Not Fight of the Year, or Fighter of the Year, Simply the PERFORMANCE of the Year (and There’s More to Come)

By Michael Katz

Photo ©Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com

Sometimes, humble pie is delicious, especially when it is a pleasant – if modest - surprise when you’re wrong, as I was when I had Dewey big in 1948 and wound up with Harry Truman for four more years. I was wrong about Calzaghe-Kessler, too. They proved the hype correct. I’m not sure how “super” these supermiddleweights are, but I’m certainly willing to concede that they would have been handfuls for the likes of Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney.

I don’t think I’m wrong about the next big fight of this fantastic finish to a pretty solid year, the one Saturday between Sugar Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden. I could be very wrong about my pick, underdog Mosley, but no matter who wins I can almost guarantee it will be a candidate for fight of the year.

Calzaghe-Kessler was not. Joe Calzaghe’s domination of the second half didn’t make him fighter of the year, either. But you can have my vote for performance of the year when the Welshman made some adjustments against a pretty fair country fighter in Mikkel Kessler in what was more of a revelation than his 2006 victory over Jeff Lacy.

It was so smooth, the way he used his right-handed jab to disrupt the Pretty Good Dane’s attack that I am toying with the idea of moving Calzaghe up from fourth place to third, behind only Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, on my pound-for-pound list, replacing Juan Manual Marquez – who did absolutely nothing wrong and an awful lot right in winning just about every minute of his fight last Saturday against Rocky Juarez.

That’s how impressed I was with Calzaghe and I hope he gets his wish and faces Bernard Hopkins next spring. Frank Warren, Calzaghe’s promoter and long-time albatross, said Hopkins “can pick the weight, he can pick the date, he can pick the site. We don’t care. We want this fight. We’ll fight him in his back yard, if that’s where he wants it. Joe Calzaghe wants this fight and he deserves it.”

For too many years, Warren preferred Calzaghe to remain safely in the British Isles, fighting mediocrities. But Calzaghe will be 36 by the time of any meeting with Hopkins, who would be 43, and time is running out so the promoter’s willing now to take his ATM overseas for the first time.

What’s even more delicious than the humble pie is that Hopkins, contacted by Dandy Dan Rafael, immediately agreed, telling the intrepid espn.com writer “I would love to entertain his request.”

Hopkins told Dandy that Calzaghe, and especially Warren, understand that the Welsh southpaw “needs that final stamp of approval from the American boxing writers and fans.”

Calzaghe, whose biggest victories were against a somewhat faded Chris Eubank (two more losses away from retirement) in 1997 and Lacy last year, may not need any more of a “stamp of approval” to get into the hall of fame on the first ballot, but certainly Hopkins would be the biggest feather, if the oldest, in his cap.

Instead of insisting on his Philadelphia streets for the site, Hopkins suggested that they do it in Yankee Stadium during the great ballpark’s final year. The longtime middleweight champion, and current light-heavyweight king, has long wanted to appear on the same arena where Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Billy Martin fought. There hasn’t been a boxing match there since Ali was lucky to get a decision against Ken Norton in 1976. The site itself could be the semifinal of a pay-per-view card. Instead of a “semifinal,” there could be taped highlights of not only Louis, Robinson and Ali, but also of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and the Pope. Instead of some contest for the WB-Who super junior whatever weight, maybe a bunch of the great fighters of recent years, who couldn’t make it to the Stadium, could be invited in – Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Alexis Arguello. Evander Holyfield could give a four-round exhibition.

It could be the celebration that boxing deserves for the way it came back from the “dead” this year. The cost of bringing in everyone would be defrayed by the cheapness of the undercard. Golden Boy and Warren could fill the prelims with young prospects who would probably work for little just to be able to say they fought at Yankee Stadium.

It’s amazing how giddy you can become watching two superlative fighters like Calzaghe and Marquez perform against respectable opposition, even if the matches weren’t that competitive – though Kessler was in command early, landing enough right hands over and under Calzaghe’s left that it appeared he would be the one to remain unbeaten.

