Dimitry Pirog stars, Marquez shines, Linares impresses, Bika gets DQ’d., and Guerrero remains friends with Casamayor

JacobsBy Paul Strauss: The main event of HBO’s fight card at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, NV pitted Juan Manuel Marquez against Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz. Everyone hoped it would be a repeat of their first fight that took place in Houston on Feb 28, 2009. It garnered fight of the year honors. In that fight, the Baby Bull give Marquez a real scare, and early on seemed to have too much steam and youth on his side. But, the veteran warrior Marquez kept analyzing and adjusting, and soon had Diaz where he wanted him. He found a home for his uppercuts, and brought an abrupt end to the proceedings in the 9th round. Diaz felt he should have won the fight, but got careless and vowed this time to be smarter. He did that, but also proved he needed to take more chances, and put on the pressure and volume punching he exhibited in the first match. Without it, Marquez was able to box expertly, and pick about his younger foe. Marquez rocked him several times with a variety of shots. The fight proved to be entertaining and exciting, but it didn’t have the kind of “edge of your chair” excitiement of the first fight.

In being cautious, Diaz managed to go the distance, but his strength has always been tremendous pressure and volume punching. Against Marquez, he was able to box well and land some sharp, clean shots, especially left hooks, but his punches lack the power of Dinamita. Realistically he was in a no win situation against a great fighter. If he tried to trade with Marquez, he would be in trouble due to Marquez’s power and counter punching ability. If he remained cautious and tried to be more conservative, then Marquez the technician would outbox and out punch him. The latter was true Saturday night, which resulted in a UD for Marquez. All three judges saw Marquez winning by a wide margin: 118-110, 117-111, and 116-112. Marquez is still determined to get his third fight with Pacquiao, while Diaz is now looking to score well on his LSAT and then go on to law school. He doesn’t rule out continuing his boxing career as well..

The real star of the night was Dimitry Pirog, who is from Gelendzhik, Russia. Saturday was his debut in the USA, and it was against a tough, favored opponent named Daniel Jacobs. The favored Jacobs entered the ring undefeated at 20-0, with a KO.ratio of 80%. As soon as people heard Pirog was from Russia, they expected to see the typical straight up, stiff permanently extended left jab type of Eastern Europe style. At the opening bell, Jacobs came out fast and let go of a big lead right hand, hoping to surprise and catch Pirog. Dimitry easily avoided the punch, and then quckly demonstrated his more western pro style of boxing. He immediately started pressuring Jacobs. But, he did it expertly, coming in at different angles, all the while slipping, bobbing and weaving under Jacobs’ counters. Jacobs at first looked concerned, the confused. He couldn’t find anything that would work at taking Pirog out of his rthythm. Meanwhile, Pirog was tagging him with all sorts of shots. He used a good jab, and hooked off of the jab. He would go up and down with his punches, and dart in and out, so Jacobs couldn’t retaliate. Jacobs even tried to switch to southpaw in hopes of confusing Pirog, but it didn’t work.

Pirog looked so comfortable and at ease in the ring. He was obviously seeing eventhing Jacobs was trying to do. Even when he did get clipped a couple of times, it didn’t seem to bother him in the least. He just kept slipping and sliding and pressuring Jacobs, all the while positioning himself to land his own hard shots. In the fifth round, Pirog executed a beautiful double shift, which totally confused Jacobs, and left him wide open for a hard right hand that sent him to the canvas in a crumpled heap. He looked out cold, but at the count of five seemed to regain consciousness, and wanted to get up, but Referee Robert Byrd prevented him from doing so and possibly injuring himself. It was obvious he was still not with it, as he seemed to think the count had only reached three. Regardless, he had been hit by a devastating punch, one that he never saw. Now Jacobs will have to draw heavily on his strengths to recuperate from his first loss, but others have done it like Amir Khan and Jorge Linares, who boxed well against Rocky Juarez tonight.

The story in that fight was Linares’ left hand. He kept it in Rocky’s face all night, either in the form of a jab, or a hook off of the jab, or a left uppercut. Rocky has so much potential ability, but has always been a great source of frustration because he doesn’t use it. He just doesn’t do enough. Tonight was no exception. Rocky would continually move into range, but head first, seldom behind a jab or even a feint. He presented a nice target for Linares. If Linares couldn’t actually land the left, he would use it to stiff arm Rocky. Initially, it seemed that Linares’ stance was too wide, and that he was bending too much at the knees, which negated his height and reach advantage. But, he knew what he was doing, and proved it by constantly picking Rocky apart with his left hand. When Rocky would try to rush in face first, Linares would plant a nice right hand on him, or reach out and grab behind Rocky’s head, and pull him forward. On those occasions when Rocky would find himself inside, he just didn’t do enough. He kept on looking for the perfect shot, which just wasn’t coming. Rocky did suffer a quick knockdown, but he seemed to catch the heel of his right shoe on the canvas and stumble more than go down from the force of a blow. In the last couple of rounds, Rocky finally started to throw a right hand over Linares’ left, but it wasn’t enough and it was too late. Two judges scored the ten round fight 99-90 for Linares, while the third had it 97-93 for him. Sadly, Rocky days of the big fight might be over.

Robert Guerrero and Joel Casamayor put on a good fight, but it was a bit too friendly, at least on Guerrero’s part.
There was too much touching of gloves after rounds, which is normally atypical of Guerrero. But, in this case, he was fighting a good friend and mentor. Early on Guerrero seemed to be all business when he rocked Casamayor a couple of times. Both times it seemed fortunate for Joel that the damage occurred at the end of the round, preventing Guerrero from finishing him. But, then Guerrero became content with boxing Casamayor instead of trying to knock him out, That strategy allowed Casamayor to get into his rthythm and start finding at his range. The fight was tipping more to his side, but Guerrero was still in contol and was landing the better shots. Whenever Guerrero did get aggressive, he seemed able to tag Casamayor.

Joel would back up to what he thought was a safe distance, only to be hit by Guerrero. However, Guerrero didn’t do it enough to get Joel in any real trouble again. In the last round, Casamayor was told in no uncertain terms that he needed a knockout to win. He almost got it, because Guerrero chose to stay back and be content with winning by decision. As a result, he got careless, and got clipped with a nice hard right jab that deposited him on the canvas. He seemed more embarrassed than hurt, but none the less provided Casamayor with more openings. Guerrero had never been knocked down before, and wasn’t about to let Casamayor get another clean shot across, so the fight ended with Guerrero scoring a pretty much one-sided UD. Two judges had it 98-89, while the third scored it 97-90 Casamayor’s ability to score a late knockdown might get him another big fight. In Guerrero’s case, he needs to remind himself that there are no friends in the ring.

Sakio Bika’s fight against the unbeaten Jean Paul Mendy proved costly to him, as he was DQ’d in the first round for hitting Mendy when Mendy’s right knee was on the canvas. It was a dumb move, because “The Scorpion” could have eventually stopped him fairly. The end came at 1:18 of the first, when Bika landed the illigal crunching right uppercut to the jaw of Mendy.

Leading up to it, Bika came out strong against Mendy and landed some glancing blows. Mendy seemed somewhat confused, and then got tagged with a looping Bika left to an area high and behind his right ear. The punch caused him to go down on his right knee. Bika noticeably looked at his prey, and then unleashed the punch that got him DQ’d. It was a stupid move, and Referee Joe Cortez had no choice but to disqualify him. Can’t take much away from this one.