411 Prizefight Preview: Tripleheader Edition
Posted by Matt Knowles on 05.16.2008
This Saturday night from Primm, Nevada, we will be treated to a rare HBO tripleheader featuring some of the fastest-rising young stars in the sport!
Hello again my fellow boxing buffs, and welcome back to the 411mania Prizefight Preview! Following a beautiful vacation to SoCal for the De La Hoya Tres de Mayo celebration, I am now fully recovered from the ruthless sunburns that Redondo Beach inflicted on my formerly-pale complexion. Seeing Oscar come out victorious was basically an afterthought, but the energy from the crowd at the Home Depot Center that night was something special, with 27,000+ Oscar fanatics going wild for his every subtle flinch. Nice to see the Golden Boy get a notch in the win column before he loses another decision to pound-for-pound god Floyd Mayweather. But I digress…
This Saturday, we are in for a big treat as HBO presents a triple-header from Primm, Nevada, as three of the top prospects in the prizefight business will each be tested against their toughest competitors to date. Each bout is intriguing on some level, due to the mysteries surrounding both the touted future stars and their more-than-capable opponents. Before we look ahead to these bouts, let's look back at some of the previous HBO triple-header showcases.
This is why Ruiz clinches so much now
In March 1996, the network rolled the dice in Atlantic City with a triple-header featuring an assortment of heavyweight contenders. The results of the card were unpredictable, to say the least. In the first bout, David Tua burst on to the boxing scene with a 19-second demolition of John Ruiz. This may be the most widely-viewed YouTube KO in the history of that site, due to what I like to refer to as its "graphic beauty." Who would have thought, 12 years down the road, that Ruiz would be a former 2-time WBA champ, with Tua having come-and-gone from the sport on a few occasions, with his management team (and body weight) all over the place?
Bout #2 was a big upset as Shannon Briggs was starched in round 3 by the unheralded Darroll Wilson. Briggs eventually became a major player with his win over George Foreman, followed by a gutsy effort against Lennox Lewis, and in the twilight of his floundering career, a short WBO title run after dramatically beating defending champ Sergei Liakhovitch. Wilson was rewarded for his victory over Briggs with…a showdown with Tua, which is another 1st-round KO that has been deemed YouTube worthy (Tua circa '96 was a thing of beauty).
Andrew Golota capped off the evening by out-gunning (and out-fouling) Donnell Nicholson, which launched Golota into a 3-fight losing streak with 2 DQ losses to Riddick Bowe, followed by a 1-round beat-down at the hands of Lennox Lewis. Looking back, it would seem that the winners and losers on this particular night didn't accurately represent the future successes and failures for each man's boxing future.
In the Summer of 2004, we were treated to another triple-header featuring some of the best prospects in the lighter weight classes making their first appearances on the world stage. The opening bout from deep in the heart of Texas saw Kermit Cintron defeat Teddy Reid with a highlight-reel, overhand-right KO in round 8 to win the interim WBO title. Next up was one of the more suspicious moments in recent history as Rocky Juarez, along with his side-kick/referee Robert Gonzalez, won a close decision over Zahir Raheem, in a bout where Gonzalez' yelling and distraction tactics towards Raheem made Gonzalez the poster child for sketchy hometown refereeing. In the main event, Juan Diaz won his first lightweight title belt by defeating defending WBA champ Lavka Sim in a 12-round blow-out.
Now, we look forward to this weekend's triple-header, as Yuriorkis Gamboa, Alfred Angulo, and James Kirkland all look to catch the eyes of the boxing public in separate bouts. Obviously, based on the previous shows of this caliber, we are in for some surprise endings and wacky occurrences!
Who will be the "Tua" of the show and make the loudest statement? Will this statement possibly be "too much too soon" in their career, as it was for the TuaMan?
Will anyone get KO'd in "Briggs-esque" style? Will that KO loss affect their future, or will they bounce back to win a belt?
