Valdez-Berchelt, Broner-Santiago and some thoughts on the weekend shows
Plus: Notes, Quick hits, Show and tell
It was a busy boxing weekend with competing ESPN and Showtime cards. Naturally, I have some thoughts — and a few notes. Read on:
Berchelt-Valdez card
I wasn’t at all surprised that Oscar Valdez beat Miguel Berchelt to win the WBC junior lightweight title on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I was one of the few who outright picked him (seriously, see my pick tweet). I’ve been high on Valdez from Day 1. He has pedigree (two-time Mexican Olympian), good skills and power, underrated speed, a huge heart (just watch the fight with Scott Quigg if you have any questions about that statement) and he was build very well in the pros by Top Rank matchmaker Brad “Abdul” Goodman.
Having interviewed Valdez many times and having covered many of his fights, it is clear he has that something special inside of him. Valdez also has an all-star team behind him in manager Frank Espinoza, trainer Eddy Reynoso and father Oscar Valdez Sr., who did the right thing when he relinquished some control by agreeing to bring in Reynoso.
All that said, sure, it was a surprise that Valdez so thoroughly dominated Berchelt, a fine titleholder with a quality resume, before scoring an absolutely titanic knockout at the end of the 10th round. It’s only February but I assure you it will be in the discussion for KO of the year.
It was such a horrendous knockout that Berchelt may have a hard time coming back from it. One obvious thing is if and when Berchelt does return, he will move up to lightweight. He was very drained making 130 pounds and that may have contributed to the outcome.
While the fight didn’t break out into the classic all-Mexican battle so many anticipated it was a supreme performance from Valdez. The only negative: the fight was held without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic. In normal times, there would have been a raucous crowd in Las Vegas or Los Angeles that would have made for a memorable atmosphere.
After the fight, former featherweight titlist and top junior lightweight contender Shakur Stevenson, who was at the bout, expressed interest in challenging Top Rank stablemate Valdez for his title, a fight Valdez said he would be interested in. It’s also a fight the Top Rank brass, chairman Bob Arum and president Todd duBoef, said they hope to make. Stevenson is mandatory for the winner of the fight between titleholder Jamel Herring and Carl Frampton, but whether Stevenson faces the winner first and then Valdez or goes right to Valdez, it doesn’t matter. Valdez-Stevenson is a fight worth getting very pumped up for.
Reynoso is already a proven commodity as a trainer based on the excellent work he has done with pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez. The improvements Alvarez has made over the years are obvious and would not have happened without Reynoso in my view. But Reynoso, who won 2019 trainer of year honors from the Boxing Writers Association of America, seems to be well on his way to 2021 honors thanks to Valdez’s resounding win and Ryan Garcia’s knockout of Luke Campbell. Of course, the award will likely be won or lost depending on how Alvarez performs. He has potentially three (maybe four) more fights this year, including Saturday in a super middleweight defense against Avni Yildirim, a May unification (if he beats Yildirim) with Billy Joe Saunders and possibly a September undisputed fight with Caleb Plant.
Big props to the Top Rank social media team, which consistently does outstanding work. Valdez’s one-punch, left-handed knockout of Berchelt at the end of a round was extremely reminiscent of Juan Manuel Marquez’s unforgettable KO of Manny Pacquiao. Top Rank’s social team posted this very cool video to show just how similar they were.
Two more thoughts on the Top Rank card:
Two prospects on the undercard stood out to me: 20-year-old junior lightweight Gabriel Flores Jr. and 18-year-old Xander Zayas. They each stepped up their level of opposition and performed well. Flores looked good scoring a sixth-round knockout of former featherweight title challenger Jayson Velez, who had only previously been stopped by Valdez. Zayas was sharp in a six-round shutout of James Martin, who gave a good effort but was outclassed. Both are long-term projects, but that is something Top Rank excels at.
