight to say the least. Jean-Marc Mormeck ended up winning a unanimous decision.

The early rounds were very entertaining. Both fighters landed big shots. But as the fight went on, both fighters began to feel the fatigue. They said that there was no air in the arena, and it was around 95 degrees. Mormeck definitely faltered down the stretch. But because of open scoring, Mormeck knew that he had the fight in hand. He basically held on the final 4 rounds and survived.

While it was a good fight, a number of things bugged me.

1) Open scoring played a huge role in the result of the fight. Mormeck understood that if he just didn't get knocked down that he'd probably win the decision. A scenario like this illustrates the point against open scoring. I hope that the sanctioning mobs decide to axe this experiment.

2) The Kingvision telecast had to be the most biased presenation I've ever seen. Col. Bob Sheridan might as well come out and say that he's wholly owned by Don King. His French sidekick practically had an orgasm when Mormeck was announced the winner. Sheridan was adament that Bell didn't win the last 4 rounds, while I felt that Bell took them all. At least they didn't team Sheridan with King's stepson, Carl, like they did once before.

3) The 12th Round seemed a bit short. I'll have to re-watch it, but it appeared that Mormeck was given the benefit of 20 seconds.

Finally, it's being reported that a melee broke out at the postfight press conference. I'm not sure if it was the fighters involved or their teams, but it's said that chairs were flying and fists were shaking.

Mormeck's corner was "late" sending him out, and there was at least :12 seconds taken there; then the bell rang at least :15 seconds early.

It was a tough fight. Low blows by each that resulted in the other fellow rolling around in agony. Both warriors showed better offensive skills than defensive abilities.

I assumed the announcers were attending their first boxing match. I did not think the judges' scoring reflected objectivity. But the fighters made a strong case for another bout.

Neither fighter showed much defense. And that made for an entertaining fight. The first 6 rounds were the most entertaining of the year so far, IMO.

The low blows were definitely debilitating. The funny thing is that while the rules state a fighter gets 5:00 to recover, it always seems like the referee pressures them to fight within a minute. If I were either fighter, I'd have taken the full time to rest. But I guess that goes against the fighter's instinct. Whenever I think of bad low blows, I remember back to Fernando Vargas vs. Felix Trinidad back in 2000. Vargas was surging ahead in the fight when an egregious low blow was thrown by Trinidad. While there was a point deduction, Vargas never really regained the momentum.

Sheridan, as you probably know, has broadcast over 700 "Title" fights in his career. Most of the time he's on the international telecast of Don King cards. He seems like a nice guy, but is definitely a homer for the DK house fighter. IIRC, he's had a number of heart attacks and has broadcast a bout on that same day. I had to laugh when Don King was on at the beginning of the feed, and extollled the virtues of the laughable MSG and Knicks owner James Dolan.

Mormeck had stamina problems in his last fight against Bell as well and I think he got knocked out in the first fight when he stopped fighting towards the end from exhaustion and let himself get pinned on the ropes. I'd be interested in knowing whether both fighters were in shape or whether either one came in heavier than usual. Mormeck's defense seems to be his offense and he relies on being a non-stop puncher.

I'm glad I didn't see this fight if it had open scoring which I detest and if it had Don King's ugly face on the TV screen. After all these years, I still don't understand how Don King manages to slither his way into promoting so many fights. Sorry to any fans of his, but I just don't care for the guy.

Barrera had a knockdown taken away - the judge missed the call. From the scorecards it didn't matter, but IMHO the scorecards were way off. The judges had it decidedly in Marquez's favor, but myself and all the HBO guys thought it should have been much closer. When the fight was over, I honestly had no idea who won that fight. You could have given it to either guy. I didn't do a round by round in my head, because I missed 3 rounds in the middle of the fight (family commotion).

If HBO replays it, you should definitely watch. It was a very technical and close fight.

The judge that had Barrera winning only 2 rounds should be investigated. There were a number of rounds where there was no clear-cut winner. Watching it live, I wasn't really certain where the scorecards would lie. I was expecting more like a 7-5 verdict either way. 118-109, 116-111, 116-111 was the final tallies of all three judges. 116-111 (twice) comes down to Marquez winning 8-4, with a 1 point deduction in the 7th Round.

About the knockdown, I thought he should have been given credit for the knockdown and had a point deducted. That round was a mess to score. Marquez dominated up until the final 10 seconds. Considering that Marquez had so thoroughly dominated before the knockdown, I thought it should have been scored 10-10, and ultimately 10-9 Marquez after the penalty. But surprisingly, it didn't have an impact on the result.

There was a strange decision on the undercard as well. Demetrius Hopkins won a wide unanimous decision over Contender runner-up Stevie Forbes. Admittedly, I missed some rounds during the fight. However, 118-110 (Twice) appeared to be an outrageously wide margin. I believe that Golden Boy Productions handles Hopkins, and there were rumblings that his connections earned him this decision.

Finally, I'm guessing that HBO will replay the main event next Saturday, before their live Boxing After Dark card featuring Super Middleweight Champ Kessler. There will be the one live fight (or actually tape-delayed since it happens in Europe) and the replay of Barrera/Marquez around 10:00.

And having Barrera only winning 2 rounds is ridiculous.

Evan Fields, as I will refer to him as long as he continues fighting, did quite a number on Maddalone's face on the way to a 3rd Round TKO. It was bloody from the 1st Round, when a headbutt opened a big gash on Maddalone's face. Maddalone, to his credit, pleaded that the doctor not stop the fight. But after taking a beating, his trainer, Al Certo, stepped in and stopped the carnage.

There's not much else worth saying about this fight. For now, Holyfield is fighting in relative obscurity on low-budget cards. The man's been delusional for years that he can become Undisputed Champion again. If he ever got a fight with Klitschko, he'd probably be beaten inches short of death. It's a farce, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Holyfield get one more high profile fight. My only hope is that the big television networks won't allow the mismatch that would result in a bout between Holyfield and any current Top 10 heavyweight.

the undercard, Calvin Brock knocked out someone even less talented that Maddalone, in the first round. I think it's okay to take an easy fight after a tough bout, especially after losing, and moreso after being KOed. But Brock will need to face someone on a higher level, if he intends to make noise in 2007. I think that he should be matched against Evan Fields, in order to resolve two issues in the heavyweight division.