There are enjoyable fights that aren’t important, like Gatti-Ward I. There are important fights that aren’t enjoyable, like Hopkins-Taylor II. And there are enjoyable fights that are important: Castillo-Corrales I, II, III. Somewhere in the middle of that triangle belongs Jhonny Gonzalez versus Fernando Montiel – but don’t tell anyone in Carson, California.
It seems the city of Carson, located between Los Angeles and Long Beach and boasting about 90,000 residents, had other things to do last Saturday night than fill Home Depot Center for a bantamweight title fight. But since someone had to attend the event, Carson either nominated or imported about 3,000 of the finickiest boxing fans in its reach. And they disapproved of everything they saw.
How unfortunate. Any fan who’d done his homework would have known Jhonny Gonzalez isn’t Marco Antonio Barrera, and Fernando Montiel isn’t Erik Morales. Gonzalez and Montiel are Mexican prizefighters with their own styles. That those styles aren’t wild or impulsive doesn’t make them bad. In fact, Jhonny Gonzalez won a split decision over Fernando Montiel last Saturday – 116-112, 113-115, 118-111 – in a fight that was probably better than June 10’s main events will be.
But the Carson fans booed Gonzalez and Montiel because they didn’t share enough crazed exchanges. Jhonny Gonzalez exchanges, however, are rarely as crazed as they appear. An example of this happened eight months ago when Jhonny faced a relentless Nicaraguan named William Gonzalez, in a Tucson fight broadcast by HBO Latino. In that fight, one which had five knockdowns in three rounds, Jhonny Gonzalez actually played the role of a controlled counterpuncher.
Two months later, Jhonny returned to Tucson for boxing’s inaugural World Cup and stole the show – knocking out Ratanachai Sor Vorapin in another bout that saw Gonzalez continue as a methodical counterpuncher until he’d hurt his opponent.
That same night, Fernando Montiel outboxed a sensationally fast Thai fighter named Pramuansak Phosawan. Like Gonzalez, though, Montiel did not go after his opponent. Instead, he made regular adjustments to his foe’s attacking style and gradually wore Phosawan down. Fernando proved himself a careful, intelligent champion.
But then somehow, perhaps to improve ticket sales, expectations for last Saturday’s Gonzalez-Montiel match got raised to a Barrera-Morales-IV level. This may have been unfair to fans in Carson. But Carson’s reaction to what Jhonny Gonzalez and Fernando Montiel then did for eleven of their twelve rounds was just as unfair.
It is fair, however, to exclude Round 1 from any roster of last Saturday’s enjoyable stanzas. Through the first 2:30 of the fight, both Gonzalez and Montiel circled tentatively and waited for something to counter-punch. Not till the round’s final minute did Jhonny Gonzalez throw and land his first authoritative punch.
In the next two rounds Gonzalez then attempted to utilize his superior size against Montiel. Jhonny began to walk toward Fernando, throwing hard left hooks to Fernando’s body. But Montiel absorbed those punches well and slipped many of Gonzalez’s bigger swings at his head. The strong body shots that Gonzalez was able to land, though, were barely audible – as the fans’ growing disapproval drowned them out.
In Rounds 4 and 5, Fernando Montiel made adjustments enough to have Jhonny Gonzalez miss with most punches. Montiel also began to land precision counterpunches – utilizing his superior speed and almost-equivalent strength. He fought as though he were the larger man. And while he never appeared to hurt Jhonny Gonzalez, he certainly appeared to have Jhonny frustrated.
That happened throughout the fight. Both Gonzalez and Montiel adhered to their plans, and neither was able to force the other to abandon his preferred style. The six and seventh rounds each featured pugilists who couldn’t quite do as they’d hoped. Montiel was too fast for Gonzalez to catch on the way in; and Gonzalez was too fast for Montiel to charge carelessly.
But through its first twenty minutes, the fight was tactical and technically proficient. And yet, the fight’s audience was disgusted. The boos that rained on the fighters for most of the match then began to come down on even the ringcard girl – whose benign Round-8 card became a next target for the fans’ bizarre displeasure.
The eighth round, however, would be a good one. In its second minute, Jhonny stopped waiting for Fernando and became more offensive. He touched Fernando with his jab then shot a straight-right behind it. In Round 9, Jhonny landed an even larger right hand that appeared to stun Montiel.
Then when the closing bell rang, the two fighters kept swinging. The night’s best punch would be the left hook that Jhonny Gonzalez landed at 3:03 of Round 9. That left hook snapped Montiel’s head backwards and sent his mouthpiece flying out of the ring.
The tenth and eleventh rounds each had good exchanges. But none was more frantic than what closed Round 10. Both fighters briefly abandoned their respective styles and winged punches for the last thirty seconds of the round. And by the end of the eleventh, it was difficult not to credit Fernando Montiel with creating the illusion that his power was equal to Gonzalez’s.
But it was the last illusion that Fernando Montiel tried to create – the illusion he’d won the fight – that probably cost him the twelfth round on most scorecards. In a misplaced impersonation of his hero Sugar Ray Leonard, Fernando Montiel raised his hands over his head in the fight’s final ten seconds. Jhonny Gonzalez took that opening and pounded Montiel with as many punches as he could unleash in what time remained.
Ultimately the twelfth-round score did not change the judges’ decision. Fewer than 1,000 fans remained in Home Depot Center by the time ring announcer Michael Buffer read that decision. But in a final and ironic turn, Judge Chuck Hasset’s unbalanced 118-111 scorecard was the worst happening of the night. And nobody was left to boo it.