Knock out artist Edwin Valero showed that there’s more to him than meets the eye with an impressive victory over Antonio DeMarco last night. A pro DeMarco crowd in Monterrey, Mexico stood witness as Valero extended his amazing knockout streak to 27 stoppages from his 27 outings, however this was only half the story.
The big noise post fight centred on the skills the Venezuelan had displayed in halting yet another foe as he unveiled feints, jabs, combinations and a tricky defence all backed up with pulverising hitting. As a US showcase it went about as well as ‘El Dinamita’ could have wished for, save for a horrendous gash he suffered on his forehead from a DeMarco elbow in round two.
Forging on with a face masked in blood, Valero brought to mind at times the version of Manny Pacquiao who blazed his way through the divisions just south of lightweight with his speed, power and aggression. Although DeMarco was game, he was inhibited by Valero’s power pretty early in the contest and although he could take the bombs bouncing off his chin, his ambition ebbed away round after round until he could take no more after nine.
The win could set up lucrative bouts with the likes of Timothy Bradley in the short term and Manny Pacquiao further down the line, although personally I’d like to see him stay at lightweight where his power remains freakishly potent. Rising to his third weight division in pursuit of the man he craves, our pound for pound leader, could diminish the very thing he stands for. Bone crunching hitting ability.
I just picked up the year end award issue of Ring magazine which featured a ‘Superstars of the Decade’ feature from Eric Raskin. I was pleasantly surprised to see Britain taking top honours in three of the divisions with Lennox Lewis (heavyweight), David Haye (cruiserweight) and Joe Calzaghe (super middleweight).
Ricky Hatton can feel hard done by in losing out to the man he dethroned at light welterweight, Kostya Tszyu although his dalliances at welterweight cost him dearly.
There were also mentions for Calzaghe and Clinton Woods at light heavyweight (numbers 6 and 8 respectively), Carl Froch at super middle (number 6), Junior Witter at light welter (ranked 8th) and Scott Harrison and Naz Hamed at featherweight (numbers 6 and 7 respectively).
I was most interested to see Raskin’s take on the heavyweights after myself compiling a similar list whilst on holiday last summer. Raskin’s list reads as follows:
1. Lennox Lewis 2. Vitali Klitschko 3. Wladimir Klitschko 4. Chris Byrd 5. Hasim Rahman 6. John Ruiz 7. Oleg Maskaev 8. James Toney 9. Ruslan Chagaev 10. Alexander Povetkin.
My top six was as read (albeit with the top three in a different order) and only Chagaev made the bottom half of my picks which can be found here:
http://safesideoftheropes.com/2009/08/23/rating-the-heavyweights-of-the-deacde/
I lamented bumping Lewis for Wlad after submitting the article yet found myself stuck in a moral quandary, trying to be impartial when judging one guy I had followed with a passion against another I find rather insufferable. Thankfully Raskin’s version will find itself a way bigger audience.
There were a couple of boxing snippets in the Sunday papers which is always good to see, the first an article in The Observer about sons and daughters following in the footsteps of famous sporting parents. Shane McGuigan and Chris Eubank Jr. both featured alongside their more illustrious pops, who interestingly both attempted to dissuade their boys from following in their footsteps. Time will tell if the pair can carve out legitimate careers for themselves or if they’ll find their surnames too much to live up to as Messrs Witherspoon, Hearns, Camacho and Chavez have done in recent years.
In a more downmarket periodical (not mine honest) I found a saddening article on Howard Clarke, the former journeyman who lived out his own Rocky fairy tale with a gig against Fernando Vargas on the undercard of Lewis-Holyfield I. Clarke is now suffering badly from frontotemperal dementia, a direct result of his overextended role as human punching bag on the domestic circuit.
As young McGuigan noted in his interview,
“The people that get pugilistic dementia are those who don’t know when to stop”.
Unfortunately for Clarke and for countless other fighters, it’s knowing when to stop which is the hard part.
“I was stupid and I guess too greedy. I never thought my career was going to end, but if I could get a licence to fight now, I would”.
How do you suddenly stop being someone you’ve trained all you life to become anyway?





Amir Khan, Britain’s one time golden boy has flown the nest this week, defecting from career long promoter Frank Warren and signing instead a reported three fight deal with Golden Boy Promotions. The move has ramifications for many and has caused much conjecture, enough to make me want to tap keys and respond.