I’m not sure I would go as overboard as HBO’s Max Kellerman, evidently striving to play the upbeat commentator to Larry Merchant’s curmudgeon, did in making Calzaghe-Kessler sound like the fight of the century, especially since next weekend we should get a better one.

WHY MOSLEY: It is no secret that despite BALCO, I trust Sugar Shane Mosley when he says he did not try to cheat before his second bout with Oscar de la Hoya, that I believe in him as a man and as a boxer. He’s 36, but I saw no slippage – au contraire, he looked as good as old – when last spotted, against Luis Collazo in February. Since then, he has had some quality sparring sessions with de la Hoya and others and I trust my old editor’s reports that Mosley is in optimum condition. If Doug Fischer says so, it must be so, and if it’s so, I think the oddsmakers have the wrong favorite for this HBO pay-per-view show.

It is no reach to imagine Miguel Cotto knocking out the old man. Mosley has a reputation for an iron chin, but I was at ringside in the same building when he was dropped a couple of times and virtually out on his feet twice against Vernon Forrest in 2002.

Yes, Mosley can be hurt and the undefeated Cotto, 30-0 with 25 knockouts, is a punishing puncher, especially to the body – and Mosley’s body could get old in just a few left hooks. Cotto could easily bring up one of those hooks to the chin at any moment.

Cotto could, especially if he wins Saturday, become one of the all-time greats. Even if he loses to the future first-round hall of famer, he could go on to a spectacular career. But for now, I am afraid the Puerto Rican icon – and he will have a huge home-field advantage in New York because of his heritage – remains a highly talented terrific prospect. He should not be minus $1.50 or $1.45 against a tried-and-true great fighter who also happens to be bigger, and in fact, the odds as posted in my hometown paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, are down to $1.30 with Mosley’s buy-back number plus $1.10..

Mosley is not only taller (5-foot-9 to 5-foot-7) with a longer reach (74 inches to 67), he is faster, stronger, much more experienced and probably hits just as hard, especially to the body. That kind of makes for a pretty good underdog.

Height is an important factor in handicapping Mosley bouts. He has four losses in a brilliant career with 44 victories – two to Vernon Forrest and two to Winky Wright, both of whom made it impossible for Mosley to land his lightning-quick combinations because he had to punch up.

The tale of the tape for this fight, though, is in Mosley’s favor. Cotto will, as he always does, be moving forward, trying to pressure the taller fighter, trying to get close enough to land those hooks and right hands to the sides. The geography, though, favors Mosley, who should be able to keep his distance while not only countering, but firing first and stepping to the side.

Mosley packed on muscle when he moved up to junior middleweight, winning a title against de la Hoya four years ago and three years after defeating his current Golden Boy Promotions partner at welterweight.

Jack Mosley, his father and trainer, says his boy regained his old speed by stopping his weight-lifting. It certainly looked that way when he completely outsped the slick Collazo, a former welterweight title-holder who had made Ricky Hatton look somewhat feeble.

I sense Mosley, who loves boxing so much he is willing to help 16-year-old Shane Jr. get started if that’s what his boy really wants, is as hungry as ever. He has been an elite fighter for so long that it’s difficult to see him as an underdog here against a guy who was hurt several times at 140 pounds. Sure, Cotto had trouble making the weight, but at 147, he was wobbled by Zab Judah this year and Judah doesn’t punch nearly as hard as Mosley. A knockout by the underdog would hardly surprise me.

SEEING RED: Whatever intrigue there might have been Juan Manuel Marquez’s victory was eliminated in the first round when Juarez, after an accidental clash of heads, bled profusely from a cut above his left eye. I’m not sure it really would have mattered against the slick – you don’t have to be a southpaw to be “slick” – Mexican, who if there’s a god in the boxing backrooms will get his rematch with Manny Pacquiao. But as outclassed as the one-eyed Juarez was in his third failed attempt in a title fight, he should not be written off. He did nail the junior lightweight champion a few times with what looked like sharp left hooks to the chin, so perhaps a return to 126 pounds, a division now bereft of Pacquiao, Marquez and Marco Antonio Barrera, would be successful. Certainly, he would be a nice match for southpaw Roberto Guerrero, who on the Showtime undercard, scored a smashing 56-second one-punch knockout of Martin Honorio in defense of one of the alphabet featherweight titles.

