Maidana vs. Lopez Live from the Man Cave
June 8th, 2013
by Joe Calvey
I had a front row seat in my man cave to watch some boxing tuning in as Paulie Malanaggi called it a chess match. That must be announcer-speak for BORING. I call it a result of the soft competition Jemell Charlo has faced prior to meeting Demetrious Hopkins, a tough been around the block 154 lb. fighter. The first real punch of the fight didn’t happen until the 7th round. This was a test, an upgrade in opponents.
Sitting ringside Oscar Delahoya looked like staying awake was a chore in the cool evening of Carson, California where the temperature was 66 degrees in the Home Depot outdoor stadium. Coming from his home in Texas perhaps the cooler weather affected Charlo’s performance.
Charlo is one half of the Fighting Charlos. Two middle weight boxers who combine power, speed and made for television good looks unseen since the likes of Ray Leonard, Shane Mosely and of course Muhammad Ali.
Against the older Hopkins, Charlo was tentative and ineffective through ten rounds when trainer Ronnie Shields admonished his fighter to use his skills and abilities over the final two rounds. The message apparently fell on deaf ears in the eleventh round.
The Showtime announcing team struggled to describe a fight that brought out the displeasure of the crowd. Hopkins, the nephew of Bernard Hopkins fought in a manner that was even less aggressive than Charlo. Neither fighter stayed engaged long enough to make a difference. In the end it a low connect type of fight.
The judges had the fight 115-113 on all of their cards. Charlo had the busier hands and connected more. But this fight was sort of like watching a race between two cars with flat tires.
The crowd came back to life as Erislandy Lara, another of Ronnie Shield’s boxers, stepped into the ring to face Alfredo Angulo. The first round provided more action than the previous bout.
Lara, a light middleweight from Cuba is a southpaw that has faced a number of tough opponents recently rather than the staple of tomato cans used to bulk up a fighter’s win-loss record. Angulo, from Mexico, looks like a modern cave man. His straight forward pound you into submission style entertains. He has no reverse gear. And like Lara he has faced world class competition.
When midway through the 4th round Angulo dropped Lara with a left hook over the top of Lara’s retreating right hand it seemed Angulo was fighting with more urgency after a small cut had opened under his right eye. Lara got out of the round and came back in the 5th round on his wheels staying away from Angulo’s power by dancing away and shooting out jabs.
Angulo injected politics into the fight by wearing trunks with the message "Immigration Reform Now". Such is the beauty of America where a guest, such as Angulo, can make such a statement. Likely Angulo knows diddly squat about the draconian immigration laws in his own country.
So it seemed that the message was appropriately positioned on his ass. If you don’t like America’s laws and cannot abide by them feel free to go back to your country. I bet he doesn’t jack with the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement folks again least they send him to Lara’s hometown of Guantanamo.
Angulo, regardless of his politics is exciting and stalked Lara dropping him a second time in the 9th round before Lara came back in the 10th with more combination shots swelling the left eyebrow area to more than double it’s normally large size then with a straight left hand to that obviously damaged brow Angulo turned away from Lara. The referee immediately called a TKO as Angulo walked to his corner with 1:12 left in the round. With a possibly cracked orbital socket or some other type of eye injury Angulo was led from the ring with a bloody towel covering his face.
This is the type of injury that could end any chance of Angulo moving up much less fighting again. Like a stone mason chipping away at a rock it wasn’t one punch that did all of the damage as Lara had repeatedly connected to Angulo’s face with stiff straight fully extended powerful punches.
It would be hard for the main event between Marcos Maidana and Josesito Lopez to match the action and stunning turn of fortunes the previous fight produced. One thing I learned this evening typing away is that the Showtime announcers are able to read my words before I post them on the Internet. More than once I wrote something only to hear my words come out of one of their mouths. The NSA has nothing on these guys.
Maidana has the look of a stronger fighter. Both men have excellent boxing skills but the thicker bull like appearance of Maidana makes him seem like he will be able to handle Lopez’s power punches.
Through the first three rounds Maidana pressed the action pushing Lopez around at will while Lopez stood in front of him and traded bombs. Neither fighter felt the need to get cute. These were meat and potato fight rounds, raw meat the kind wolves like.
Lopez opened the fourth round connecting with power punches determined to exert his will over Maidana. Under a withering attack Maidan tried to grab Lopez to stop the punishment but slipped to the canvass and took his time getting up. Though he controlled the first three rounds by a fair margin this round he was dominated.
Lopez came out and controlled the 5th round before Maidana until about the 2:30 mark when Maidana seemed to shake off the cobwebs Lopez installed in his head. It seemed like the Argentinean Maidana had regained his advantage.
Unable to put his opponent away in the 4th when he had Maidana reeling would come back to haunt Lopez who was looking flat to open the 6th round. When a combination of punches landed by Maidana along the ropes had Lopez moving back Maidana pressed forward hitting the body with a huge right that he followed with another right to the temple that caused Lopez to drop to the canvas with one knee.
The end came moments later after several big right hands landed flush on Lopez’s head as he stood defenseless in the corner prompting the referee to jump in and stop the fight.
Great fights. With fights coming up in Houston, San Antonio and Laredo this summer that I’ll attend I think tonight I’ll go next to check out what I recorded on HBO.