IBF
bantamweight titlist Abner Mares admits that enjoying his title in the
immediate wake of his victory over Joseph Agbeko has been rather difficult
given how controversial that contest was. Not only was there the botched
knockdown ruling by referee Russell Mora in the first round, there were
numerous warnings (with no point deductions) from the third man in the ring for
low blows to Agbeko. Finally, another blatantly low shot on Agbeko was missed, subsequently
ruled a knockdown on the defending champion and essentially sealing the fight
for Mares.
With
the ensuing outcry from the boxing public, it was difficult to enjoy the
victory.
Mares,
who faces Agbeko again this Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim (Showtime, 9 PM, ET/PT) admitted, “Amongst my people, my
family, there was no way to take away the greatness of becoming a world
champion. But amongst fans and people in general, it did [take away from it].
It did tarnish it. A lot of people were still in doubt whether or not I
deserved the title. I'm glad the rematch is set. I can't wait to fight and put
an end to this.”
Regardless
of the fouls (or better put, the non-calls), it was a close and competitive
fight but many believe that Mora beat Agbeko more decisively than Mares did.
Right now, he's known more as “Mexi-Golota” than a bantamweight champion. Mares
admits that he thinks about how the fans perceive him. “I do, I do,” he says, “but
I sit and think, ‘OK, people do go by your last performance on your last fight.’
So just give them a great fight in my upcoming fight and, believe me, they'll
get over that. I'm really looking forward to making a statement this coming
Saturday.”
Soon
after this fight in August, the IBF mandated an immediate rematch between the
two, which was no problem for Mares and his team.
His
manager, Frank Espinoza told Maxboxing, “Honestly, it was the right call. I
mean, there was a lot of debate over what took place that night and I know that
if Abner was in that same position, we'd want a rematch. Things like this in
boxing will occur and the best way to really clear it up is to do it
again. We understand what was being said and how this sport was being
perceived. I really think this was the only fight for us to make right now.”
For Mares, not only is the title up for grabs again but redemption is now
thrown in as a bonus. “It was going to be in my mind always,” he stated. “Even
if I went to another fight, it would always be haunting me, people telling me, ‘You
won your world title because of this or that...’ I definitely would not want that.
I'm glad this fight is made. I'm glad we're going to do it again and there's no
better way to clear your name but by fighting the same guy.”
Mares
has reviewed their first chapter more than once. He still can't believe how he
kept straying south of the border.
“Watching
the fight two, three times, it definitely got to me. I got frustrated watching
it; I mean, because the commentators themselves were being a little too hard,
like even the first round. Just saying how much I was throwing low blows from
round one,” said Mares, who believes a good number of those punches were borderline.
“I wouldn't know a number but I'm sure there were a lot of punches on the
beltline than what went low. But honestly, there were a few punches that went
low that weren't my fault. I don't know. It was just something about his style
and my style.”
He
added, “My head was pulled down a lot of times and that's why a few punches
went low because of that.”
In
baseball, umpires can throw pitchers out of ballgames for hitting batters. All
Mora did on the night of August 13th was issue warnings with no penalties and
after a few warnings, the unwritten rule is that the third man should start
deducting points. Mares admits, “The referee himself, he definitely could have
just taken a point away from me and I definitely would have changed my game
plan.”
Coming
into this fight, Mares has been working with his trainer, Clemente Medina, on
keeping his body shots above the beltline. Medina is utilizing the body-armor (made
famous by Freddie Roach on HBO’s “24/7” as he works with Manny Pacquiao). “We've
been throwing body punches to that and Clemente's taller so we're just aiming
to his chest and everything. Definitely we've been working on our body punches
because we are facing Agbeko again and we don't want that to happen again.”
As
for any technical tweaks, Mares says, “There will never be a perfect fight. There's
always things you can do better and going back to the fight, there's numerous
things I can do better for this upcoming fight.” Of course, he won't reveal any
specifics but he noted, “One thing: stick to my game plan- which is distance.”
Mares says if straying low is a problem this time around, he would, “headhunt.”
Espinoza
noted, “If you look back at the first time we met, Abner hadn't been in the
ring in a long while. I think there was some ring rust as he hadn't fought
since December. I expect a better version of Mares on Saturday night.”
“Yeah,”
concurred the fighter, “if you look at the fight, towards the end, I was
already tired. It was maybe the seventh, eighth round; I was a little winded. I
think I peaked too soon because the camps we had, back-to-back, when the fight
got cancelled and then right away, we got back to the same camp to fight him
again. That definitely had something to do with it but for this fight, we
stepped it down a little bit as far as strength conditioning. We worked on
defense. We worked more on the technical stuff.”
Win,
lose or draw this weekend, for Mares, 2011 will forever be “The Year of King
Kong.”
“I mean,
I'm tired of hearing his name. If you look at this whole year, I've been facing
Agbeko ever since April. The fight that got cancelled, I waited for him. We
fought again in August and here I am, fighting him again in December. So this
whole year has been for Agbeko. I just want to close this chapter and move on
and look for better names and bigger names.”
CINCY
It
was reported that the attendance at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio this past weekend for
Adrien Broner's bout against Martin Rodriguez was 4,926. Here's an email I got
from someone who was in attendance:
Hi Steve, I don't know if you remember
me but my wife Shawn and I had a few drinks with you in Vegas the night before
the Khan-Judah fight. We went to the Broner/Russell card in Cincy last Sat and I thought I'd share our opinion on
what went down.
