By Chris Williams: While some boxing fans are excited about the undercard of the September 19th fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, I’m not one of them or close to being one of them. I see nothing but a bunch of faded stars and huge mismatches on the card and it doesn’t make me want to lay out the bread to purchase the fight on PPV.
Aside from Marquez-Mayweather, which is an okay fight but not exactly the fairest due to Mayweather’s size advantage, we have Zab Judah (37-6, 25 KO’s) vs. Antonio Diaz (46-5-1, 29 KO’s), WBA featherweight champion Chris John (42-0-2, 22 KO’s) vs. Rocky Juarez (28-4-1, 20 KO’s) and Michael Katsidis (25-2, 21 KO’s) vs. Vicente Escobedo (21-1, 13 KO’s).
Without even thinking hard, I can already see the winners of each of these fights, and I don’t expect any of them to be close fights. Judah, John and Escobedo will all win in one-sided fights. I don’t see any of those fights as being even slightly interesting to watch.
Judah, 31, may have had some hard times in the past three years losing to Miguel Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Joshua Clotty, but he clearly has enough left in the tank to beat Diaz, a B level fighter at best. Diaz, 33, has been fighting for 13 years, but has hardly any quality wins on his resume.
Diaz has lost against the best fighters he’s faced, being stopped by Shane Mosley, Antonio Marquez and Hector Quiroz. Recently, Diaz beat Javier Castro by a less than impressive 10-round decision in March. I had Castro winning the fight by at least three rounds.
Diaz’s work rate is low, his hand speed slow and his power not as good as his record would indicate. Judah should be able to win this fight without too many problems. Judah has become a gate keeper in the welterweight division. Supposedly, he’s fighting at light welterweight now, a move that Judah should have made three years ago when he started taking losses. Prediction: Judah by lopsided 12-round decision.
The Chris John vs. Rocky Juarez bout seems altogether unnecessary in my eyes, because appeared to easily beat Juarez in their February bout in Houston, Texas. The judges, however, scored it as a 12-round draw, giving the hometown fighter Juarez a huge gift by doing so. I had Juarez winning only round in the fight, the 12th, and losing the 11 previous rounds.
If the rematch is going to be anything like the first fight, this is going to be a boring bout to watch. John isn’t the most exciting fighter to watch in the first place because of his counter punching skills, but he totally dominated Juarez last time around. There was no suspense in the fight other than wondering how badly Juarez’s face would be cut up by John. Prediction: John by one-sided 12-round decision.
Escobedo-Katsidis is probably the closest thing to being a worthwhile fight to watch, but I don’t think it will be. If this fight had occurred before Katsidis’ losses to Juan Diaz and Joel Casamayor, then I think it would be an entertaining fight. But Katsidis has been looking really timid and gun shy since being stopped by Casamayor in the 10th round in March 2008.
Katsidis used to have a people pleasing style of fighting, kind of like a poor man’s version of Arturo Gatti. However, Katsidis hasn’t looked like that since the Casamayor fight and is now much more careful in mixing it up with his opponents compared to before. Katsidis doesn’t exactly have the greatest of boxing skills, and if he doesn’t slug it out with his opponents, his chances of winning go down dramatically.
I’m not a big fan of Escobedo by a long shot, but I think he’s more than good enough to dominate Katsidis. Right now, Escobedo is ranked high in the lightweight division at number #3 in the WBC and #4 in the WBO, but I see Escobedo more as bottom 10 fighter, if that. Escobedo’s mostly a slugger, but without the power that sluggers typically have.
Escobedo’s defense is poor and his face tends to get badly bruised and marked up in his fights. However, unless Katsidis comes out looking like his old self prior to his losses to Diaz and Casamayor, I see Escobedo stopping Katsidis. Prediction: Escobedo by 8th round TKO.
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