Boxing Rostrum

It was a busy weekend for top class action, wasn’t it. Apart from those Mosley fireworks, we had Andre Berto retaining his WBC welter belt, Denis Inkin winning the vacant WBO title at super middle, and Juan Carlos Gomez securing a heavyweight championship fight against the survivor of Sam Peter v Vitali Klitschko by easily taking care of Ukranian slowboat Vladimir Virchis in their long delayed WBC eliminator.

Best moment for me, though, was Guillermo Jones capturing WBA cruiserweight honours from proud defender Firat Arslan in a real war. Jones has been a nearly man for such a long time, but he’s got there in the end and I’m delighted for him.

A decade has gone by since the six foot four inch Panamanian twice boxed for the WBA title way down, incredibly, at light middleweight. Both fights were against Laurent Boudouani and Jones could have emerged from either as the champ. First one was a draw, one judge calling it for Guillermo but getting overruled by a couple of tied votes, and even though the Frenchman retained again, by split decision, in their May ’98 rematch the dissenting judge on that occasion had Jones winning it big.

Guillermo suffered a similar fate three years back against the man who is now IBF champ at cruiser, Steve Cunningham. After a non title ten rounder Cunningham captured a 2-1 verdict but, as in the second Boudouani fight, the judge who saw it for Jones scored him a clear winner.

Another huge disappointment for Jones came his way nearly six years ago when he challenged Johnny Nelson at Derby, here in England, for the WBO cruiserweight crown and came up short by way of a draw. That time there was a three way difference of opinion, one judge for each fighter and the other, Larry Hazzard Jnr, seeing it even. What I saw, though, wasn’t a close fight at all. I watched Guillermo Jones beat Johnny Nelson fair and square, then get robbed, and even though there being no British judges involved eased my embarrassment a bit it couldn’t make it go away completely.

Through it all, though, Jones has shown the Glen Johnson spirit, pressing on regardless no matter how many frustrations he’s had to eat along the way. Now, at 36, he’s a champion. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.

Shane Mosley’s last gasp flattening of Ricardo Mayorga was a sensation of the same ilk as Chavez and Meldrick Taylor back in 1990, except that in this instance the fighter losing by stoppage would not have come out a winner had that final round gone all the way.

After eleven rounds Mosley had the lead on two cards, with one of the judges somehow seeing him five points up – presumably eight rounds to three – while the other official scored a one point edge for Mayorga.

The right man won because you can’t argue with that kind of finish, and you have to admire the way Shane pulled it out, but going into the twelfth I thought he needed a knockout to leave the ring victorious.

Except for the sixth round, in which Mosley found the range and put some class together to batter the wild man, I didn’t think Shane really got control of the fight at any stage. Rather than utilize his skills against a naturally bigger and stronger man, Mosley was fighting the guy. Didn’t seem smart at all. But as the piece progressed I got to thinking that maybe Sugar Shane was fighting that way not by choice but because, at 37, he can no longer produce and sustain the sublime stuff of old.

Post-fight, Mosley claimed he thought he was winning anyway even before the stunning finale, but was his demeanour between rounds really that of a guy who believed he was the boss in there. I think not, do you. Sitting on his stool during most intervals, he looked full of doubts to me, and from what was happening in the fight I thought he was right to be concerned.

Be that as it may, pulling off the knockout like he did will have lifted his spirits and made him think, perhaps, that there’s plenty more left in Shane Mosley. Hopefully, though, a bit of reflection in the weeks to come will tell him different and make him recognize that what was a spectacular end to a fight would make a perfect conclusion to a great career.

When Carl Froch meets likewise undefeated Jean Pascal for the vacant WBC super middleweight title in Nottingham come December it won’t be before time.

Carl had been scheduled, not once but twice, to box yet another unbeaten contender, Russia’s Denis Inkin, in WBC final eliminators. The winner would likely have got a retrospective nod as outright champion anyway as soon as Calzaghe officially relinquished, which most might consider to have been incentive enough, but both times Inkin pulled out with claimed injuries. While they could have been genuine the feel was that Inkin just didn’t fancy the job, or at least didn’t want to box on Froch’s turf, and acted accordingly.

