Look at these adorable little mofos fighting. If that had been on HBO on Saturday night instead of Adrien Broner and Keith Thurman I bet there’d be a lot less hullabaloo today.
This week seems to have less potential for controversy, though there’s a prospective war and a possible upset in the two biggest shows. They’d be Ray Beltran vs. Hank Lundy and Robert Guerrero vs. Selcuk Aydin, respectively. Apart from that there’s Danny Green’s final fight in his hometown of Perth, Western Australia and Orlando Salido taking a gimme fight in Nayarit, Mexico.
- Robert Guerrero vs. Selcuk Aydin, Saturday, Showtime, San Jose Calif. Guerrero’s welterweight debut isn’t really such a bad fight. It’s just that maybe people don’t care that much about it. Certainly there’s Robert Guerrero fatigue amongst boxing journalists, who get bombarded with press releases from his publicist which are usually along the lines of: ROBERT GUERRERO TARGETS FOUR WAY TAG TEAM BATTLE WITH FLOYD MAYWEATHER, GODZILLA, OPTIMUS PRIME. Forgive me for not really believing the hype, but at this stage the reality is Guerrero (29-1-1) is an inconsistent, sometimes elite lightweight with an interesting personal story. Turkey’s Aydin (23-0) is nothing special, but the welterweight landscape is pretty bare these days. What Aydin is is a natural welterweight, and a scrappy one at that. I hope Guerrero is coming prepared for a rough night, because this young Turk isn’t going to cut him any slack. Unless Guerrero can keep the slightly shorter Aydin at a distance, he’s going to be eating leather (and some elbows and headbutts) all night. Whether Guerrero has any pop at welterweight might be the key question heading into this fight. With all the recent upsets, I wouldn’t be betting the farm on the Californian favourite here.
- Hank Lundy vs. Ray Beltran, Friday, ESPN2, Atlantic City. This will be the fight of the week, for as long or as short as it lasts. I just don’t see a way that lightweights Lundy and Beltran won’t go together well. Philly’s Lundy (22-1-1) is powerful, fast and dumb. Maybe not personally, but he’s definitely boxing dumb. The loss on his record came against John Molina in a fight that Lundy had in the bag before clowning and getting himself KTFO. Against David Diaz, Lundy fought Diaz’ fight and went down before knocking Diaz out in a candidate for last year’s Fight of the Year. Manny Pacquiao sparring partner Beltran (25-6) does a lot of things Diaz does, but has less miles on the clock, despite what his record might indicate. Trained by Freddie Roach, he’s a tough, honest guy and a big puncher. So basically you have two big punchers. One, Lundy, is a tremendous physical specimen burdened by an iffy chin and a penchant for in-the-ring stupidity. The other, Beltran, is tougher but older, slower and less gifted. What the hell is not to like?
- The Rest. Australian working class hero Danny Green (31-5) beat Danny Santiago (31-5-1) in Perth in a light heavyweight bout on Wednesday; the odds were 8-1 in his favour. So I guess that would’ve made Santiago a working class hero if he won… Junior lightweight prospect Ronny Rios (18-0) takes a step up in class to fight Ray Beltran’s colleague in the Pacquiao sparring gig, David Rodela (16-6-3), in California on TeleFutura on Saturday… Also Saturday, Mexican veteran and two time Juan Manuel Lopez conqueror Orlando Salido (38-11-2) moves up to junior lightweight to fight Chile’s Moises Gutierrez (21-4) in Tepic, Mexico.
