|
Slanted Jabs and Assorted Jibes.
September 3, 2000
On paper, HBO After Dark’s Saturday night
twin bill of junior lightweights Diego Corrales vs Angel Manfredy
and featherweights Erik Morales vs Kevin Kelley, looked like two
competitive fights. In reality, it was two walkovers by two young
champions, both in the top ten pound-for-pound fighters in the
world today.
Manfredy, only 25 years old, is best known
for his win over Arturo Gatti a few years back. But he has twice
been beaten in title fights, a second round TKO by Floyd
Mayweather Jr., and a 12-round decision to Stevie Johnson. Make
that 0-3 in title fights for Manfredy, after he was systematically
taken
apart by Corrales, before referee Jerry McKenzie stopped the
slaughter at
2:38 of the third round.
In the first round, Corrales superior power
was evident. A split second after Manfredy whacked the six-foot
Corrales’ body with a double left hook, Corrales fired his own
left hook to Manfredy’s right temple. Manfredy seemed
to have blocked most of the punch, but suddenly there he was, flat
on his back, with the ref counting fingers over him. Only
Manfredy’s guts and guile kept him from being a first round KO
victim.
Then in the second round a strange thing
happened -- Corrales stopped throwing punches. Manfredy landed a
few of his own, mostly left uppercuts inside, and he basically
stole the round.
Little did it matter, when in the third,
Corrales commenced firing. Pretty soon Manfredy was down two
more times, the first from another left hook on the temple, and
the second from a straight right to the chops, which dropped him
against the bottom strand of ropes like a rag doll.
Manfredy, a big man in the balls department,
picked his fanny off the canvas a third time. But soon Corrales
was all over him, firing lefts and right that forced
Manfredy’s legs to do that funny little dance a fuzzy brain
seems to produce.
Manfredy’s wife Yvette stood frantically
in her husband’s corner and yelled for the ref to stop the
fight. Finally, McKenzie jumped between the fighters and ended the
carnage before Angel got separated from his sense, possibly
permanently.
After the fight Corrales hugged both
Manfredy and Yvette saying he was sorry. Manfredy told him,
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You were just doing your
job.”
Corrales won’t be hugging his estranged
wife Maria in the near future. Corrales was arrested recently for
breaking his pregnant 98-pound wife’s collarbone and a few of
her ribs. Their fetus is apparently safe. Corrales maintains his
innocence, but it’s hard to believe his wife got those injuries
from walking into a wall. A judge and jury will sort out the facts
in the near future.
"I'm not going to worry about it,"
said Corrales. He said that he would be vindicated when all the
facts are known. He didn’t deny hitting his wife, but
seemed to indicate her injuries were not as serious as the press
had portrayed.
Why do fighters always get happy hands when
they don’t see eye to eye their spouses? You’d think the
eloquent Corrales would’ve used his impressive vocabulary on his
wife instead.
Most annoying to these jaded eyes was
Corrales parading around the ring after the fight holding his
four-year old son Joel (from his first marriage). The kid
made a face like he had just swallowed rancid milk, and looked
like he rather be anywhere else in the world, than in the ring
with his accused-felon father.
Leave the kid at home, jerko. He shouldn’t
be up at that hour anyway.
The second fight between Morrales and Kelley
was a sad thing to watch. Kelley, an HBO KO Nation color
commentator, took the fight, for the bogus WBC interim
featherweight world title, on one month’s notice against
Morales,
possibly the world’s best 122 pounder. The added four pounds
seemed to make
Morales faster and stronger, and he pounded Kelley in every round
round before referee Lawrence Cole stepped in and stopped the
fight at 2:33 of the
seventh round.
“My brain was 22 but my body was 33,”
Kelley said after the fight. Then without missing a breath, the
loquacious Kelly started promoting next Saturday’s KO Nation
fight card featuring Bronco McKart versus Winky Wright, where
Kelley will do the color commentating in his own rapid-fire, lip
wiggling way. The advice here is for Kelley to keep his 33-year
old body out of the ring and his motor mouth behind the mike.
Otherwise his 22-year old brain might start to wither away.
Just a reminder: If anyone is dumb enough to cough up their
hard-earned cash for next Saturday night’s Roy Jones-Eric
Harding light heavyweight title bout on Pay-Per-View, you deserve
to get beat. This fight is an HBO fight at best, and only because
of the stature of Jones as possibly the best pound-for-pound
fighter in the world today.
You want to see butchery, watch Silence of
the Lambs instead. Harding has just as much chance of beating
Jones as Pee Wee Herman has of starring in the next James
Bond movie.
Hey, maybe I shouldn’t be beating up on
Paul Reubens (Pee Wee’s real name) so much. Reubens lives down
here in Sarasota near yours truly, and was seen recently prowling
a local high school reunion, apparently not held in a X-rated
theater. The erstwhile Pee Wee was seen caressing a cold beverage
and shooting the spit will old high school chums.
Reportedly, he was holding the beverage with
two hands.
|
