Old Men and Europeans: Lorenzo-Marquez and Abraham-Miranda II

Tonight on world championship boxing, Showtime treated the audience to bloody and entertaining undercard that went the distance and an explosive fourth round knockout.

From Showtime's point of view I am dead certain that the night was intended to be a showcase for a potential future fight between Giovanni Lorenzo and Edison Miranda. Even before the Lorenzo-Marquez bout had begun, Showtime was running a poll asking viewers if they thought Abraham and Miranda should fight a rubber match if Miranda beat Abraham tonight, as if broadcasting their confidence in Edison Miranda. Miranda had predicted that he would knock out Arthur Abraham in the 9th round and Showtime repeated that prediction and accredited him as their source at least twice.

Before the main event, however, Showtime made sure we saw the crossroads battle between middleweight prospect and alphabet contender Giovanni Lorenzo (both undefeated and overprotected) and former junior middleweight alphabet titlist Raul Marquez (neither undefeated nor overprotected, overall, over the course of his career) in what was billed as an IBF title eliminator for a shot at Arthur Abraham. Commentator Steve Albert, however, appeared (to me, mileage may vary) bent on pitching the Miranda-Abraham rubber match before the rematch had even started, which would (if Showtime had their way) ultimately make Lorenzo the mandatory challenger to Miranda.

Not everything can be planned with certainty.

The big surprise, to me, was Lorenzo-Marquez. I hadn't seen Giovanni Lorenzo fight before, but Marquez is 37 years old and has not won a fight against a meaningful opponent in years. His last serious fight was a 9 round TKO loss to Jermain Taylor in 2006 and before that his last big fight was a mutually unimpressive no contest with Shane Moseley that proved Mosely wasn't a junior middleweight and that Marquez was a serious risk to be stopped by a paper-cut if his scheduled opponent was a CPA. That was the only sense in which I wasn't surprised: Marquez bled profusely.

The surprise was that, after weathering solid boxing and big right hands from Lorenzo in the first two rounds, Marquez came out hard and roughed the bigger Dominican up enough in the first minute or so of the third to squeak by with an even round. Heartened by this success, he went into brawler mode for the rest of the fight. The result? Lorenzo found himself retreating into something of a shell and taking a lot more punches than he was throwing in the middle rounds. On my personal card, Marquez swept rounds 4-9 to establish the lead. He and Lorenzo fought on nearly even terms in the tenth, with a big punch from the latter seeming to seal a Lorenzo round... when the Dominican flagrantly delivered a deliberate butt to the head of the Mexico-born Texan and was penalized a point by the referee.

Though the fruits of his strong round were taken away by his own foolish foul, Lorenzo now had Marquez hideously bloody and came out for a strong, aggressive 11th. He out-fought, out-boxed, and out-wrestled the smaller man in the manner he should have been doing all night. Unfortunately, he was again his own worst enemy: when told (correctly in my view, incorrectly by the actual judges' cards) that he needed to knock his man out to win, his reaction was to come out casually and box smoothly and punch with some authority to win the final round... but come short of winning the fight. On my scorecard, Raul Marquez won by a score of 115-113. The judges saw it closer, all three of them called the fight 114-113 and if Lorenzo had not delivered the flagrantly deliberate butt that cost him a point in round 10 the fight would have been scored a draw. Without the foul, and with a more forceful 12th round performance managing him a knockout, Lorenzo would have won by the same single point by which he lost.

From Lorenzo's posture, movement, and style in the ring one could extrapolate that he is trying to learn how to fight like Bernard Hopkins and he could have a worse model. If that is his goal, however, he needs to improve his technical defense and rely less on movement... especially against smaller men. He looked, at times, like he was running from the obviously smaller Marquez and that made it harder to sell the long stretch of rounds he lost. A prime Hopkins followed up on hurtful punches and was master of the late KO, and Lorenzo failed to capitalize on at least three right hands that badly hurt Marquez in rounds 9-12. If he uses this fight as a learning experience and improves upon it, he has a serious future.

