Inside Fights

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Juan Diaz has been part of the two best two-fight cards in boxing this year.

On March 8—the night Samuel Peter won a heavyweight title against Oleg Maskaev in a wild brawl—Diaz suffered his first professional loss in a twelve round split decision defeat at the hands of Nate Campbell on a card in Cancun, Mexico.

Nearly two weeks ago Houston native Diaz found redemption in an entertaining, but lopsided twelve round split decision win in his hometown over Michael Katsidis, a man who was also reeling from his first professional loss—a tenth round TKO loss to an aging, but still potent Joel Casamayor on March 22.

Diaz was able to dominate the always entertaining Katsidis will speed and power behind every combination he pounded Katsidis’ face with throughout the fight. Diaz’s combinations were not only better, but more powerful than Katsidis’ as anytime the Australian seemed to land anything of merit on Diaz, it turned out to be nothing as evident by the fact that by the fight’s end, Katsidis had his left eye cut and his right eye almost swollen shut; Diaz didn’t have a mark on him. While Diaz never really lost steam at any point during his onslaught, it was Katsidis who threw more punches, 868 to Diaz’s 801. However, Diaz landed 147 more punches showing that he not only had the ability, but the efficiency to force his will upon Katsidis, which is exactly what he did with only a few points during the fight being the exception.

The undercard fight of the night featured another Houston native, Rocky Juarez pulling off an amazing come-from-behind win over Jorge Barrios winning via TKO in the 11th round when Barrios’ lip was split open and spurted blood upon being knocked down by Juarez after a brutal combination to the face.

This was a fight I saw as Cotto/Margarito in reverse.

Nobody doubted that Juarez was the more technically proficient of the two and that Barrios was the brawler. What stunned a lot of people was that not only did Barrios control the pace throughout this fight, but also Juarez seemed almost comatose as he was not very aggressive, did not pounce on openings that went his way, and just seemed to be tentative throughout.

The fact that Barrios threw an amazing 1006 punches in the fight—he landed 162—should have signaled his downfall as the brawling and aggressive Barrios ran out of gas and spent the last two rounds almost gasping for air as he continued throwing punches and advancing on Juarez.

It was in those final few rounds that Juarez finally came alive resulting in some truly breathtaking and violent exchanges between the two fighters, exchanges most (including myself) felt Juarez got the worst of, but the opposite was in fact the case.

Before the start of the Diaz/Katsidis fight, Katsidis’ trainer went over the proper standards for a low-blow warning or point deduction Barrios had been warned and deducted two points in the fight on controversial low-blow calls as Barrios is more of a body puncher and the two low-blow shots did seem to be more of stomach hits than hits below the belt.

Both fights were very entertaining despite the lopsided nature they both had with Diaz and Barrios dominating their respective fights throughout. Add that with the hot Houston crowd cheering on its native sons, the surprise ending with Juarez gutting out a win, and Katsidis never giving up and still managing to entertain during a beating, and you’ve got a great night of boxing entertainment.

However, what made this night truly special, and truly surreal, was the judging in both fights. While almost everyone watching saw Jorge Barrios dominate Rocky Juarez before Juarez’s comeback, two of the judge’s had Juarez ahead (95-93 and 96-92) at the end of the final full round while the other had the fight tied at 94-94. That would be nothing compared to the almost outrage felt when Glen Hamada scored the Diaz/Katsidis fight 115-113 for Katsidis, and while the two others scored the fight for Diaz, their scores—115-113 Diaz from Levi Hernandez, and 116-112 Diaz from Glen Van Hoy—even seemed questionable.

On Hamada’s scoring, HBO Boxing commentator Max Kellerman said, “That’s one of the worst jobs of scoring I’ve ever seen.”

Juan Diaz 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 10 10 118
Michael 10 9 9 9 9 9 9 10 9 10 10 9 112
Katsidis

Last 5 entries by Phil Clark

• Pacquiao Humiliates Aging De La Hoya - December 15th, 2008
• Taylor Rebounds With Pounding of Lacy - November 23rd, 2008
• Calzaghe Destroys Jones to Keep Perfect Record Intact - November 22nd, 2008
• Let The Debate Begin: Couture/Lesnar - November 19th, 2008
• Let The Debate Begin: Anderson Silva, Paulo Filho, and the 185-Lb. Division - November 12th, 2008