Anarchists and
their critics could argue long and hard about the meaning of
the October 31 boxing night at Colon’s Panama Al Brown
Arena. There was absolutely no police protection, the up-and-
coming hometown hero lost the main event, but despite the
disgraceful conduct of a very few individuals a potential
disaster was averted by the good citizenship of the
overwhelming majority of fans.
Despite all
that, it was a good card, one that left Panamanian fans with
reason to hope.
The biggest
reason for hope was provided by one of the few fulos in
Panamanian pugilism, William González. Thank God
they’re not calling him “The White Hope”
anymore, or at least they weren’t on this occasion. There
have been and are plenty of good white boxers in this world,
thank you, and the Caucasian race need not place its hopes in
any one of them.
Now climbing
toward an international ranking with double-digit wins and only
one defeat, González has always looked solid and well-
conditioned, but never particularly spectacular. On this night
both he and Gilberto Bosquez squared off with the WBA’s
FEDECARIBE lightweight title on the line, and seconds into the
first round both were bleeding. It was a slugfest, fought in a
style more befitting heavyweights, unlike the cautious
technical fights that I had seen González wage before.
By the 7th Bosquez had a genuine cauliflower ear and was
bleeding so badly the ref had to stop the fight.
González was well ahead on points by my calculation
anyway.
Maybe the way I
figure points was out of whack on this night. In the previous
bout Colon’s Rosano Laurent got a split decision against
Joel Cerrud, when I had the latter clearly winning the fight.
The other boxing journalists on hand tended to agree with my
assessment. Before that, I had jail guard Rex Saldaña
narrowly beating Raúl Alonso, but the judges held
otherwise. The first two bouts, in which Jorge Samudio
outpointed Alexander Alonso and Fabian Salazar beat Porfirio
Carrasco, were less controversial.
When time came
for the evening’s main attraction, the showdown between
Colon’s 9-0 Angelo Dottin and Nicaragua’s 15-2 Nerys
Espinosa, nobody had yet been knocked off of his feet.
Dottin came in
with a bigger entourage than ever before, doing a congo dancing
bit as usual but more prolonged and with more elaborate
costumes. Espinosa just calmly kept loose as the excessive
grand entry ran its course.The way I scored it, Dottin won the
first round, tied the next five, won the seventh, drew the next
two rounds and then completely ran out of steam.
Throughout most
of the fight the very quick Dottin would from time to time flit
and and unleash combinations, mostly body shots, but without
apparently affecting Espinosa. And meanwhile the Nicaraguan
showed some quickness of his own, especially with some
headhunting counterpunches. By the 9th Espinosa was putting his
dukes down in the style of the young Muhammad Ali, and Dottin
was looking tired.
Espinosa
knocked Dottin down in the 10th to draw even on points by my
way of scoring, then again in the 11th to build a fairly
insurmountable lead, and when Dottin went down a third time
with about 20 seconds to go in the 12th and final round a young
relative who had no business in the corner jumped onto the
turnbuckle and waved the towel. Meanwhile this jerk in front of
us had made his way to the side of the ring where he stood
among Dottin’s entourage and threw trash into the ring. So
what good are manzanillos if they stand by and permit esta
vaina? Meanwhile on another side of the ring some fool was set
to launch a folding chair into the ring when he was stopped by
other fans. At this point, with about 10 seconds to go, theref
called a TKO.
None of the
stupidity at the end altered the outcome of the fight. Espinosa
won a fair and convincing victory. However, there should have
been police on hand, a couple of people should have spent the
night in jail.
Dottin, for his
part, needs to realize that his entourage isn’t doing him
any good. I think the young man has a future, but he needs to
work on his punching strength so that when he moves in and
connects on rapid-fire body combinations, his opponent’s
belly turns to jelly, the body gets killed and the head dies.
Dottin has to emphasize athleticism, not showmanship, to get
back on track and resume his journey toward the
top.
Also in this
section:
Fight night in
Colon
Fireworks accident mars
baseball tournament