Marquez claimed earlier this year that he was the most deserving contender for a shot at middleweight contender Kelly Pavlik, and his victory over Lorenzo makes him (unless the IBF famously redefines the situation) Abraham's mandatory challenger. I don't think he stands a real chance against either man, but by upsetting Giovanni Lorenzo he has proved he can beat a younger, bigger man.

The main event, the rematch between 'King' Arthur Abraham and Edison 'Pantera' Miranda was as highly anticipated as their first fight was highly controversial. In his challenge for Abraham's IBF middleweight title, Miranda had broken the King's jaw in two places at the end of round 4 and been the busier puncher throughout the fight, especially from round 5 on. Abraham had his strong moments and boxed intelligently, but was considered the beneficiary of bad refereeing (Randy Neumann deducted five points from Miranda for fouls) and bad judging (the officials mistakenly attempted to stop the fight and go to the scorecards in the mid-rounds, then reversed themselves and let the fight go on when told that the broken jaw was caused by a punch and any stoppage would mean a TKO win for Miranda) leading to a controversial hometown decision.

Miranda and his camp loudly cried foul after the fight and declared that they had been robbed. Many U.S. fans firmly accepted this (with help from Showtime) and boxing writers could not deny real controversy surrounding the fight. In order to prevent controversy, the rematch was held in the United States. The Miranda camp and Showtime appeared quite sincerely convinced that the 166 lb catchweight and Miranda's improved training would lead to a clear win for Miranda.

There were two big similarities between the rematch and the original fight. First, Miranda was the busier puncher throughout. Second, he was docked a point for a low blow foul. In round three, however, Abraham's hard counter-punching clearly hurt Miranda on several occasions and the fight went off script. Then, in round 4, Abraham knocked Pantera down with a left hook. Then he did it again. When he did it a third time, the fight was stopped. It's hard to argue with the stoppage: Miranda was clearly hurt by two punches in the third and then dropped three times in quick succession, clearly hurtfully, in the fourth. I might have issued a count before waving the fight off, but I can't argue with the referee's choice. If Miranda wasn't completely done, he was on his way there, and his safety was now the chief concern. I think this fight, along with Miranda's previous knockout loss to Kelly Pavlik, clearly and starkly showed us Miranda's deficiencies: a jaw that is vulnerable in a serious slugfest and a tendency to throw wide punches and leave himself open to the kinds of shots that could show the vulnerability of his jaw.

The upshot of this one big upset and one fight sure to be seen as an upset in the minds of American fans is that Raul Marquez is the mandatory challenger to Arthur Abraham. This is too bad, as it's not a fight I really want to see. My feeling is that Marquez could be very badly hurt by an opponent with Abraham's self-discipline, tight peek-a-boo defense, patience, and big punching power. At his age and with his style, I don't see him beating the German-based Armenian. A really damaging knockout, however, could do worse than merely end his career.

The fight to be made at middleweight is Arthur Abraham challenging the real middleweight champion, Kelly Pavlik. With Kelly's good fundamental offense and skill at breaking a man down, and Abraham's tight, cautious, patient style and huge counterpunches, this could be a big fight. I think it would be better than any 'superfight' Pavlik could stage with Joe Calzaghe (and that doesn't appear to be happening anyway, Calzaghe is making retirement noises and has an upcoming fight with Roy Jones that some fans and writers feel is a good close to his legacy, though I would rather see him fight Chad Dawson or Glen Johnson before he retires) or any fight Abraham could make at this moment at 168. It certainly brings Abraham a notch above Felix Sturm and Winky Wright on the list of Pavlik's top contenders.

I liked Abraham. I think he can create a U.S. fan-base if long as he keeps fighting in the States and producing knockouts. When the result of the fight was announced, he had silenced the wall of boos that had greeted him as the fighters were announced and even inspired scattered cheering. If he has more fights like this, the cheering will not stay scattered.

All in all, a good card. The absolute thwarting of the big promoters and the big media outlet with arrogant plans for the future was almost as enjoyable as the fights.