CASAMAYOR OUTSLUGS KATSIDIS IN OUSTANDING BOUT
Lightweight Champion Joel Casamayor bounced back from his controversial victory over Jose Armando Santa Cruz when he engaged undefeated Australian Michael Katsidis head on and turned back the young lion with a scintillating knockout victory in a classic ebb and flow confrontation.
Katsidis, by coming to the ring donning the helmet of a Greek soldier, made clear his intentions of taking the veteran Cuban lightweight to war, but it was Casamayor who first approached his opponent to initiate an up close and personal stare down before the introductions had begun. The tension continued to build as the fighters had to be pried apart and it became evident that something would have to give in a fight where neither fighter appeared the least bit willing to budge. Katsidis had come for the crown, but Casamayor was not yet ready to give up his throne.
The fireworks started less than thirty seconds in when the southpaw Casamayor dropped Katsidis to a knee with a hard straight left hand across the nose. Katsidis attempted to grab Casamayor around the leg as he went down, but the champion made him pay with a hard uppercut over the side of the head, a foul which Referee Jon Schorle failed to see. More surprised than hurt, Katsidis returned to his feet but before long was down again, this time on his hands and knees from another straight left. After his first round on the big stage, the challenger headed to his corner down three points and sporting a bloody nose.
Aside from a brief stumble along the ropes when dodging a punch, Casamayor spent the second round toying with Katsidis. Drilling the challenger with straight lefts and easily evading the counter punches, Casamayor went so far as to drop his hands often while standing in front of the Australian puncher, almost daring Katsidis to hit him. When the round ended, Casamayor leaned forward and grinned at Katsidis, mocking the challenger’s inability to land anything on him. Katsidis had a better round three, finding Casamayor with some right hands when bulling his way inside, but he failed to land enough to win the round and remained outclassed.
The bout took a drastic turn when Katsidis rocked Casamayor midway through round four, hurting the lightweight champion with a hard right-left combination, followed by a straight right hand across the mouth, and putting him in what looked to be serious trouble. Though he seemed to be hurt on several more occasions, Casamayor continued to trade equally hard punches with Katsidis, with the challenger getting the better of the action. When the round ended, Casamayor seemed fortunate for having stayed on his feet through the punishment.
Bleeding under his right eye and swelling under his left, Katsidis kept pressure on the suddenly Casamayor in round five even while getting caught with a straight left when his mouth was open. In the sixth, Katsidis found a home for his left hook, which he used to rock Casamayor badly in the final minute. Casamayor turned and stumbled away on shaky legs, allowing Katsidis to follow up with flying fists from both hands. Finishing with a hard right as Casamayor was going down, Katsidis sent the champion through the ropes and onto his back on the ring apron. Casamayor beat the allotted twenty count only to come back through the ropes and take a bigger beating from the surging Katsidis, who struck the discombobulated champion with hooks from both hands all the way until the bell and even after.
After eating a hard left from Casamayor instantly in round seven, Katsidis grabbed the champion and hurled him sideways, onto his back on the canvas. When Casamayor returned to his feet, the combatants fought on even terms, at one point trading a straight right for a straight left in the center of the ring. Towards the end of the round and over the next two, however, Casamayor got back to his counter-punching ways and started catching the slower Katsidis coming in. Casamayor appeared to be adding up points with his better boxing, but each round was fought extremely close as Katsidis continued to land straight rights to keep the champion honest.
Early in round nine, Schorle docked Casamayor a point for landing a low blow on Katsidis, despite the challenger drawing just as many, if not more warnings than Casamayor for the same infraction. Casamayor responded strongly to win the round and avoid losing the extra point, at one point clipping the challenger with a left hand that sent Katsidis wobbling sloppily into the ropes. As he returned to his corner with a cut over his left eye, Katsidis must have realized that he was starting to let the fight slip away and would need a big rally down the stretch to seal the deal if he was indeed destined to become champion.
Katsidis wasted no time charging in and hammering Casamayor with a hard straight right in round ten, which drove the champion back into the ropes. Perhaps thinking he had Casamayor hurt again, Katsidis rushed directly into a monstrous left hand that rocked his head violently, twisted his body, and sent the challenger crashing backwards beside the ropes, which he tried futilely to grab with a glove to stay on his feet. Katsidis somehow made it back to his feet, but he was in no condition to continue, despite Schorle giving him an extraordinary amount of recovery time. Three left hands and a hard right hook sent the defenseless Katsidis into the ropes again, and this time, Schorle wisely stopped the fight.
It was a victory that may prove to be the story of Casamayor’s already successful career and certainly the highlight of his otherwise dismal tenure as Lightweight Champion. Katsidis, who many figured to be a product of hype coming into the fight, responded well to the adversary with which he was faced after the first round and went on to give the aging champion all he could handle. In truth, Katsidis appeared, at times, within five or six big punches of winning, most notably in rounds four and six, but Casamayor likewise showed his grit by taking the fight over once again between rounds seven and nine and eventually ending the matter emphatically with what may go down as his best knockout.
The bout marked the third fight of the year contender in March alone, following in the footsteps of Vazquez-Marquez III and Marquez-Pacquiao II. Although the more exciting fighter in the pair did not have his hand raised at the end of the night, the fight itself served the sweet science well. The brawler, Katsidis, gave the fans a show, but the more highly skilled veteran, Casamayor, demonstrated why speed and precision are more important attributes than sheer brutality in the sport of boxing. Both men upped their stock and have bright futures to which they can look forward. Katsidis will not disappear after one loss to the best fighter in his division and will always provide tantalizing matches regardless of who is placed across the ring from him.
As for the winner, Casamayor may be lined up for a rematch with Nate Campbell, who upended Juan Diaz for three of the lightweight titles two weeks ago. Their first fight was closer than scorecards indicated, and, with Campbell fighting better than ever before, the rematch should be more compelling than its predecessor, which was fought on a few weeks notice and promoted as an undercard in 2003. Now a bout that would leave no question as to who the legitimate champion and best fighter of the division is, the two should do what it takes to see the rematch to fruition. Campbell did his part to push for such a fight when he showed up at the postfight press conference to verbally ambush the victorious champion. Casamayor, who has always aggressively pursued rematches with those who defeated him and those who disrespected him, can probably be expected to take the fight.
ANDRADE ELIMINATES STIEGLITZ
On the undercard, Mexican super middleweight contender Librado Andrade, who is incapable of being in a bad fight, stopped Germany’s Robert Stieglitz in the eighth round of an IBF eliminator bout.
Stieglitz made a good showing of himself by giving as good as he got for most of the fight, but Andrade’s incredible chin made the difference. His face a bloody mess ever since the second round, Stieglitz finally succumbed to Andrade’s relentless pressure late in round eight after absorbing a hard straight right hand from the Mexican that sent him reeling across the ring. Andrade followed up for the kill, punishing the stunned German along the ropes until Referee Ray Corona stepped in to stop the contest. Andrade celebrated his new status as the IBF’s number one contender by executing a backflip off the top rope.
