On the surface, I could have put my notes on a post-it. Joe Calzaghe stopped Peter Manfredo Jr. by a third round TKO and that’s that. No surprises. Calzaghe was just far too quick, had superior skills, and the fight ended as expected.
Yet, some matters continue to irk me.
Let’s begin with the incredibly premature stoppage by referee Terry O’Connor. (We would have been better off with Sandra Day O’Connor – she made some good decisions in her time.) Close to the midway point of round three, Manfredo was on the ropes and Calzaghe’s fast hands were firing away, with Manfredo offering nothing back in return. O’Connor stepped in and stopped the fight at 1:30 of the round.
But if you watched the fight closely you saw that Manfredo was never hurt, blocked the majority of the punches with his forearms and gloves, and was bobbing and ducking to make Calzaghe miss. Defensively at least, Manfredo appeared sharp. At the time of the stoppage Calzaghe had thrown 92 punches in the round, yet landing only 26. 92 punches is a lot of leather to throw in half a round and 66 is a huge number of misses to sap your energy. You have to at least be curious as to what might have happened if Manfredo, who had only thrown 13 punches in the round, connecting on only three, had managed to bob and weave his way off the ropes. Could Calzaghe have punched himself out? Would it have affected him in the remainder of the fight?
Fighting at home as usual, this time at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, before 35,000 rabid Calzaghe fans, Joe had enough of an advantage just in ability without being awarded a gift stoppage. Theoretically, a fighter of his stature should have a Manfredo for lunch with no benefits from the officials. The way he turned his arms like pistons, disdaining the body in the third round indicates that he was looking to impress someone, perhaps the huge crowd, maybe the HBO suits, and from a distance it probably did look as if he was killing Manfredo, but O’Connor should have been more perceptive.
The cynical side of me wonders. Calzaghe’s promoter, Frank Warren, was seen just outside the squared circle yelling into the ring just as O’Connor stopped the fight. Did he influence O’Connor or was he just cheering on his client?
The HBO production and announcing team did not enjoy their best performance. The announcers, Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Emmanuel Steward all agreed that the stoppage was premature but indicated that it was inevitable anyway. If Joe’s punches were landing, I might agree. Despite the bias for the HBO fighter that we have come to expect, I would expect them to be more candid about such a bad call, particularly Merchant.
One comes away with a distinct impression that the sole purpose of this fight was to showcase Calzaghe for future fights and Manfredo was just the perfect patsy. He was a name by virtue of his days on “The Contender,” adding to the box office, he is basically a middleweight who had fought twice at 168, he is not a puncher, (literally, he only landed 16 punches in the fight), and he was willing to travel to Cardiff for his shot, a task too tall for more talented Americans who have fought overseas only to get jobbed.
As they are prone to do for their stars, HBO produced a mini-documentary on the Pride of Wales in his hometown. By contrast, one of the major sub-plots to the fight, that of Sugar Ray Leonard advising Manfredo in the wake of Freddie Roach’s unavailability due to his commitment to Oscar De La Hoya, was just briefly mentioned briefly by the announcing team in the second round, and Leonard was nowhere to be seen on the HBO camera. If he did or did not advise the corner, or if he was even seated is unknown because it was never addressed by the HBO team.
Here’s the bottom line -this fight could be Exhibit “A” in the case that HBO is as much of a promoter as Golden Boy, Arum, or King. The Calzaghe -Manfredo Jr. fight was one baby step away from being an exhibition. They never took Manfredo seriously because they didn’t have to, and while it may be true that Calzaghe would inevitably have won anyway without the premature stoppage, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work in a serious prizefight.
HBO has now served up two softballs for Calzaghe, Sakio Bika and Manfredo, as they have done in the past for their house fighters, and the time has come for him to fight a viable opponent, such as Jermain Taylor or Mikkel Kessler, whose name kept popping up throughout the broadcast, particularly by Merchant. Yet Larry rather brusquely cut off Frank Warren in the post fight interview when he was attempting to explain their position on that fight.
So Warren issued a press release after the fight that he had offered Kessler a multi-million dollar purse, including his keeping the German and Danish TV rights for a unification fight this summer. According to the release, Kessler countered with a demand for parity and a 50/50 split on everything.
I would have liked to have heard that information on the broadcast, and also Merchant’s follow up questions.
CHICO IS ALL MAN
At least the Diego Corrales-Joshua Clottey fight was entertaining, even if one-sided. You have to give Corrales credit for a huge heart and great courage. But, when you come out of your third loss in a row, dripping blood from a cut right eye, a broken jaw and nose, and you’ve been floored twice in the process, it’s time to be looking at the classified ads under “help wanted.”
Chico is a true warrior and always makes exciting fights. He did last Saturday too, although he was on the losing end of a 97-90, 98-89, 100-87 unanimous decision. He’s always been a puncher with a suspect chin and he did land consistently against Clottey, but he just couldn’t hurt him. On the flip side, Clottey had Diego’s head bopping up and down and side to side all night with brutal power punches.
Corrales should be credited for being a survivor, ending the fight on his feet as he did, but now, enough. Clottey is a very good welterweight in a division stacked with excellent ones.
There’s no way Corrales can make it at 147 and I doubt 140 will be much better for him at this point. He’s an “old” 29 who has been through too many wars. The first Castillo fight alone might have shortened his career. And now that he can no longer make the weight at 135, and maybe not even 140, everyone he fights will have a stronger punch and more resilience, the same as Clottey last week. He’s trapped and it’s time to go.
Ironically, the other winner besides Clottey was Golden Boy Promotions, who had signed Corrales to a multi-fight contract with a six figure bonus only to find out that he had an existing contract with Gary Shaw, and then dropped their claims on him.