By Mark Klimaszewski: This is the sort of headline we should expect to see on Sunday. In a fight that’s not attracting anywhere near the sort of attention as it’s merit warrants, two all-action sluggers will be going toe to toe from the opening bell.
Brandon ‘Bam Bam’ Rios is making the first defence of his World Boxing Association (WBA) Lightweight strap against two-time world challenger and super-tough brawler Urbano Antillon. In a fight that will almost certainly deliver all the satisfaction and drama that fans have been craving in recent months, anyone who knows these two pugilists has their money on this being a ‘fight of the year’ candidate. Two guys who love to come forward; love to throw shots; are willing to take shots; neither are fond of clinching and both have more than a little disdain for each other? Bring it on.
Rios had showed heart, toughness and alot of promise on his way to getting a ‘world’ belt, but it was his first title fight (against the more skilled Venezuelan boxer Miguel Acosta) where Bam Bam really got the fans to sit up and take notice. In a great all-action fight, Brandon started off coming forward but was apparently outclassed by Acosta’s accurate counter punching. Rios took many big right hands in the first few rounds but by the midway rounds appeared to be gaining strength from all the leather he was eating. By round six the tide turned as Aguacerito was dropped; Bam Bam started to take the upper ground as his confidence grew and Acosta’s will dwindled, with the title holder hitting the canvas again in the eighth. Stopping the Venezuelan with a brutal succession of punches in the tenth, Rios pulled off the comeback and got his hands on the WBA belt. In doing so he must have swelled his fan base tenfold. Following the Freddie Roach impressions on HBO’s Pacquaio V Margarito 24/7 program (in November last year), many people had Rios down as a classless, foul-mouthed, one dimensional slugger who would be outclassed the moment he met a slick boxer. After his gutsy performance against the Acosta it was hard not to be impressed with his toughness and relentless aggression in the ring.
Urbano Antillon actually had his first loss at the hands of Acosta, being stopped in the ninth round of their 2009 meeting in what was up to that point a fairly close fight. Coming off a nine fight KO streak, Antillon was expected to give Aguacerito hell and was picked by some experts to be too much for him. Urbano hit the canvas in round nine following a vicious uppercut but although he (just) beat the count, referee Russel Mora waved it off.
In his second ‘world’ title shot last December, Urbano took WBC champ Humberto Soto the distance in a real thriller. Initially seeming to have no answer for Soto’s precision combinations in the early rounds, Antillon started to come on in the latter half of the fight and buzzed Soto on more than one occasion and brought the scorecards closer by the end. Although it was clearly Soto’s fight, the fact that Antillon seemed the stronger of the two towards the end of the fight boded well for a rematch. Initially meant to happen back in May (on the Pacquiao v Mosley undercard) for some reason the fight fell through, leaving us with the equally enticing match against Rios. On Saturday we will finally get a boxing match worth being excited about. This will be as far from a ‘chess-match’ as you’re likely to see as both guys go to war from the off and fight at a savage pace that will have you on the edge of your seat. It’s highly probable that these two warriors will deliver a classic for the ages and with some great potential opponents for the winner (Robert Guerrero, a post rubber match Juan Manuel Marquez, Humberto Soto even or perhaps a jump up to 140) the stakes are looking high. After last week’s Heavyweight let-down, we shall once again see why the lower weights are where it’s at to get a fix of good boxing action.