PENTHOUSE: Guerrero belongs here not for setting up his straight left hand with a right-handed jab that was just short – had it landed, it would have pushed the challenger out of range for the 2 in the 1,2 – but for showing incredible fortitude just by showing up to fight. His 23-year-old wife had been diagnosed the week before with leukemia and had undergone her first chemotherapy treatment before Guerrero left for Tucson the day before his defense. “I love you honey,” he said immediately after the fight, “I love you and I’m coming home.”

PENTHOUSE II: Of course, not only Calzaghe, but Kessler, and let’s make room for Marquez and Juarez .

OUTHOUSE: Anyone who says the Mosley-Cotto undercard is one of the best. Yes, Joel Casamayor, the real lightweight champion, has what could be a tough defense against Jose Armando Santa Cruz. But Antonio Margarito, the former welterweight belt holder coming off his close loss to Paul Williams, seems to be in rather light against Golden Johnson, who was knocked out in seven by Mosley, then the lightweight champion, in 1999. And Victor Ortiz, one of the best prospects, meets one of those former paper-holders who are dug up to embellish the resumes of up-and-comers, this one named Carlos Maussa….One of my former employers pointed out that Calzaghe “is a Welshman, not a Brit.” Go to school, Gregory, and study European geography and history. Wales is part of Great Britain. Calzaghe, like all Welshmen, even if they hate to admit it, is a Brit. He is NOT an Englishman, which is where most people err.

DIS AND THAT: William Hill’s, the English bookmakers, list Calzaghe as a 13-8 (about 8-5 if you’re in America) favorite over Hopkins. They say the Welshman would be 4-1 over fellow Brit and light-heavyweight alphabet champion Clinton Woods and 2-1 over Kessler in a rematch that Calzaghe has wisely ruled out….There’s an intriguing fight outside of Paris this Saturday where Le Tank, Jean-Marc Mormeck, is very slightly favored over David Haye of England. Mormeck, the cruiserweight champion who regained the title by outpointing O’Neil Bell in March, is minus $1.25 and Haye, whose only loss on a 19-1 ledger (with 18 knockouts, although against questionable opposition) was at the age of 24 by fifth-round stoppage to Carl Thompson in 2004, is minus $1.05. In other words, on neutral Haye would probably be the chalk. Never seen him, so can’t be too wrong on this one. Mormeck, at 35, may be slipping and in any case Le Tank’s bull-like rushes might be voided by Haye’s heavy artillery, especially at long range. Haye is 6-foot-3 to the Guadaloupe-born Mormeck’s 5-11 ½ and has a reach edge of 80 ½ inches to 74. Obviously, no pick here…..I believe Joel Casamayor’s return to trainer Joe Goossen should get him by next Saturday and set up the only lightweight fight I want, against Juan Diaz. If Don King makes that and Bob Arum refrains from putting Pacquiao on the proverbial shelf by matching him with David Diaz at 135 instead of Juan Manuel Marquez at 130, maybe I’ll take back some of the stuff I’ve said about the promoters. Or maybe I won’t..Too bad I suspect Eddie Chambers won’t get past Alexander Povetkin if they go ahead with their IBF mini-tournament finale. Loved Chambers leveling with ShoBox viewers and apologized “for bullshitting so much” during his split decision victory over Calvin Brock last Friday….I’ll forgive Jim Lampley for hinting that Calzaghe-Kessler was a matchup of undefeated like Leonard-Hearns (remember Roberto Duran?) for pointing out how badly the Welsh needed a victory, having been bounced out of the world cup of rugby by Fiji…..Anyone else reminded of Sonny Liston by Rocky Juarez’s facial expression?….Okay, I’m cutting this short so I can watch the Contender III finale. Or maybe take a nap.