By: Jeff Townsend, Boxing writer
Bayareasportsdrive.com
03-07-09
It was the biggest night of boxing to hit the Bay Area in at least a
decade and maybe a few decades. HBO’s Boxing After Dark chose the HP
Pavilion in San Jose, California as the site to showcase three of the
hottest up-and-coming prospects in boxing – Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero,
‘Vicious’ Victor Ortiz and James Kirkland. By the end of the night, it
was clear that all three of these fighters are future champions. The
rest of the country watched on TV Saturday night but San Jose fight fans
had the privilege of taking it all in live and in person.
The star power was bright – Oscar De La Hoya was
ringside since he was the promoter, Michael ‘Let’s Get Ready To Rumble’
Buffer served as ring announcer and the HBO commentators (Lennox Lewis,
Max Kellerman and Bob Papa) were ringside. Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden
Boy Promotions packed 11 fights onto the fight card but the real
excitement was clearly reserved for the three main fights of the night.
Bad Cut Forces
Early End To Guerrero-Yordan
The telecast started off with a 10 round junior
lightweight match-up between two-time featherweight world champ and
Gilroy, California native Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero (23-1-1) and
21-year-old undefeated Indonesian contender Daud ‘Chino Latino’ Yordan
(17-0, 12 KOs).
This was an important fight for Guerrero since it
was just the second fight with his new promoter, Golden Boy Promotions.
Guerrero was unable to fight for most of 2008 due to a promotional
dispute and was coming off of a first round KO win over Edel Ruiz
(30-21-4) in January. Since he lives and trains in Gilroy, Guerrero’s
very large fan base made up the majority of the nearly 7,000 fight fans
in attendance.
The first round was competitive and entertaining,
with Guerrero working behind his southpaw jab and landing some good
combinations. Yordan attempted to offset Guerrero’s aggressiveness by
quickly jumping to the side in order to create angles from which he
could land punches. Despite landing punches from multiple angles,
Yordan was pretty defensive-minded and would clinch in order to prevent
Guerrero from throwing punches. After the first round, it was clear
that Yordan had the potential of providing a real test for Guerrero.
The second round began with a similar rhythm -
Guerrero aggressively coming forward and Yordan jumping in to make sure
that a clinch would end the action on the inside. Midway through the
round, Yordan jumped in yet again for a clinch, causing a clash of
heads. This accidental headbutt created a huge gash over Guerrero’s
right eye. The referee noticed that the cut was clearly bothering the
fighter and summed the ring doctor to take a look at it. Guerrero
repeatedly told the doctor that he could not see which forced the
referee to call an end to the fight. Since only a round and a half had
been completed, the fight was ruled a ‘no contest’ which means that it
essentially never happened.
Some of the fans in attendance felt that Guerrero
was looking for a way out of the fight and should have not drawn
attention to the cut, which basically forced the referee to have the
doctor examine the cut. However, the cut was very big and directly over
the eye which was clearly causing Guerrero problems.
“I’ve been cut before so it was just another cut,”
explained Guerrero at the post-fight press conference. “But as I
started moving, it started dripping right into my eye so I started
pawing at it. I couldn’t see anything out of it. I am a fighter. I
will go out on my back if I have to. But the decision was to stop it
because it was a bad cut and in a bad spot.”
Ortiz Knocks Out
Arnaoutis and Establishes Himself As A Future Champion
In the second bout on the broadcast, rising star
‘Vicious’ Victor Ortiz (24-1-1, 19 KOs) from Oxnard, California faced
off against slick boxer ‘Mighty’ Mike Arnaoutis (21-3-1, 10 KOs) from
Athens, Greece in a 12 round junior welterweight fight. The NABO and
USBA junior welterweight titles were on the line but this fight was
really to find out if Ortiz could live up to the hype. After all, Ortiz
was ESPN’s 2008 Prospect of the Year, fighting an experienced boxer who
clearly has skills.
The first round saw Arnaoutis sticking to his
obvious game plan of boxing from the outside and staying away from
Ortiz’s power shots. Ortiz landed a few decent punches but it was more
of a ‘feeling out’ round. Midway through the second round, Ortiz
landed a huge left hook on Arnaoutis’ chin, sending him slightly
staggering to the ropes. Arnaoutis was clearly hurt and Ortiz moved in
on his opponent. Arnaoutis now had his back to the ropes and very
quickly ended up in the corner, with Ortiz throwing a barrage of punches
his way. Arnaoutis covered up which blocked some of the punches but a
hard uppercut found it’s mark, snapping back Arnaoutis’ head. Ortiz
threw a few more punches before the referee quickly jumped in and
stopped the fight at 1:28 of the second round.