After that double frustration Carl was next nominated to fight Jermain Taylor for the vacant WBC crown itself, which Joe Calzaghe had by then given up. That match never came off either. And not through any fault of Carl Froch.

Despite losing those two rousing battles with Kelly Pavlik, Taylor still managed to shine in defeat. Jermain proved himself a class act on each occasion, getting more respect for his abilities than he had before as a winning fighter, and you’d have expected him to jump at the chance to become a champion again right away. Taylor blanked the opportunity, though, opting instead for a meet with Jeff Lacy.

Stylistically, I can see the sense of Jermain Taylor wanting Lacy. Jeff is one brave scrapper, but fully exposed in the limitations department, and shapes as the ideal foe for making Taylor look sensational. But what’s to be gained from it. It could hardly be said with a straight face that beating Lacy is the means to a title shot when an immediate title shot has already been turned down by the former middleweight king. Maybe it really is just a case of nobody wanting to box Carl Froch.

Except for Jean Pascal. That said, with the fight set for December 6th, there’s plenty of time yet for the Canadian to change his mind.

So Amir Khan has ended his arrangement with trainer Jorge Rubio after just a few weeks under the Cuban’s tutelage. It’s a psychological move aimed at absolving the fighter himself for what happened against Breidis Prescott, likewise letting Frank Warren off the hook for sanctioning what turned out to be a disastrous match.

The claim is that it was Rubio who suggested Prescott as an opponent. Maybe he did. Rubio is based in Florida and it’s likely he saw Prescott make his first and, so far, only appearance in the States at Fort Lauderdale in June when the Colombian bomber had to go a full ten rounds for a split decision win over one Richard Abril.

If so, based on that showing, Rubio may well have put Prescott’s name forward as a sound test of the new defensive skills Khan said he and the trainer had been working on. But that wouldn’t make Rubio responsible for Prescott’s presence in the opposite corner at Manchester. Nobody runs Frank Warren’s show but Frank Warren. Warren is the one who okayed the match and Warren is the one who should carry the can for a nothing-to-gain gamble that went entirely against his usual operating principles.

As for blaming Rubio for the actual annihilation of Amir Khan, how ridiculous is that. Khan’s own words emphasized that the trainer’s preoccupation had been with defence, and addressing Amir’s slackness in that area. The fact is that any such learning was ignored on the night by Khan himself, as we might have guessed would be the case when he said beforehand, “I’m going to go in there and do what I always do.”

Why should a man who’d been educating his fighter in the art and craft of self defence be castigated when that fighter, through arrogance or complacency or whatever, decides that he knows better and goes in to show that he, not the other guy, is the puncher on view.

Maybe Khan would have got tagged and blown away no matter how he approached the fight, but that’s not the point here. Jorge Rubio was brought in to do a job and all pre-fight signals were that a decent job was being done, yet there he is, sent back to Florida as the definitive scapegoat.

The next guy, Freddie Roach or otherwise, would do well to take that into account and have an appropriate, and suitably lucrative, clause inserted to cover the possibility of similar bad-taste treatment should Amir Khan again fall short at the first time of asking if, as in this case, the fighter's downfall owes nothing to the work the trainer's put in.

The most disappointing performance on that Manchester bill the other night couldn’t really be attributed to Amir Khan, because he was nailed and derailed before he had the chance to perform at all. And it wasn’t Audley Harrison’s drab plod through ten rounds against a smaller man either, because you knew in advance that Audley would let everybody down yet again. No, the biggest disappointment was provided by Amazing Alex Arthur.

Having been handed the WBO super featherweight title by default when Joan Guzman decided to move up, rather than turn up in Scotland and defend against him, Arthur was looking to the fight with Nicky Cook to cement his status as a proper champion. Right from the off, though, he never looked like doing it.

