05.11.06 – By Christopher Roche: The only risk involved in the Floyd Mayweather vs. Carlos Baldomir fight last night was whether or not the audience could stay awake for all twelve rounds. When one fighter is content to throw one punch at a time, parry and run, there is a risk the fight will be boring. Baldomir was reduced to flailing at Mayweather, often missing badly, and Floyd nearly shut him out on his way to a unanimous decision..
In the first round, Baldomir sustained two cuts, one on his nose and one over his eye, and it seemed like we might have a fight on our hands. In the second round, the crowd’s intensity grew as Baldomir ate a stiff straight right hand from Mayweather. Baldomir tried to load up and retaliate with something meaningful, but he was too slow and inaccurate to catch Mayweather. By the time the third round rolled around, it grew obvious that Mayweather would not open up at all and take any risks with Baldomir. Floyd was holding his hands low to cover up his body, and he rolled Baldomir’s right hand off with his shoulder. If Baldomir’s looping right got past Mayweather’s shoulder, then Mayweather simply ducked the telegraphed shots.
In the middle rounds, Mayweather put on a clinic in parrying, and he occasionally peppered Baldomir with right hand leads. Baldomir began bleeding from the cut on his nose in the fifth round, and Mayweather closed the sixth with a strong flurry. After the close of the sixth round, this fight took on the tempo of a golf match, and Tiger Woods got up and left early, as did much of the audience, as reported by Jim Lampley of HBO. My pen began to roll off of the paper, and at one point I wrote the word “yawn” next to my score for round eight. The fight closed with more of the same, and Mayweather became the new WBA Welterweight champion of the world via a unanimous decision. Mayweather raised his record to 37-0 (24) while Baldomir fell to 43-10-6 (13).
The undercard featured a change of hands for the IBF featherweight belt. In a fight that could challenge the main event for most boring fight of the year, Orlando Salido raised his record to 28-9-2 (18) over Robert Guerrero who fell to 19-2-1 (12). This fight featured the champion, Guerrero, leaning on Salido for most of the fight. Nevertheless, Salido took a unanimous decision and the belt.
In another bout, welterweight sensation Paul “the Punisher” Williams took six rounds of target practice against Santos Pakau. Pakau was brave and tough, but he was a last day replacement and stood no chance of defeating Williams. Referee Joe Cortez mercifully stopped this match at 2:16 of the sixth round, and Williams rolled to 32-0 (24).
In the best bout of the evening, two undefeated heavyweights from California squared off. Chris Arreola raised his record to 18-0 (16) with a TKO at 2:17 of the seventh round, over Damian Wills. Wills is the son of former heavyweight Mark Wills. His record fell to 21-1-1 (15).