Can we expect a back and forth slug-fest that can duplicate Cintron-Reid? Will a young star emerge as the "class of the class," as Juan Diaz had done back in Houston in '04?
Will any fighter EVER throw an intentional head-butt as brutally as Golota did against Nicholson?
Alright let's forget about that last one…
I've now posed the questions; let's search for some answers!
The fight that I feel will steal the show on Saturday is the match-up between Alfredo Angulo and Richard Gutierrez. Both men are on hot streaks as of late, with Angulo coming off of 8 straight early round KO's, while Gutierrez has recovered well from his only pro defeat (a decision loss vs. Josh Clottey, nothing to frown upon) with 3 straight wins, one being a brutal KO victory against Teddy Reid.
Being that Gutierrez has been accustomed to fighting 10 rounds and beyond, I would anticipate that his game-plan would be to take Angulo into deep waters to see how well his conditioning will hold up. Angulo, on the other hand, looks to end things early against all of his opponents. It will be very interesting to see which man will be able to impose their style and set the pace, considering how different their styles of fighting are. Gutierrez has proven that he has a pretty solid chin, so I believe that Angulo may be taken the distance, even if he scores an early round KD or 2. Either way, I expect to see a lot of leather flying in both directions in this one!
The bout with the greatest potential for an upset would have to be the lightweight showdown between Yuriorkis Gamboa of Cuba and Darling Jimenez of Puerto Rico. Jimenez has generally stayed active over the past few years, and has competed at the ESPN/Telefutura under-card level, with his one notable win coming in his last bout to Mike Anchondo (who, it turns out, was a grossly over-rated fighter thru most of his career). Gamboa, a 2004 Olympian, has completely mowed down his competition so far in his career, with 9 straight wins, 8 by KO. He is already slated to fight on June 27 in Vegas, the night before the Pacquiao-Diaz lightweight title bout.
Due to his professional inexperience, and the notion that he may be looking ahead to his next scheduled bout, I would have to say that Gamboa is the most vulnerable fighter on the card to the "Briggs-esque" exit. If Darling Jimenez comes to fight, and stays busy for 10 straight rounds, he could pull off the big upset.
In the main event, we have out most difficult fight to predict, as 24-year old prospect James Kirkland faces his first real test when he goes toe-to-toe with Eromosele Albert, who defeated the ageless Ramon "Yori Boy Campas" just two bouts ago. Considering how bad Kirkland's competition has been, even 21 bouts deep, it's a shock that he's skipping so many levels by taking the Albert match-up at this stage of his career. To say that he's been "protected" up to this point is a big understatement. Albert, on the other hand, has steadily stepped up the competition with each progressive bout.
Conventional wisdom would say that Albert has a good chance at the upset here if he is able to play good D when Kirkland rushes in for KO opportunities. Albert is accustomed to going the distance against his best opponents, so he'll be looking to stretch this bout as long as he possibly can. Kirkland will no doubt be looking to make a "Tua" type-of statement with a vicious, fan-friendly KO, so we'll have to wait and see who is able to take the pace of the fight into their own two hands.
Regardless of who wins or loses on Saturday night, we should be in for some entertaining prizefight action. All six combatants should use the butterflies in their respective stomachs to their advantage by fighting passionately and competitively in their first big-time showcase event.
Hopefully, one or two of these cats will end up winning world title belts in the near future, and we can all say how we "called it" due to their impressive HBO debut on May 17, 2008. I hope that personally I can hit the nail on the head this time around, because frankly, my track record with predictions following these triple-headers has been…to put it mildly …garbage!
In March '96, I can remember saying: "We'll never see John Ruiz in another HBO fight." Right before that, I predicted: "David Tua is the future of the sport."
Then, in March '04, I proclaimed: "Cintron is going to terrorize the welterweight division." Followed by: "Juarez will take the torch from Barrera, Morales, and Marquez. He's the future star of the featherweight division."
So…who will I be wrong about THIS YEAR?
Be on the look-out for my boldly inaccurate predictions for these six fighters in next week's column….until then…