The only amazing thing about Arthur here was his inability to get into the fight. Cook showed his own pre-fight confidence was for real by starting out fast with sharp boxing and good movement, and he bossed most of the first half that way except for round four where Arthur landed some solid shots and showed himself in those moments to be the heavier hitter of the two. We saw it again near the end of the seventh when Arthur landed the hardest single punch of the fight, a right hand that distorted Nicky’s face on impact and had him badly shaken for a second or so, but by and large it was Cook doing the scoring and the slower Scotsman doing the missing. A surprise at the end was judge Terry O’Connor’s card showing just one point between them. Everybody else, including Arthur, knew Cook was out of sight.

Arthur wasn’t overwhelmed but, to me, had the jaded look of a fighter in decline. He might now switch to lightweight, having been tight at super feather for quite some time, but I don’t believe even that would refresh Alex’s fortunes. Should Arthur’s promoter Frank Warren agree with that assessment and feel the Scot can no longer be a winner on the big stage, at whatever weight, he may well consider him a worthwhile sacrifice as the recovery vehicle for Amir Khan.

As for Audley Harrison, fight videos involving the big southpaw should be made available on prescription for use by stressed out people in need of a good kip. After his usual soporific display in outpointing George Arias, Audley gave us the routine overview of how he'll go on to become heavyweight champion, how he’s still a work in progress, how we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. At least that last bit's right. We ain’t. And we ain’t going to.

Supposed new defensive awareness and a more controlled approach to his boxing from Amir Khan didn’t show themselves in Manchester last night. Turns out that was a big mistake, but we might have suspected a lack of caution on his part when Amir said beforehand he was going to go in there and “do what I always do.”

Instead of easing his way into things, and showing a bit of respect for Breidis Prescott’s knockout record while checking out the Colombian’s style and method, Khan near enough sprinted across the ring to get it on straight away at the opening bell. Prescott, who had pledged mayhem, was delighted to oblige him.

When a fight is over so quickly you can’t always draw definite conclusions because just about anybody can be caught cold, but this was an overwhelming defeat.

Amir made no excuses and said he’ll learn from it and come back stronger and better. He means it too, but can he ever recover mentally from what had to be a humiliating experience. And although his heart’s big enough for the job, what about his chin.

Khan’s been dropped before by lesser men, and responded with shows of spirit and class. What happened last night was different. The punches that knocked him out would knock him out again. More worrying still, Prescott first seemed to hurt him, or at least get a reaction, with a jab that didn’t land flush but just caught Amir at the side of his mouth. Doesn’t bode well for the future, does it.

When you box at top level you’re going to get hit, no matter how good a boxer you are, and, while not all lightweights might be able to punch like Prescott, most of the good ones come with decent power. If Amir Khan can’t absorb a good whack on the chops his world aspirations are already dead, and that would be sad because Amir is a lovely down to earth kid with exceptional boxing ability which has not yet been fully developed.

If it isn’t going to happen, though, no point moping over what might have been. The championship ring is, as ever, an unforgiving place where any glaring weakness is ruthlessly exposed.

Scraping the desperation barrel, Khan might get some sort of lift from knowing that Jack Dempsey and Emile Griffith both got knocked out inside a round yet still went on to greatness. So it can be done. But history hasn’t thrown up many like those two, has it. And Dempsey and Griffith, unlike Khan, never otherwise looked fragile in long careers that saw both up against the best men of their times.

No matter how much encouragement he gets from history, or from those around him, and no matter how hard he works at his game from here on, it looks like Amir Khan will have a struggle to survive, let alone thrive, in world class company.

How good is Breidis Prescott? Hard to tell. He looked awesome in there alright but, despite the devastation, the fight didn’t last long enough for us to make a proper judgement of his abilities, did it. For that we need to see him over a number of rounds against a top grade boxer. Might not happen any time soon, though. Breidis is now positioned to start calling out the top men but after what we did see of him last night I can’t imagine those top guys being in any hurry to answer the call.

Amir Khan’s new trainer Jorge Rubio says Khan needs another two or three fights before thinking about world titles. Frank Warren had hinted at it without outright saying as much but the path now seems to be firmly set, and provided Amir gets past a motivated Breidis Prescott in Manchester tonight I reckon those next couple of fights will see him in against experienced old hands who have at least competed at top level.