Just what in the world was judge Max De Luca, usually a fine judge, watching? He gave Berchelt the first three rounds of the fight. That is nutsy cuckoo.
Broner-Santiago card
While the Berchelt-Valdez card was going on, Showtime had a tripleheader from Uncasville, Connecticut, that overlapped with it.
It was headlined by the return of former four-division titlist Adrien Broner, who hadn’t fought in two years (thanks to plenty of legal and personal problems) and hadn’t won in four years yet still was handed a main event for seven figures against an utterly obscure opponent in Jovanie Santiago. The fight was designed for Broner to shine. He did not. Far from it. In fact, despite being awarded a unanimous decision there are many who thought he lost the fight, myself included.
Broner, who had to change the agreed upon weight from 140 to 147 during fight week because he couldn’t make weight, was once a dynamic and interesting fighter some compared to a young Floyd Mayweather. That seems like a lifetime ago and turned out to be an awful comparison.
Broner is an old 31 and done at the top level in my view. He committed the unpardonable sin of wasting his talent by not taking his craft seriously enough. He spent way too much time getting in trouble, partying and talking about how he was committed to boxing instead of actually being committed to boxing. And now is time has past.
His four world titles sound good but epitomize the watered down meaning of a world title in this era. His title reigns were all unimpressive:
He won a vacant junior lightweight title against the unknown and never heard from again Vicente Rodriguez, made one defense and lost the title on the scale for missing weight.
He won his lightweight belt by knocking out Antonio DeMarco, a solid win, and made one defense.
He won a welterweight belt by disputed split decision from a long-in-the-tooth Paulie Malignaggi and made no successful defenses, getting manhandled in a loss to Marcos Maidana in his next fight.
He won a junior welterweight belt from Khabib Allakhverdiev, who never fought again, and then lost it on the scale for again missing weight for his first defense.
The classless Broner also embarrassed himself with his nastiness after Saturday’s fight, when he cursed out Showtime unofficial scorer Steve Farhood for scoring the fight 114-113 for Santiago, a very fair score, during his post-fight interview. If you know Farhood, he’s as straight a shooter as there is and did not deserve that. But what was as disappointing as Broner’s uncalled for attack was that Showtime host Brian Custer didn’t say a single word either time Broner went in on Farhood. At worst, a gentle rebuke was mandatory in that situation.
Broner’s shtick is old and tired. He barely throws any punches. He’s not even an entertaining boxer anymore. And he behaves like a child. But you can count on one thing: Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions will continue to enable him.
As for the undercard:
Heavyweight Otto Wallin continued to show that he’s a worthy top-10 contender. He made his name off a spirited decision loss to Tyson Fury but he has looked good in two fights since, a KO of Travis Kauffman in August and Saturday’s clear decision over two-time title challenger Dominic Breazeale, whose change in trainers from Virgil Hunter to Abel Sanchez didn’t help a lick.
I thought former lightweight titlist Robert Easter Jr., in his second fight at junior welterweight, also looked pretty good in a one-sided rout of Ryan Martin.
Povetkin-Whyte II rescheduled again
The card headlined by the rematch between interim heavyweight titlist Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte has been postponed for three weeks, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn announced. It was scheduled for March 6 at the SSE Arena, Wembley in London, but has been moved to March 27 and will take place in Gibraltar, a British territory off the coast of Spain.
The card will stream on DAZN in the United States and all of its other markets except the United Kingdom, where it will air on Sky Sports Boxing Office pay-per-view.
Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KOs) scored a massive fifth-round knockout of Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs) to win the interim belt on Aug. 22. The rematch was scheduled for Nov. 21 but postponed because Povetkin contracted Covid-19. Then it was postponed again from Jan. 30 because he had not fully recovered before being moved to March.
“In the current environment we are always having to think on our feet,” Hearn said. “We did everything to try and make March 6 happen, but with the new travel restrictions it was impossible. Now we have something outside the box, compelling, and a unique setting for one of the heavyweight fights of the year. Roll on the ‘Rumble on the Rock!”
