(Photo credit: Casino/Showtime) By Shane Newsome: With another three championship fights last weekend boxing fans have really been spoilt recently, with that said it does make it hard to keep up with and catch everything that happened so here is the return of my weekly column to spoil you just that bit more.
We start our look back in the same place we started our preview the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA with the eagerly anticipated fight between still unbeaten WBC Welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0) and Robert Guerrero (31-2-1) and in this fight Floyd Mayweather really highlighted the two things he does best, sell a fight and not get hit.
I was left slightly disappointing with Guerrero at the end of this fight seeing that it was the fight of his life I thought he would take it more seriously instead he looked out of shape and lacking in stamina, the sluggish Californian really didn’t look like he put all his effort into this fight and at six years younger than his opponent somehow managed to look old walking into straight right hands and taking punishment as if he were enjoying it, he didn’t have the answer for Floyd’s defensive skills and really sat back and let Mayweather control the fight and pick up his 44th consecutive win in an easy fashion barely even breaking sweat, though perhaps that is the way the fight was always going to go and Mayweather just did as good of a job as usual to sell a badly matched fight as if it were a true contest, in saying that credit has to be given to Floyd Mayweather Sr. who not only aided to the promotion of the fight but also seemed to get Jr. looking back at his slippery best.
I’d love to see Floyd prove himself in his last five fights and go for opponents like Amir Khan, Saul Alvarez, Timothy Bradley, Manny Pacqiuao and Austin Trout all of these opponents truly offer something Floyd hasn’t faced before and even one or two losses against these fighters would look better than finishing his career unbeaten against fighters like Andre Berto, Juan Manuel Marquez II, Miguel Cotto II, Zab Judah II and Danny Garcia though that is the route I feel Floyd will choose and as ever he will sell those fights as if they are the harder picks. As for Guerrero I feel he was a bit rushed into this fight and a step back would be the right move for him with some truly intriguing fights out there including Kell Brook, Mike Alvarado, Devon Alexander and Lamont Peterson to name just a few.
As for the other entertainment on this card the WBC Featherweight title match up between Daniel Ponce De Leon (44-5) and new Champion Abner Mares (26-0-1) really was a good fight and an impressive performance to from a superstar in the making unbeaten Mexican Abner Mares, though thought of as the lesser puncher of the two the 27 year-old Mares controlled this fight with his superior speed, boxing ability AND power De Leon really didn’t have an answer as he got out hustled and out boxed by a better fighter on the night, and an inevitable stoppage came in the 9th round as Mares pounded away at an almost defenseless De Leon having already dropped him twice previously in the fight, with a truly busy Featherweight division there are three fights you’d love to see Mares take on now mouth watering contests between Orlando Salido, Chris John and most of all Mikey Garcia to plant his name not only at the top of the featherweights but firmly into the p4p top 5.
Finally our other interest on this card saw unbeaten American Middleweight hope J’Leon Love (16-0) take on Gabriel Rosado (21-7) and another good fight in which I am sure the defeated fighter Rosado will be looking for a perhaps deserved re-match though I thought Love did just enough to win the contest here he didn’t look all too impressive against his supposed stepping stone as Rosado was able to knock him down and hurt him too easily ultimately though puffing himself out doing so and not doing quite enough in the majority of the rounds including not really getting started till the 4th. A re-match is really what should happen here but I cant see Love being to interested in that and he may need to take a quick step back in his career before he moves on to bigger fights or he will get stopped.
Now we go slightly back in time to Friday 3rd May and to the Cosmopolitan Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA and a night were a number of undefeated fighters stayed just that though all were slightly under-matched there was some true talent on show here and a good taster for those who were in Las Vegas for the bigger fight. the pick of the fights here saw Light-Welterweight Antonio Orozco (17-0) and Super-Middleweight Anthony Dirrell (25-0) both keep their respective ‘0’s with Orozco putting in the more impressive performance stopping his opponent in the 7th round of a scheduled 10. both fighters need to be pushed on now if they are looking for titles but their futures are in their promoters hands.
Back to Saturday’s action and to SAP-Arena, Mannheim, Germany where WBA/WBO/IBF/IBO Heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3) successfully defended his titles against Italian Francesco Pianeta (28-1-1) Pianeta looked way out of his depth in the ring on Saturday night and he offered up nothing that Wladimir couldn’t deal with and as expected we saw Wald pick up his 60th win of his career by way of his 51st KO and hand his opponent his first loss, 28 year-old Pianeta in all honesty really shouldn’t have been given this fight his record doesn’t suggest he deserved it and his lack of talent was all too apparent in the ring. A big money fight against Alexander Povetkin later in the year is what lies in store for the younger Klitschko as he continues to clean-up the Heavyweight division, you cant blame him too much for taking these sorts of fights as between the brothers Klitschko they have all but beaten every legitimate challenger out there and though with every fight there retirement looms nearer I don’t personally see a Heavyweight out there with the skills to prematurely knock either of them off their perch.
The last note for this weeks review comes from the same card and a fight between unbeaten Irish based Cuban Heavyweight Mike Perez (19-0) and American Travis Walker (39-10-1) here we saw Perez make a slightly longer night than he may have hoped out of a game Walker, for the progress of the 27 year-old Cuban it would have been good to get Walker ‘out of there’ quite early as other big name heavyweights have done though he grinded out a UD win and perhaps showed a lack of power. a European level fight would be a good next step for Perez as he remains unbeaten, as for Walker it is maybe the end of the road with his loss column now in double digits, though a career not to be ashamed of at all.
Our busy boxing schedule only continue’s next week with yet another two World title fights both truly tough fights to judge and not to be missed so look out for my preview, thank you for reading and have a great week all.
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