Khan has been working on defensive skills with Rubio and says there is already a huge improvement in that area. We shall see. We’ll also see whether the Cuban can get Amir to stay calm and stick to his boxing, even if Prescott’s in his face tonight, demanding a tear up. A disciplined display of fast, sharp punches, while staying mobile and defensively alert, might gradually break down Breidis Prescott to a point where he’s weakened enough for Khan to step in and end things with a flourish, but if Prescott proves too tough to break down Amir would do just as well to take the points and do it the long way. Khan might not care how he wins tonight so long as he does, but, with the future in mind, I’d say it’s crucial he makes a start to his partnership with Rubio by winning via a solid show of all round skills.

That’s not something we’re likely to see from Michael Katsidis against Juan Diaz in Houston tonight. Stands to be a rip roaring battle but I have to side with Diaz because Katsidis, though strong and heavy handed, is a one dimensional wide open slugger. Michael lets it all hang out, including his chin, and Diaz, who tucks up tight and fights in bursts, should find the Aussie to his liking once the early fire has died a little.

It has to be a round-after-round thriller, though, whatever happens and however long it lasts. I don’t think Katsidis has a long future in the game because of the punches he takes, especially to the head, but you have to tip your hat to the way he goes about his work. Boxing has recently shown signs of a revival as a mass appeal sport, and the passion Katsidis brings to all his fights has made a definite contribution to that.

Can’t agree with all the negative talk about Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. They gave us a decent enough scrap and I certainly wasn’t disappointed because even though what we saw was far from a brilliant heavyweight title fight it was still a lot better than I’d feared it would be.

Few want to give Valuev any credit no matter what he does in the ring, probably on account of that freakish size, but he performed okay here with his improved, snappier jab the fight’s dominant weapon. And Ruiz did okay too. He said he’d come to fight, not hold and mess about, and fight is what he tried to do. You can’t do more than give your best and both men managed that, so I’ve got no complaints about the action itself. I even thought it was mildly entertaining at times.

The problems began after the fight was over. After a long wait it was announced as a split decision in favour of Valuev, which seemed odd to me because I don’t really see how any impartial watcher could have made a case for John when the Russian’s jab and one-two combinations had given him a clear edge. But at least they came up with the right winner.

Much later, though, we learned that the verdict had actually been unanimous, that judge Takeshi Shimawaka’s card should have read 114-113 to Valuev, not Ruiz, but hadn't come out that way because the WBA supervisor had “accidentally” counted the last round for John when Shimawaka had marked it for Nikolay.

What does that mean? In checking Shimawaka’s card did the supervisor in question, Robert Mack, come to round twelve and have a sudden attack of numerical dyslexia, seeing 10 for Ruiz and 9 for Valuev, instead of the other way round as it seems had been written. And, if that were the case, what happened next. Did Mack then take out his pen and reverse the marks for that particular round, or did he just change the overall count accordingly and ink Ruiz rather than Valuev as a one point victor.

Either way Mack, or somebody, must have altered Shimawaka’s card. How else could the “wrong” tally have been presented to Michael Buffer for announcement. And how could anybody make changes to a judge’s scorecard without first consulting the judge himself about any perceived mistake. And if he was consulted, how come Shimawaka didn’t point out to the arithmetically challenged Mack that there was no mistake, that his card had been clearly marked and properly totalled in the first place. Beats me.

The whole thing was pathetic and embarrassing. How hard is it to add up a column of twelve numbers, in this case a mixture only of 10s and 9s. And if there is some query on the sums, how long should it take to sort it. It’s not like they didn’t have time to get things right, is it. An age went by between the fight’s last bell and Buffer calling that cocked-up result.

Bottom line: what do they give these people for brains.

Frank Warren could be forgiven for getting paranoid after seeing mutually beneficial relationships with Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe soured then destroyed, those two fighters having now gone their own way through the emergence of Hatton Promotions and Calzaghe Promotions. Seems like something of a trend, doesn’t it, with cruiserweight champ turned heavyweight hopeful David Haye going down the same road with the creation of Hayemaker Promotions.

