In the 1994 film “The Shawshank Redemption,” Andy Dufresne takes a small rock hammer –about the weight of a sparring glove – and slowly bores through the wall of a northern New England prison. Eventually Andy manages to overcome the prison’s wall with time and pressure. This Saturday night when we turn on HBO’s “Boxing After Dark,” we might consider the lesson of Andy Dufresne’s persistence.
Though this week’s lightweight unification bout between WBA champ Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz and WBO champ Acelino “Popo” Freitas will happen in Mashantucket, Connecticut, a southern quadrant of New England, and though Juan Diaz will be wearing two gloves with a collective weight not quite that of a rock hammer, time and pressure should prove as important to Juan Diaz’ approach as they were to Andy Dufresne’s.
Hold on. Didn’t the WBA Heavyweight Championship of the World just change hands? Why should anyone preview a lightweight bout when he could be writing about boxing’s flagship division?
Here’s why. It’s time for boxing writers to imitate other sportswriters and declare a moratorium on coverage of the heavyweight division until its champions start fighting unification bouts. That is, unless two or more belts from the major sanctioning bodies – WBC, WBA, IBF or WBO – are going to be ringside for a heavyweight championship fight, we need to stop enervating fans with details of the heavyweight division.
Besides, 65 or more pounds away, some interesting stuff is happening in the lightweight division. There are WBC champs David Diaz and Joel Casamayor; there’s IBF champ Julio Diaz; and there are WBA and WBO champs Juan Diaz and Acelino Freitas.
Four sanctioning bodies, five champions and three Diazes? “Interesting” is one word for it.
That there are two WBC champions, however, is more of a commentary on the World Boxing Council than on either of its lightweight title holders. It seems that David Diaz was the “interim” champion until Joel Casamayor agreed to fight in Panama on Roberto Duran’s birthday.
Oh, and there was also the need for Mexican hero Erik “El Terrible” Morales to have a belt in play when he moved up to the lightweight division. That seems to be how the word “interim” came off David Diaz’ green and gold strap. But here’s a quick note about that: Despite a report published by the Chicago “Sun-Times” on April 13, Top Rank’s Lee Samuels assured 15Rounds.com that no contract for a David Diaz and Erik Morales fight had been signed, on April 14.
That gives “El Terrible” a chance to realize his last great fight was his first fight with Manny Pacquiao and announce his retirement. Then David Diaz can fight IBF champ Julio Diaz – who properly concedes there are “too many Diazes” in the lightweight division. The winner of that scrap can fight Joel Casamayor in a WBC/WBC/IBF unification match.
Symmetrically enough, by then there will already be a WBA/WBO lightweight champ. That returns us to this Saturday night. Juan Diaz versus Acelino Freitas is as compelling a match as “Boxing After Dark” has featured in quite a while. In fact, Diaz-Freitas is more deserving of an “HBO World Championship Boxing” slot than any heavyweight fight in the last year.
What makes Diaz-Freitas compelling? Styles make fights. Loosely defined, Juan Diaz is what author Joe Frazier would call a “volume puncher” – someone who throws enormous numbers of blows and pressures his foe continually, much as Joe Frazier once did. Acelino Freitas, meanwhile, is a “slugger” – one who hits onrushing foes with tremendous power, much as George Foreman once did to Frazier.
There’s a third type of style; the “boxer” – whose best current practitioner in the lightweight division is Joel Casamayor. The general rule is that a volume puncher like Juan Diaz wears down a boxer – which is why Joel Casamayor would rather be in Panama than in a ring with Juan Diaz.
But that same rule says a volume puncher will impale himself on a slugger’s fists. That’s what ensures this Saturday’s fight will be a suspenseful one. Acelino Freitas, with 32 knockouts in 39 prizefights, can slug. And where a boxer like Casamayor could defend himself well enough to frustrate Freitas, Juan Diaz will be too busy throwing punches to block them.
Another thing that makes Saturday’s fight suspenseful is that every Juan Diaz fight is suspenseful. Despite his soft appearance, Juan Diaz is better conditioned than arguably any other prizefighter in the world. He climbs the stair machine, swims and avoids weights. He may not look like Mike Tyson, but Juan Diaz occasionally lands more punches in 12 rounds than Tyson landed in his career.
Then there’s Acelino Freitas. Despite being a national treasure in his native Brazil, Freitas has a good number of doubters in the United States, where most of his fights have happened since 2000. In fact, Freitas’ last fight, a 12-round split-decision yawner against Zahir Raheem, was bad enough that when “Popo” announced his retirement shortly thereafter, few Americans missed him.
This Saturday, the new WBA/WBO Lightweight Champion of the World will be determined by the following question: Which fails first, “Baby Bull’s” chin or “Popo’s” stamina?
Truthfully, Juan Diaz may be the sleeper candidate for boxing’s Best Pound for Pound Fighter, once Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao lose their speed. But has Diaz’ chin ever been checked by the type of power Freitas possesses?
For my part, I expect Juan Diaz to throw left hooks to Freitas’ body for 36 minutes. Any one of these hooks will have as much effect as a rock hammer rubbing against a prison wall. But in the end, Diaz’ punches should bore through Freitas’ will like Andy Dufresne’s hammer went through Shawshank. I’ll take Diaz: UD-12.
And if Acelino Freitas catches the “Baby Bull” and knocks-out one of boxing’s most highly regarded young champions? That will be a Mashantucket Redemption of a different kind.