Boxing: follow up

What a night of unrelenting carnage!

The HBO card was solid but unspectacular, unless you count De La Hoya's surprising seek-and-destroy elimination of Mayorga. For the record I thought DLH would dominate the fight, but I was surprised at the ferocity and agression he put on display in dispatching the tough, limited Mayorga in six.

The real fireworks came after we flipped to Showtime for their "free" card featuring a flyweight (115lb) title fight between champion Luis Perez and Dimitri Kirilov and a super welter (154lb) title scrap featuring Alejandro Garcia vs. Jose Antonio Rivera.

Kirilov's nickname is "baby", which fits if the baby in question somehow developed a thousand-yard stare. In the middle rounds Pelf commented "if I ever need to hire a Russian hit man, I know who to talk to".
THe action was fast and furious, and fought at a high level of skill. I had Kirilov dominating 7/10ths of the fight, befuddling Perez with spectacular defense and landing hard shots in combination. Late in the fight it looked like he was going to cruise to a dominating decision win....but of course this is boxing, and he suffered one of those sudden, totally unexpected momentum shifts that make it the only sport worth watching.
Out of the blue, Perez caught him flush with a right hook and sent him down HARD.
He beat the count, but was wobbly for the rest of the round, and the rest of the fight was back-and-forth action. I thought Kirilov still won a fairly wide decision, but he got jobbed by some blind refs. He won over the large crowd, and also the handful of boxing fans I was watching with...I'll definitely tune in for his next bout.

The main event was what they call a "pier six brawl" between two big, strong dudes who could punch and didn't much bother with dandified refinements like 'defense'. I think it totalled six knockdowns between the two guys, and even though it ended up being a one-sided win for Rivera it never seemed like Garcia was totally out of the fight.

It was such a relentless flood of boxing that I was a little worn out afterwards and had to lie down.

Oh, and next time we get together for a card the refreshments are on the Pelf.
After DLH's surprise knockdown of Mayo in the 1st round he said "I could not have been more wrong about this fight".

heh.