LAS VEGAS – Timothy Bradley now has decision victories over two of the very best prizefighters in a generation. The victories may both be controversial, but this much is not: In a collective 72 minutes of trying, neither man ever caught Bradley cleanly enough to hurt him for an instant.
Saturday at Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus, American Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley (31-0, 12 KOs) decisioned Mexican Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KOs) by split scores of 115-113, 113-115 and 116-112, in a fight that saw only four rounds scored unanimously, one way or the other, by the judges. The 15rounds.com ringside scorecard dissented from the official decision, marking a 116-114 tally for Marquez.
“This is my ticket to the boxing hall of fame,” said a jubilant Bradley after the victory, his voice drowned-out by boos from the partisan-Mexican crowd.
There were very few rounds of the 12 in which one man clearly outclassed the other, and until the final two seconds of the match, no moment in the fight when one man clearly hurt the other. As feared, two superbly professional fighters offset one another’s strengths, with each man missing far more often than he landed cleanly.
“You don’t have to knock the other guy out to win a fight,” said Marquez afterwards, characteristically disgruntled after a decision loss. “I thought that I clearly won.”
From the opening instant of the match, when the men strolled from their corners and began a very wide, very respectful circle, until the 35:58 mark of the fight, when the men silently agreed to break the counsel of their trainers and engage one another maniacally, the fight was a tactical one bound to lead to frustrated fans and questions about scoring. Such frustration and scoring inquiries, though, will be shown, by time, to be misplaced.
“I’ve been robbed six times in my career,” said Marquez nevertheless.
The Mexican, for all his mastery, never solved Bradley. While Bradley appeared to exalt too much in his not getting hit by Marquez, showboating when he should have been countering, potshotting when he should have been using combinations, Marquez was not mobile enough to outwork Bradley for sustained periods of time, and Marquez was also, in the evening’s largest surprise, inaccurate when he did have open looks at Bradley.
“I’ve always tried to fight for the fans,” said Bradley, while those same fans lustily booed him.
After 11 even rounds in which one man was elusive while the other was predatory if immobile, in the final instants of round 12, in a moment of sudden suspense that would be ultimately inconsequential, Bradley staggered Marquez with a counter left hook, sending the Mexican spinning and spasming leftwards. Bradley then raised his hands and posed like a statue, enjoying already a victory that was barely assured.
Bradley, as is his tendency, apparently knew something the rest of us didn’t.
ORLANDO SALIDO VS. ORLANDO CRUZ
Topping an undercard filled with novelties, into the co-main event ring came Puerto Rican featherweight Orlando Cruz, boxing’s first active fighter to announce publicly that he is gay, his fighting attire adorned in rainbows, his ringside entourage preceded by a rainbow flag, and his black gloves highlighted with pink, to fight Mexican stalking horse Orlando Salido. But as boxing rarely respects decorum or politics, no matter how well scripted, Cruz’s fabulous ring entrance was the last enjoyable part of his night.
Saturday’s co-main event ended at 1:05 of round 7 – with Salido knocking Cruz out.
After two uneventful rounds that saw Salido (40-12-2, 28 KOs) too slow to find Cruz (20-3-1, 1 KOs) and Cruz too light-hitting to punish Salido’s navigational errors, things changed in the third, and Salido began to use his awkward crossover style to drive heavy lefts and crisp rights into Cruz’s body and face.
By the middle of round 4 it was apparent that, for all his flair and fashion sense, Cruz simply did not have heavy enough hands to keep a veteran attrition fighter like Salido off him. Salido casually stepped backwards and recollected himself after every exchange won by Cruz, while Cruz was forced to flee exchanges in which Salido proved superior, skipping sideways, leaping out the way of body punches, and having his balance regularly compromised by Salido’s strikes – even, or perhaps especially, when they missed.
One does not make his living in this sport without toughness, though, and Cruz fought back gamely in the fifth, absorbing Salido right crosses to the body that moved him backwards, and taking even sterner abuse in the sixth. As the rounds progressed and Cruz’s activity diminished, it became increasingly important for Cruz’s corner to look for a chance to save its brave fighter from himself.
The corner never had to intervene, however, as Salido caught Cruz on the ropes with an overhand-right, left-uppercut combo, both punches landing to Cruz’s increasingly battered head, Cruz dropped, the 10-count completed without incident, and Orlando Salido was the new WBO featherweight champion of the world.
VASYL LOMACHENKO VS. JOSE RAMIREZ
What sort of a monster makes his professional debut in a 10-round match for a minor featherweight title? Two-time gold medalist Vasyl Lomachenko, that’s who – and that’s how promoter Top Rank wishes Saturday viewers to remember the new Russian prospect’s debut.
