01.05.06 – By Geoffrey Ciani: Saturday night, Acelino Freitas was awarded a split decision victory against Zahir Raheem. The official scorecards read 116-112, 115-113, and 113-115. I must admit, this decision came as a surprise to me. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a robbery, but at the end of the fight, I was convinced Raheem had won. In any case, the judges didn’t see things that way, enabling Freitas to reclaim the vacant WBO title he had lost at the hands of Diego Corrales almost two years ago.
This was a very awkward fight. The two styles did not make for much entertainment or excitement, and I don’t think anyone will be upset (aside from Raheem) if these two never meet again. It was a sloppy fight which was grossly lacking in action. Raheem’s technical style just didn’t mesh well with the ‘new’ style imposed by Freitas.
Freitas hasn’t been the same fighter since suffering his brutal defeat to Corrales back in August of 2004, and for good reason: he took a brutal beating! In fact, so brutal was the beating he suffered that he chose not to continue fighting after having been dropped for the third time in that contest; Corrales’s power was too much for Freitas to handle. Luckily for him, this wasn’t much of a problem for him Saturday night against the relatively light-hitting Raheem.
Truth be told, I thought Raheem did a better job “controlling” the action throughout much of the fight. It seemed to me that he was often landing the cleaner blows throughout the contest and he was often making Freitas miss with his. To be sure, Freitas was clearly the stronger puncher of the two, but to me, there was little evidence of this after the fourth round.
In the end, this was an extremely dull event. The fight wasn’t much of a fight, and to make matters worse, HBO had their “B Team” on hand for this one. Instead of Lederman, we were stuck with Kellerman; instead of the trio of Larry Merchant, Jim Lampley, and Manny Steward, we were stuck with Lennox Lewis and some guy named Fran. Michael Buffer wasn’t even on hand for this one. I guess HBO figured it wasn’t worth bringing their A Team for this lackluster event.
But I must say, if they are going to make a habit of going with the B Team on HBO’s Boxing After Dark, can they at least make an effort to bring back “Big” George Foreman? That’s one thing I sure do miss about HBO’s broadcasts. George Foreman was clearly the heart and soul of their commentating team, and he is dearly missed!
Bring back “Big” George!
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