The Next Golden Boy...

[Eduardo]

Someone needs to have a thread on here about hyped-up boxing prospects who get exposed in amusing/entertaining/awesome fashion.

 

Marcos Maidana deserves a gold medal for already having two of these epic moments in recent years, both of which produced "Fight of the Year Candidates". The first one was an epic, sprint of a war with Victor Ortiz, who Golden Boy Promotions was trying to push as their next big Mexican-American star. Max Kellerman before the fight wondered if what we were thinking/hearing/etc. of Ortiz was too good to be true. It was. Maidana and Ortiz forced brutal knockdowns on one another. But what everyone remembers, is what will follow Ortiz for the rest of his career -- Ortiz walking away in the sixth round, waving off the fight and contemplating whether he even wants to be a boxer.

 

Ortiz has since gone on to become one of the most unintentionally hilarious fighters in combat sports. Everyone who saw his Facelube commercial will never forget it.

 

Maidana had another epic night tonight. Fighting with Adrien "The Problem" Broner in San Antonio, this fight was originally rumored to be on PPV. Eventually the network decided that they were going to have it on their Showtime premium channel. The last time Broner was on the network was against Showtime-color-commentator/great-overachiever Paulie Malignaggi in June 2013. The fight delivered big ratings for Showtime, nailing 1.3 million viewers for the fight; more viewers than any other Showtime fight this year, including the big Canelo Alvarez vs Austin Trout showdown in April that drew 39,000 fans to the Alamodome. Showtime rolled out their "All Access" show to promote Broner-Maidana. In the past year, this "24-7"-esque documentary series has only been used for boxers like Floyd Mayweather Jr, Canelo Alvarez, and Miguel Cotto. So tonight was the big end of year extravaganza for Showtime, after what was a pretty great year for the company.

 

A pretty hefty underdog, Maidana did it again tonight. So fucking aggressive early on, forced Broner down to the mat to secure a 10-8 round in the second frame. Broner tried to past by the rounds by using his defense, and being way too efficient on his output. Maidana was just going after him, landing some great left hooks and working over Broner's body. In round eight, Maidana got another knockdown. But Maidana was dumb enough to throw a headbutt, so it was just a 10-9 round for him since he got a point-deducted. Probably my favorite pro wrestling pay-back spot of the year was Maidana returning the Cassandro dry-humping spot to a huge crowd reaction, bringing it back full circle from Broner's initial dry-humping spot in the first frame.

 

Maidana humping Broner.

 

By the time the fight was over, even though I was confident Maidana won seven rounds, probably eight frames, including one 10-8, I was still unsure of the judges. We're so used to seeing bad decisions in combat sports. There's been plenty this year, but Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs Bryan Vera from a few months ago is probably the worst one I've seen in 2013. Scott Christ of BadLeftHook, who had the fight eight-rounds-to-four for Maidana, was sure that Broner was going to get the judges decision. Many were assuming the same thing. So it was fucking incredible that these Texas judges actually got the call right, and gave the fight to Maidana. Pretty great night if you're a Maidana fan. We've seen some great fights this year, so while I don't think this was to the bat-shit-insane-levels of Timothy Bradley vs Ruslan Provodnikov or Omar "Panterita" Figueroa Jr. vs Nihito Arakawa, this was still one of the most memorable fights of the year. Just a great way to end the boxing-year. Mauro Ranallo, who I actually think is way better as a boxing commentator than he ever was as an MMA commentator, summed it up perfectly: "Problem solved".