Fighting with technical proficiency from a southpaw stance, Lomachenko (1-0, 1 KO) dropped Mexican Jose Ramirez (24-3-2, 15 KOs) with a body shot in the opening 90 seconds. For a southpaw to overcome angular problems enough to land that punch is no mean feat. For him to land it on a Mexican in the opening round, though, is still more impressive.
Rounds 2 and 3 saw less explosiveness from the Russian, as he absorbed some blows and landed many more, occasionally employing the nifty trick of sending himself to the ropes, so as to spring from them with a harder counter, quicker-arriving for being enhanced by the ropes’ elasticity.
Early in the next round, Lomachenko stopped Ramirez with what appeared to be a double left uppercut to the solar plexus, causing the Mexican to stop, drop and begin rolling about the blue mat, showing the sort of anguish that can be given a prizefighter solely by a punch to the body. No 10-count was necessary, Ramirez was still writhing at the count of 20, and Lomachenko had his first professional victory at 0:59 of round 4.
SEAN MONAGHAN VS. ANTHONY SMITH
Most every insider regards New York light heavyweight Sean Monaghan as a novelty concept, a way for promoter Top Rank to exploit an Irish marketplace of fight fans. Monaghan’s victory over unheralded Pennsylvanian Anthony Smith did little to disabuse anyone of that, in Saturday’s first televised fight.
While Monaghan (19-0, 12 KOs) was able to strike Smith (14-2, 10 KOs) with impunity at the open, worrying little about counterpunches or meaningful traps, he was unable to hurt Smith through six minutes of assault. That changed in round 3, when Smith unadvisedly tried applying a wee bit of offensive pressure and got clocked by Monaghan. Sensing his opponent was stunned, Monaghan transformed from a light-hitting boxer to a light-hitting hurricane, striking Smith with a dozen or so unanswered punches until referee Tony Weeks waved the match off at 2:49 of round 3.
And like that, the WBC Continental Americas Light Heavyweight Title was successfully defended.
UNDERCARD
A few years back, and understandably, a parade of Manny Pacquiao-inspired fighters began to emerge from the Philippines; they are all southpaws, they all like to bounce, and they all tend to leap in with their hands perilously low. Filipino featherweight Jun Doliguez is yet another in what promises to be a generation-length parade. Fighting a journeyman Mexican, Geovanny Caro (23-14-4, 19 KOs), in Saturday’s fourth match, one who nevertheless appeared not to know he was fated to lose, Doliguez (17-0-1, 13 KOs) leaped in, leaped out, bounced a lot and kept his lands low. He got stunned a few times by headbutts, and buckled once by a right hand, à la his role model, but otherwise won in excellent fashion, dropping Caro twice with straight left hands, and stopping the overmatched Mexican at 2:53 of round 6. Doliguez is clearly not Pacquiao, but he likes contact and will make a fun spectacle every match.
If Mikael Zewski’s fans traveled from Canada to see their favorite welterweight defeat an overmatched Californian by violent stoppage, they almost got what they came for. Zewski (21-0, 16 KOs), who is charismatic and hails from a fight-crazed nation, whacked away at Riverside’s Albert Herrera (9-10-1, 5 KOs) for five rounds, busting-up Herrera’s face till the Californian’s corner abided no more and stopped the match, providing Zewski a TKO-5 for his resume, at which time Herrera leaped off his stool, grinned broadly and made a lap round the canvas waiving to what few fans were in the arena.
The second match of the night saw McCumby (13-0, 10 KOs) decision game West Virginian Eric Watkins (10-5-1, 4 KOs), but not before landing on the canvas. After dominating the first round and part of the next, McCumby, who sacrifices all sorts of defense for power and has little head movement on the way in, got caught with a right hand as he threw a right hand, and he dropped quickly. McCumby rose and appeared fine, but he was absolutely knocked to the blue mat by a fighter with only four knockouts in 15 previous prizefights. McCumby then restored order in the fourth round, dropping Watkins and commencing to beat him severely for the next 2 1/2 rounds, winning a unanimous decision: 59-53, 59-53 and 58-53.
Saturday’s card began with a classic case of a dull boxer with good reflexes against a pressure fighter without them, when Louisiana welterweight Brad Solomon (21-0, 8 KOs) outclassed Kenny Abril (14-7-1-1, 7 KOs), moving and infrequently landing meaningful punches and more infrequently having meaningful punches landed on him, en route to a unanimous decision: 79-73, 79-73 and 80-72. It is imperative, with his style, that Solomon remain undefeated.
Opening bell rang on a cavernous Thomas & Mack Center at 3:39 PM local time.
Photos by Chris Farina / Top Rank
