Weekend Wrap-up March 6th
by Mike Hanson
It was a decent fight weekend with multiple cards on the television. Friday night started it off with a good ESPN card. We got to see prospect Rico Ramos keep moving forward with a 4th round KO of Cecilio Santos. I definitely think it is time for Ramos to step up the competition and start getting the attention that Gamboa and Lopez are. The featherweight division is getting stacked with good young prospects. The main event was Martin Honorio trying to capitalize on his victory over John Molina. He took on tough young prospect Wilton Hilario. Unfortunately for Hilario, Honorio exposed him as a one dimensional fighter. Someone needs to teach Hilario how to throw a jab.
Saturday night brought us dueling cards. First on Showtime we had a good scrap between a couple of limited fighters in Leonardo Zappavigna and Fernando Angulo. It’s funny how people get on HBO announcers for rooting for certain fighters, yet Showtime does it time and time again. According to the announcers Angulo was robbed in this fight. That wasn’t even remotely the case as Zappavigna easily won five of the first six rounds. Angulo did come on strong at the end but it wasn’t enough. I had it 115-112 for Zappa. Another thing is Zappavigna was clearly cut by a headbutt as the replay showed the one time Showtime replayed it. Not sure why they didn’t keep showing it other than their blatant rooting for Angulo.
In the main event, Vic Darchiyan had an easy time with unknown Rodrigo Guerrero but that was some chin the challenger had on him as he was able to last the distant with the tough Armenian. I think this fight will earn Guerrero some paydays in the future. Darchiyan needs a rematch with Donaire and if he doesn’t get it then he needs to move up to bantamweight.
HBO had the fight everyone wanted to see this weekend with a bout between two of the top welterweights in the game. Must people would mention their alphabet belts here but I just can’t talk about rankings and titles from the corrupt organizations and the only rankings that will be mentioned in this blog are the Ring rankings. Devon Alexander fought a great fight against Juan Urango. Most expected him to outbox the slow and plodding Urango but Alexander landed multiple bombs en route to stopping Urango with a beautifully timed uppercut in the 8th round. It was the first time Urango has been stopped. I think Alexander jumped into the top 2 or 3 welterweights for me with this bout. He might even have moved ahead of Bradley in my eyes with the win.
Next weekend the only televised bout is the PPV between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey. I am not buying it because in my eyes it is a clear and easy mismatch. You have a slow, stone footed, non busy fighter in Clottey against Pacquiao. The PacMan camp clearly knew what they were doing when they avoided Mayweather and picked up Clottey as an opponent. Also the undercard just isn’t very good. As the fight draws closer I might change my mind but if not Weekend Wrap-up next week will be more of a preview for the following weekend.
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