And despite Amir Khan having recently signed a long term contract with Warren – actual length undisclosed – Frank may already be bracing himself for the eventual launch of Khan Promotions. If I didn’t know better it would be tempting to believe that risking Khan against puncher Breidis Prescott next Saturday might be Warren’s way of taking revenge on Amir in advance of his jumping ship like Joe and Ricky!

Not the case, of course. Someone as shrewd as Frank Warren wouldn’t let emotions get in the way of business and doing what’s necessary to generate maximum lucre for himself, an aim that wouldn’t be served by getting Khan beaten. There’s no denying, though, that Warren is acting out of character in approving this match.

Like any responsible guardian, Frank always looks to protect his boxers. That means not putting them in with people he thinks they can’t beat, but also means not putting them at unnecessary risk, nor putting them at risk where benefits to be had from it don’t merit the gamble.

That’s the puzzle. Amir Khan has nothing whatsoever to gain from beating Breidis Prescott, but losing to the Colombian would kick everything right up in the air.

From what he’s said, Amir seems to think Prescott is well known in the States, which, if true, would make him a meaningful opponent. Not the case, though, is it. Prescott may prove a worthy foe on the night but he’s certainly not well known in the U.S.A. having boxed there only once when copping a split decision last time out against Cuban born Richard Abril.

Breidis Prescott is showing 19-0 as a pro. He has 17 wins inside schedule. Those numbers say he’s dangerous, even if the calibre of fighter he’s been downing isn’t so hot, and I don’t think we should read too much into Prescott’s failure to announce himself on American soil with yet another knockout. Could just be that Abril has a great chin.

Of the punches Breidis threw in that fight, more than a third were body shots. That kind of ratio is rare with fighters today, and Prescott was penalized a point for a low blow in the eighth, an indication perhaps that he’s not too fussy where his punches land. As long as it’s not persistently blatant, though, you wouldn’t be too concerned about that, would you. Boxing’s a tough business. The toughest. And anyway, the ref’s there to see fair play. But it all hints at the possibility of a tough night’s work for Khan.

Further indications from the Abril fight are that Prescott takes a decent shot himself. Abril, likewise unbeaten beforehand, has five very quick wins on his log including a first round stoppage of gutsy Derrick Samuels who just last week took light welter prospect of sorts, Marvin Cordova Jnr (20-0-1), to a split verdict. His treatment of Samuels suggests Abril is a more than lively banger, so if we take it for granted he landed some of his best shots on Prescott in the course of their hard fought ten rounder we can also assume that Breidis, if nothing else, is not the sort of brittle knockout artist who turns to rubble the first time somebody hits him back hard.

Breidis Prescott is lean and hungry and physically primed to go ten hard rounds if that’s what’s called for. Saturday represents an opportunity for him, not Khan, and I’ve no doubt Breidis has belief as well as hope that he’s going to win. His compatriot Cesar Canchilla, who lives and trains fanatically alongside Prescott in the same primitive conditions, set him an example by going in against Giovanni Segura as a big underdog in a fight for the WBA interim light flyweight title but coming out a big winner. It was the televised preliminary to Cotto-Margarito at the MGM Grand in Vegas and, if the main event had somehow failed to deliver, the battle of those little men would have left the crowd with something to thrill over instead.

A torrid punch up saw the stronger Segura on top early, with Cesar down in round two, but from there on an unrelenting Canchilla was the boss. He raked the Mexican with combinations all night long, upstairs and down, and Segura did well to see out the full trip. It was a terrific performance by the winner. They gave him his chance and, against the odds, he grabbed it. Prescott has promised us something similar.

The threat posed by Breidis Prescott come Saturday, though, is being disregarded in the same way Canchilla’s chances had been dismissed beforehand, or at least that’s the message from British bookies who have it a virtual walkover. Prescott is widely available at 9/1 while a Khan victory is being quoted in some places as short as 1/40. Risking forty to win one? I don’t think so, do you.

Put it this way. Horse racing is a bookmaker’s main field of expertise and if you came across a two horse race where the form figures were comparable to the records of these two fighters, no way would you be seeing anything like the odds mentioned above.

I expect Amir Khan’s outstanding natural talent will bring him victory, but I wouldn’t try to put anybody off having some of that juicy 9/1 about the visitor.