Bad luck plagued lightweight contender Zahir Raheem (28-2, 16 KOs) returns to the ring this Friday night against Ricardo Dominquez (23-2-2, 15 KOs) at the Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino in Tulsa. Raheem, 31, the beneficiary of two of the worst decision losses in boxing history in defeats to Acelino Freitas and Rocky Juarez, climbs back into the ring against the marginal prospect Dominquez, 22, a fighter that has fought exclusively C-level opposition with decent but not great results.
The fight is a step down for Raheem, as he rightfully should be the World Boxing Organization lightweight champion due to what appeared to be a clear cut win over the washed up Freitas on April 2006. However, Freitas, the big-named fighter, won a split decision despite getting boxed silly by Raheem and doing next to zero in the final six rounds of the fight. The outcome, however, wasn’t so surprising being that Rahmeem’s fighting style – a defensive counter punching style – isn’t particularly popular with many fans. It’s odd, though, because the style is virtually identical Floyd Mayweather Jr., Lucian Bute, Junior Witter, Cory Spinks, Paulie Malignaggi and Hector “Macho” Camacho.
For some reason, Raheem seems to get much more criticism than those fighters, even though I personally consider him more interesting to watch than any of them, especially Mayweather. In September 2005, Raheem shocked the world when he defeated Erik Morales by unanimous decision, essentially winning every round of the fight. Incredibly, two of the judges had the fight scored 116-112 and 115-113, seeing it as a close win for Raheem. The other judge, thankfully, saw the fight correctly, giving Raheem the win by the score of 118-110.
Even that, however, was being far to kind for Morales, who took a beating in every round of the fight and was too slow to connect with his punches against Raheem. After defeating Morales, Raheem made the mistake of taking a year of from boxing, erasing the momentum of the victory over Morales, which should have led to a fight against a big-named star instead of the another faded lightweight, in this case Freitas. It came to no surprise that Raheem would get shafted in his fight with Freitas, as Acelino was at the end of his rope and this victory seemed to be a way to prolong his career a few moments long, even though he had been considered by many fans over-the-hill for more than a year.
Now Raheem is trying to pick up the pieces and forget about the past, and move forward against better competition, with hopefully a title shot not too far into the future. Obviously, Raheem will continue to be avoided because of the fact that he’s a slick fighter, one who makes other boxers look bad. At this point, I’d easily pick him over champions David Diaz, Michael Katsidis and Joel Casamayor. The only fighter that would give Raheem problems, perhaps having the style to beat him, is Juan Diaz, a fighter that punches nonstop throughout his bouts. For obvious reasons, Raheem needs to focus on tying to land a bout with Katsidis, Diaz or Casamayor, as those are the winnable fights for him. However, he needs to move quickly, because he’s now 31 years-old and is running out of time to make his mark in the lightweight division.
As for Friday night’s fight with Dominquez, he’ll be hopelessly outclassed by Raheem and will either lose every round of the fight or will be stopped within the distance. He’s way over his head against Raheem and will quickly be reduced to that of a punching bag.