Joel Casamayor vs. Juan Manuel Marquez
Southpaws should circle to their right and Juan Manuel Marquez showed us why. Joel Casamayor, a master boxer, curiously took his southpaw stance on a leftward journey from round one and ran into right hands from Marquez all night until he ran into one too many in the eleventh round. Marquez caught Casamayor backing straight out and planted the Cuban legend on his butt. Once Casamayor waited out referee Tony Weeks' count, Marquez backed Casamayor to the ropes with a flurry, finally dropping him again at 2:55 of round eleven. Weeks waived the fight without bothering to count.
For boxing purists, Marquez and Casamayor provided a festival of boxing technique from two of the sport’s finest practitioners. The crowd, heavily weighted toward Marquez, roared with each of their hero's punches and collectively gasped when Casamayor landed his.
A basically even fight, two judges had the fight scored 95-95 at the stoppage, with a dissenting opinion of 97-93 Marquez.
Vernon Forrest vs. Sergio Mora
“This was boxing 101. Use the jab, the jab sets up everything,” said an ecstatic Vernon Forrest after giving Sergio Mora a drilling that “drill baby drill” Republicans would be proud of. All three judges gave the fight to Forrest by wide margins of 118-109, 117-110, and 119-108. Suite101 scored the fight 118-109 for Forrest.
The first round had many of the ringside press groaning that the fight would be a dull affair. Indeed the first round consisted of a lot of circling and posturing but not many punches landed. Perhaps the lingering memory of the first Forrest/Mora fight, which was rather dull, made press row a little more cynical than they might otherwise be.
Then Forrest started landing. First he landed a couple stiff rights followed by a jab that bounced Mora’s head around. From that point--the middle of round two--Forrest controlled the fight with his jab and straight right, but used those shots to set up short hooks too. Boxing 101 indeed.
A short counter left hook at the end of round seven sent Mora back-peddling into the ropes with referee Vic Draculich determining, correctly, that the ropes prevented Mora from going to the canvas, thereby scoring a knockdown for Forrest.
After the fight, Mora lamented only having six weeks to train as he prefers eight, claiming evidence of his weight struggles in the need to lose six pounds on the day of the weigh-in.
"Now you know how I felt last time," chided Forrest at the post-fight press conference. "I had to lose six pounds before our first fight. Now we're even."
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