Quick hits
Lightweight contender Isaac Cruz will face Jose Matias Romero (24-0, 8 KOs), 24, of Argentina, on March 13 on Showtime on the undercard of super middleweight David Benavidez against Ronald Ellis at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, sources told Fight Freaks Unite. Cruz (20-1-1, 15 KOs), 22, of Mexico, who is coming off a brutal first-round knockout of Diego Magdaleno in an Oct. 31 title eliminator on the Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz PPV, was supposed to face Spain’s Jon Fernandez (21-1, 18 KOs). However, he was expected to have issues getting a visa due to travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic and, according to sources, the visa was indeed denied and he is out of the fight.
The oft-delayed fight between unified light heavyweight world champion Artur Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) and fellow Russia native Adam Deines (19-1-1, 10 KOs), which recently was rescheduled for March 20 at Megasport Arena in Moscow, now also has its broadcast platform: ESPN and ESPN+. Top Rank initially was unsure which platform it would air on but it will be on both. In fact, according to Top Rank, all linear ESPN cards will also now stream live on ESPN+, although, as has always been the case, cards exclusive to ESPN+ will not be televised on ESPN.
The fight between junior lightweight world titlist Jamel Herring and Carl Frampton, which was postponed last week from Feb. 27 at the Copper Box Arena in London, will be rescheduled for March 27, possibly in Dubai, sources with knowledge of the plans told Fight Freaks Unite.
Vic Saludar won a split decision over Robert Paradero to claim a vacant secondary strawweight belt on Saturday in Binan City, Philippines. In a rare world title bout between Filipinos, Saludar (21-4, 11 KOs), 30, who claimed his second strawweight belt, won 116-112 and 115-113, with one judge scoring it 118-110 for the 24-year-old Paradero (18-1, 12 KOs). Both fighters were coming off layoffs of more than a year, mainly because of the coronavirus pandemic, and meeting in a fight that had been rescheduled multiple times due to the pandemic.
Promoter Frank Warren announced he has signed super middleweight Zach Parker (19-0, 13 KOs), 26, of England, who is well positioned for a shot at the WBO belt as the sanctioning body has him ranked No. 1 at 168 pounds. Warren said Parker’s first fight under the deal will take place March 26 at the Copper Box Arena in London. Parker hasn’t fought since last March. “I want to get active in 2021 having only fought once in the last 18 months and I think this is the best move I can go with, to be with Frank and BT Sport,” Parker said. “Hopefully, we can go all the way to the top together and get a world title. I would go for any of the world champions.”
Show and tell
In the last really big fight before the coronavirus pandemic struck the United States, one with a sold-out crowd going bonkers at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury met in the rematch of their 2018 draw. The showdown for heavyweight supremacy, with Wilder’s WBC title at stake and Fury’s lineal crown on the line, was one year ago Monday — Feb. 22, 2020. It feels like a lifetime ago, but I was fortunate to cover it at ringside and it was memorable as Fury took Wilder apart, dropped him in the third and fifth rounds and scored a seventh-round knockout to take Wilder’s belt and undefeated record. Neither man has fought since but Fury hopefully will soon finalize a deal in the works to face three-belt titlist Anthony Joshua for the undisputed title. There were two versions of the Wilder-Fury II program sold at the fight, the regular version and an extremely limited edition (only 125 produced) that featured special artwork by the renowned Richard Sloan. Here are copies of each from my collection.
Valdez-Berchelt photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank; Broner photo: Amanda Westcott/Showtime
Got any spiked water or heavy power rangers costumes or horse shoes from Fury - Wilder 2 Dan?
That Valdez KO was brutal. My wife thought Berchelt was dead. I had the same thought abt the Broner fight at first, that he clearly lost. He was clearly out worked but Santiago looked rough after while Broner looked like he just done some light sparring. Maybe he won but the cards seemed way to generous to him. Thanks boxing!