What made this stoppage all the more impressive was
the fact that Arnaoutis has never been knocked out and has only lost to
very good fighters. Asked if the fight had been stopped too soon, Ortiz
said “When you are fighting someone, you can actually see it in their
eyes and what is going on. I think if I would have landed another combo
or if they would have let the fight go on a little bit longer, I could
have possibly hurt him.”
“Those were not my intentions but it is a game. If
he had the chance, he would do the same to me. I looked at his eyes and
I took a little step back, as you saw. I was a little patient and I
didn’t think that I had hurt him that bad. In my mind, I was like ‘I am
gonna get him right now…..Whoa, wait a minute. This is a 12 round
fight.’ In my mind, I kept hearing ’12,12,12’.”
Ortiz was in a great mood at the post-fight press
conference, proclaiming “San Jose definitely showed love. It was a
great fight. I can’t really say anything negatively about my guy (Arnaoutis).
Never did, never have, never will. What was even crazier was that they
gave me another belt after the fight and I said ‘Wait, I got two?’ I
didn’t have the words for it.”
Kirkland
Punishes Julio Over Six Rounds, Forcing Stoppage
On paper, the ten round main event looked to be an
all-out war between two hard-punching junior middleweights who are known
for knocking out a large number of their opponents. However, it was the
ultra-aggressive James Kirkland (25-0, 21 KOs) from Austin, TX who would
completely dominate and punish his hard punching foe, Colombia’s Joel
Julio (34-3, 31 KOs), over six rounds before the fight was stopped.
Kirkland employs a super aggressive style whereby
he is always coming forward, throwing hard punches. From the opening
bell, Kirkland was like a ferocious dog, looking to tear apart his
opponent. Kirkland consistently threw hard shots to Julio’s body over
the course of the fight and this was evident from the first round on.
Julio stood his ground in the first round, looking to get the better of
the exchanges. At some point in the first round, a cut opened up over
the right eye of Julio.
Once the second round began, Julio started to box
and it was clear that he wanted to avoid being hit by Kirkland’s power
punches. Julio would try to land hard punches but since he was not
setting up his wide punches with a jab, most of them were missing their
mark. Throughout the first three rounds, Julio looked like a power
puncher who wanted to avoid being hit. There were some good exchanges
but Julio was expending a fair amount of energy moving around the ring.
By the fourth round, Julio’s right eye started to
swell and the blood was flowing a little more. He was breathing through
his mouth which is usually a sign that a fighter is tired. That was not
surprising because Kirkland’s relentless pressure was forcing Julio to
always be on the move. Kirkland was landing hard body shots, strong
right hands and anything else that he could land on his now-elusive
opponent. Julio’s biggest problem was that his punches were not hurting
Kirkland since he was usually backing up or moving away when he would
throw a punch. This would decrease the power and leverage that he could
put on the punch since he was constantly moving at this point.
Julio’s eye was close to being swollen shut once
the sixth round began. It seemed likely that Julio would have to land a
miracle punch in order to win - Kirkland had probably won every round on
the scorecard thus far, Julio was close to being able to see out of only
one eye and Kirkland had landed many hard punches to Julio’s body and
head. Julio continued to throw punches in constant motion while always
moving around the ring.
The referee came over to Julio’s corner at the end
of the sixth round and decided that Julio had absorbed too much
punishment, stopping the fight before the seventh round could begin.
Asked if he was surprised that Julio boxed as
opposed to fighting as a power puncher, Kirkland explained “I expected
Julio to run. I feel that I am a stronger puncher than him. I came
prepared. We had bangers in the ring, as far as sparring, we had
boxers, we had speed punchers. So whatever type of style he was going
to come with, I was going to try to adjust to.”
Commenting on a potential fight with Alfred Angulo,
Kirkland said “Me and him sparred in the past. I know what his style
is. I know what he is capable of doing. I know what I can do to Angulo.
I can definitely stop him.”
Golden Boy Promotions announced at the post-fight
press conference that all three fighters will be fighting on another HBO
fight card scheduled for June 27, with the site to still be decided.
The future of boxing is here and it is Kirkland, Ortiz and Guerrero.
Email Jeff with questions or comments at
jtownsend@bayareasportsdrive.com
