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| Photo Credit: World Boxing Super Series |
For the second Saturday in a row, the World Boxing Super Series came through with a thriller in the cruiserweight division and for the same second Saturday in a row, a major network came through with two lopsided duds instead of finding a few dollars to show the country the fight that was worth the time to watch..
Let us start with the positive as Murat Gassiev took away Yunier Dorticos' WBA cruiserweight title and added it to his IBF belt with a savage 12th round knockout in the second World Boxing Super Series semi-final and punched his ticket to the finals in Saudi Arabia in May.
Waiting for Gassiev will be the holder of the other two cruiserweight titles in WBC/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk, who will be entering that bout off his own action-packed win over Mairis Breidis in what looks to be one of the best bouts that boxing can offer, but in this fight Gassiev and Dorticos put together their own early contender for fight of the year (I know, it's early as I said last week!), but this one stands on its own from Usyk-Briedis as a different kind of top notch battle..
Usyk-Briedis had more sustained action at a slightly faster pace, but Gassiev-Dorticos showcased heavier punches with the majority of the shots having "Bad Intentions" as Mike Tyson used to say.
I'm not saying one was preferable to the other, both were very good, yet different.
For four rounds, Dorticos appeared to have been prepared surprisingly well to pull the upset as he switched plans, attacked Gassiev and forced Gassiev to back up where even though Gassiev scored his share of points, it was Dorticos controlling the pace and I gave the Cuban three of the first four rounds with almost all being arguable, it had the feel of one of those fights that could have three widely divergent scorecards.
However, when round five started, the fight changed for good- it was Gassiev forcing his way forward, it was Dorticos backing up and from then on, I would give Dorticos just one round.
Dorticos scored his share, similar to Gassiev early in the fight, but it was Gassiev with the "ring generalship" and I had Gassiev ahead 7-4 entering the final round.
Gassiev was slightly ahead (leading by just one point on two of the cards entering the final round, so Dorticos was not without a chance), but had seemingly hurt Dorticos in both the 10 and 11th and left me marveling at the quality of Dorticos' chin,so there were decent odds that he wasn't going to try to leave this to the scorecards despite the still dangerous power of Dorticos.
With a minute to go, Dorticos finally cracked as a Gassiev left hook dropped him to the floor.
The game Cuban rose but quickly found himself back there after a Gassiev flurry that was more powerful due to the faded condition of Dorticos than anything Gassiev landed and to be fair, you could have made an excellent argument to end the fight then and there.
Dorticos rose again and this time, he was hit and hard with a right hand that might have stopped a bull that sent him sailing to the floor, half in the ring/ half on the ring apron where the fight ended with just eight seconds to go.
A terrific fight and I'm really looking forward to May for the cruiserweight finals between Gassiev and Usyk from Saudi Arabia!
It's a good thing that the WBSS came through because as noted above, for the second week in a row, no American television outlet picked up the cruiserweight semi-final, but one of the big three did have time and money to put together a slop card of squash matches for your viewing "entertainment".
Last week, it was Golden Boy and HBO wasting my time after a great cruiserweight bout and this week, it was the turn of Top Rank and ESPN to set up what some call showcase bouts and what I prefer to call squash matches on national television.
Don't get me wrong, I can live with squash matches occasionally, if that's what it takes to keep a fighter active and if the fighters in question (this time they are Gilberto Ramirez and Jerwin Ancajas) want to fight four times a year, a squash match once a year isn't so bad.
What you don't want to see is when fighters fall into the PBC trap, when you fight once a year to 18 months and then every other fight is a squash match (Yeah, I'm talking to you,Keith Thurman), Top Rank actually has promoters that know the game, so it may not be the case this time, but it never hurts to keep an eye on all of them- calling it straight without bias.
In the main event from Corpus Christi Texas, Gilberto Ramirez defended his WBO super middleweight title with a sixth round stoppage of Ghana's Habib Ahmed, who came in as a somewhat late substitution, but without one notable name on his record and as an unknown quantity,
I had Ramirez winning every round before the stoppage, which seemed inevitable, once we saw what Ahmed had, which was not nearly enough to trouble the talented Ramirez.
Ahmed tried, but was out of his league against the physically larger and stronger Ramirez and when referee Lawrence Cole doing his typically awful job refereeing (Cole is the worst part of watching boxing from Texas and the story that could be written just on the Cole family in Texas boxing, I'm getting mad/ill thinking about it) and allowing Ahmed to get his head rolling around his shoulders like a bobblehead with a broken spring from Ramirez right hands, it took Ahmed's corner physically bullying their way past another member of the Texas boxing commission (no word on HIS relation to the Cole family) to toss in the towel before the seemingly disappointed Cole (I guess he was waiting to see Ahmed be hit and do the Ric Flair flip over the turnbuckle before calling this disaster off) finally ended the fight.
Ramirez does have some options for his 2018 campaign, he could rematch Jesse Hart, which would be OK after their great first fight, or he could see who wins the World Boxing Super Series (The WBA champ will come out of the tourney whether it is current champ George Groves or the bracket winner) at Super Middleweight (As exciting as the Cruisers have been, entering the semis, the 168 first rounders were relatively tame) or he could even think about moving to 175.
The other champs at 168 are with PBC (IBF Caleb Truax and WBC David Benavidez) and might not be able to be made although Ramirez-Benavidez might be my favorite fight to be made at the weight class if I could make just one.
In the other squash, er co-feature, IBF junior bantamweight champion Jerwin Ancajas continued his move up the 115-pound division with a 10th round knockout of Israel Gonzalez.
I had Ancajas winning every round and was never threatened in the slightest by Gonzalez
The worst part of this fight?
It wasn't Gonzalez, who like Ahmed against Ramirez tried to win, but was outclassed, it was the announcing table, who used the name Manny Pacquiao more than the name Jerwin Ancajas.
I know that they are both from the Phillippines, Pacquiao is the childhood hero of Ancajas and is involved with his management/promotional team, but man was it overdone.
I get that you are trying to make a connection, but let's keep in mind to make the name Jerwin Ancajas remembered as well and not the lazy take of "Friend of and fights like Manny".
Ancajas was still impressive in victory and I would like to see him tested against the elite of the division.
In Japan, Daigo Higa retained his WBC flyweight with a first-round KO of former world champ Moises Fuentes with one hit to the body (although not one hit straight to the heart, Rolling Stones fans).
I'm a rider of the Higa bandwagon and I'd love to see him against some of the contenders at 115 as well.
In the boxing challenge, I regained the lead from Ramon Malpica at 14-12 after I scored seven points to Ramon's 4 this weekend.
I scored 2 points each from wins by Gassiev, Higa, Ancajas and one point from Ramirez.
Ramon scored 2 points from Higa's win with 1 each from wins by Ramirez and Ancajas.
