Pacquiao-Clottey undercard: Duddy-Medina, Castillo-Gomez

By Chris Williams: I can’t say I’m at all impressed with the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey fight on March 13th, at the Dallas Cowboy stadium. It was announced today that the following fights will be taking place on the undercard: middleweight John Duddy vs. Michael Medina, welterweight Jose Luis Castillo vs. Alfonso Gomez, super bantamweight Roberto Marroquin vs. TBA, super bantamweight Salvador Sanchez vs. TBA.

Also, former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito could be facing Carson Jones if Margarito’s boxing license is renewed by the Texas Athletic Commission. I’m not impressed with any of these fights, including the Pacquiao-Clottey bout. As a whole, I think the Pacquiao-Clottey fight would make for a good undercard bout, but as far as the other fights go, I don’t see one of them that’s worthy as being on a pay-per-view card. This fight would be a good ESPN fight, in my view. I can’t see paying $49.95 for this card. That’s a lot of money and in this economy that’s asking a lot to see a bunch of fights that I don’t see having any relevance.

Duddy, 30, is a fringe contender and I don’t see him as a potential future champion, so I don’t care to see him fight a light middleweight. Michael Medina, Duddy’s opponent, isn’t even a middleweight. Why is Duddy, a fighter that has been ranked high in the middleweight rankings for the past of years, being matched against a light middleweight? Isn’t it time to take Duddy’s training wheels off?

He’s 30-years-old. How much longer do we have to wait before he faces a top five guy? Duddy already got beat by Billy Lyell last year, a bottom 15 fighter. Why is Duddy on this card? I just don’t understand. If you want to put a middleweight on the card, why not put Paul Williams, Gennady Golovkin or Daniel Jacobs? At least I can see those guys possibly winning a title at middleweight some day.

Jose Luis Castillo is 36-years-old and has lost two out of his last seven fights. Castillo doesn’t look good at welterweight. He may have been a good lightweight five years ago, but he’s been on the slide since moving up in weight starting in 2007. He’s going to get dominated on March 13th by former contest from The Contender Alfonso Gomez.

I don’t see this as being a competitive fight. Gomez isn’t that great either. He got totally dominated by Miguel Cotto two years ago in a 5th round stoppage in 2008. Gomez is good at beating fringe contenders, but I don’t see the guy as being a future welterweight champion either. I don’t want to pay to see him or Castillo.

As for Margarito-Jones, we don’t even know if that fight will happen. Margarito may not get his boxing license back in time for the fight, but if he does, I still don’t see this as being a good fight. Margarito is way better than Jones, a 2nd tier fighter. Even if Margarito is rusty from a year off, he’s going to destroy Jones without any problems. I want to see Margarito against a top fighter. It’s not enough that he’s fighting a 2nd tier fighter for me to want to pay to see the fight.

I don’t care a fig about seeing Marroquin or Sanchez. Maybe they might be good someday and maybe they won’t. Until they are, I don’t want to pay to see them fight. I never heard of either until recently and don’t feel that they add enough value to the card for me to pay $49.95 to see them.

And I’m not thrilled with seeing Pacquiao-Clottey. That fight has mismatch all over it. Why is Pacquiao fighting a guy that was just beaten by Cotto? Sorry, I see this as an ESPN fight and not one I would want to pay to see. If Pacquiao was fighting Floyd Mayweather, then now we’re talking. I would gladly pay $49.95 to see that fight and could care less who they put on the undercard. They could put all these guys on there for all I care. I would constantly change the channel until the Pacquiao-Clottey fight comes on anyway because I only care to see these guys.

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