Pros: Cheap ticket prices - $128 to $28 Attendance, I would guess around
5,000. It was a good, early arriving, boisterous crowd. The main event
was fun while it lasted and everyone left happy and buzzing about the KO.
Cons: Very little promotion for the card. There was a few articles on
Broner in the Cincy papers the past week but hardly anything else. Amateur
stand out Chris Pearson from nearby Dayton(where we're from) made his pro debut
on the card and other than 1 small article in the Dayton paper the day before the card there
was 0 promotion done here. Cincy is a 40 minute drive. This is especially
confusing since Chris held his last amateur fight at Dayton Dragons field
(Reds single A team) in August and drew 2,000+.
No programs for sale. They didn't even hand out bout sheets. No one
knew who was fighting, how many fights were left before the main event, etc..
We were on the floor so I went to press row and found a stack of them sitting at
an empty table so I grabbed them and started handing them out.
My friends are all casual fight fans and every one I told what we were doing
this weekend had no idea there were HBO fights in Cincy. Just my opinion
but the same card under Top Rank draws 8,000 easy. Overall we had fun, as
did everyone we talked to, but you it felt kinda thrown together.
Thanks, Brock Smith
Brock,
I absolutely remember you and your better half. Those were good times at the
Mandalay Bay sports book this summer (where I kept telling Rachel Donaire that
she was all “tarted up” in my best Bob Arum voice while Nonito just laughed). I
hope things are well and hey, things are looking up for the Buckeye Nation with
Braxton Miller and (sub)Urban Meyer now leading the way.
OK,
on to your email. It's important that people like you are heard because as the
paying public, your support is absolutely vital to the sport and I've believed
for a long time that the overall viewing experience of the live audience has
been overlooked and ignored for far too long as promoters cared solely about
the television license fee and basically sold off the gate to second parties.
But
for Broner to do these numbers in his first headlining gig at home on HBO is a
very positive sign for “The Problem” and it shows once again that if you put
these cards in geographic locations that make sense - where there is a hometown
pull (like Broner in Cincy, Devon Alexander in St. Louis or
Lamont Peterson in D.C. versus Amir Khan on December the 10th) - these
promotions can do well. Indeed, boxing can still be successful in these major
metropolitan markets. That perhaps instead of just farming these fights to far-flung
Indian casinos, boxing should refocus on building attractions close to home.
For
this to happen though, it will take a certain amount of investment in time and
capital. A large part of the reason for Broner's numbers this past Saturday were the result of the past efforts of
R&R Promotions (who co-promotes with Golden Boy), who staged many shows
featuring Broner in his hometown as he climbed up the ranks. You have to create
an attraction. You can't just Chumash it.
Broner
is just 22 years old with a load of physical talent and a polarizing personality
(a good thing in this business). If he does his part, there's plenty of time to
really build this into something significant.
FIGHT
DAY
Steve
First of all, keep up the good
work. I travel a lot for business and between your boxing/So Cal tweets
and your articles, it really helps me pass the time and feel like I’m connected
to home…as well as the boxing world of course.
What a week we have ahead of us….between
college football and boxing, we couldn’t ask for anything more – although I have
to admit the conference championship games are a little of weak this year.
What a dilemma us SoCal locals have; as
bad as me and my guys want to attend the fights at the Honda Center – we know, realistically, the outcome
of the Margarito-Cotto II will be exposed no doubt.
I have to imagine many fight fans share
the same viewpoint and wonder how that will affect the gate in Orange County .
So the plan is to utilize 2 TV’s (at
least) and watch both cards simultaneously at home …..as well as some NCAA
football.
Have a good time in NYC – The Garden & Jimmy’s – wish I
could afford to be there…enjoy man.
Josh Dana Point
Josh, thanks. And
yeah, it's real unfortunate that once again, boxing was bogged down in another
pissing contest and simply couldn't come to a resolution that didn't affect the
fighters and fans this way. The bottom line is that regardless of how good this
bantamweight doubleheader is on Showtime, it is overshadowed by the stuff
taking place at Madison Square Garden.
And that’s a shame.
It should've been prevented somehow.
MID-WEEK
FLURRIES
Steve
Smoger has been chosen to be the third man in the ring for the rematch between Miguel
Cotto and Antonio Margarito...The co-feature on Showtime this weekend is the
bout between Anselmo Moreno and Vic Darchinyan for the WBA 118-pound title. This
card also features Eric Morel, Frankie Gomez, Carlos Molina, Sakio Bika and
Omar Henry. Tickets for this card at the Honda Center in Anaheim are
priced at $150, $100, $50 and $25 and can be purchased at all Ticketmaster
outlets...Fernando Guerrero has been added to the December 10th show in DC...Looks like Teon Kennedy
and Chris Martin will square off on Jan. 13th on ESPN2's “Friday Night Fights”
in a “Loser Gets Dropped by Top Rank” bout...So guys like JR Smith may not be
let out of their contracts in China? Doesn't
surprise me; they detain people versus their will all the time in that
country...”Fight Camp 360” on Showtime returns tonight at 10 PM ET/PT...The
rumors of the demise of ABC’s “Pan Am” are greatly exaggerated (Whew!)...OK,
who's your Heisman Trophy winner? Trent Richardson, Andrew Luck, RG III or Matt
Barkley?...Did any PAC-12 football coaches not get fired?...As you read this,
I'm on my way to New York for Cotto-Margarito II. Like Bart
Scott: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7KSkZxt_zo.. .