Promethean Logic - Sept. 22, 2010
By Coyote Duran, MaxBoxing (Sept 22, 2010) Special to Doghouse Boxing (Photo © German Villasenor, DHB)  
I know what you’re gonna say; don’t talk Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora. Now hold on; I don’t have a lot to say about the main event- more like a “strain” event- other than maybe one…OK, two little things…But more important things first. Like the rest of Saturday night’s undercard.

Ponce De Leon goes “eleganté” on Escalante…

There was a time when Daniel Ponce De Leon was seen as a major player in the junior featherweight division but this was contingent mainly on a Neanderthal style of getting a punch from point A to point B. Since losing his junior featherweight alphabet strap to Juan Manuel Lopez, who blitzed him in one, Ponce De Leon has actually grown into something different in his six subsequent wins: a boxer. Many fighters who are locked in a certain style and don’t have the innate talent to cultivate, i.e. Ricardo Mayorga, don’t get past their lucky windfalls with evolution. Ponce De Leon has. I’m not saying he’s a Mexican Pernell Whitaker but Ponce De Leon’s personal trifecta of Orlando Cruz, Cornelius Lock and Antonio Escalante- whom he stopped in three after a modestly effective effort to mix in some technique- stands as testament to a fighter who really wants to be here. His new number one rating in one of the sanctioning bodies reflects this as well. Whether you agree with the rating or not, the upper echelon of the 126-pound division has a new threat. Maybe not the most elegant of threats but I’ll take it.

“Ta-ta” for “Tata” on cinnamon wheels...

Because Saul Alvarez beat former World Welterweight Champion Carlos Baldomir- possibly into retirement- doesn’t quite mean he’s ready for the big dance yet. But don’t tell that to his legion of fans, who filled the Staples Center on Saturday night and even cheered “Canelo!” during the “inane”…I mean, main event. Before dropping Baldomir, who landed face-first in a sad heap, for the knockout win, Alvarez refused to take the $12,000 penalty for “Tata” not making the agreed 151 pounds. That’s not just a statement of gentlemanly kindness that can put a kid over on a stage of publicity but it’s also “Canelo’s” way of saying, “Don’t sweat it. I’ve got more money to make down the line.” Is he ready for the likes of Miguel Cotto or- Great Spirit forbid- Manny Pacquiao? I doubt it but Cornelius Bundrage and Kermit Cintron? I’d say why the hell not? Golden Boy wanted their stratospheric talent. They- and we- got it.

An em-Harris-ment of his talent?...

HBO’s Larry Merchant made an interesting comment about Vivian Harris after Harris got out-Vicious-ed by Victor Ortiz. Merchant opined that the third-round KO (after three second-round knockdowns) was “an embarrassment of Harris’ talent.” But that’s really relative, judging that Harris’ “talent” has only gotten him so far and that was 2002, when he won a junior welterweight belt from Diosbelys Hurtado. After getting knocked out by Carlos Maussa in 2005, what else has Harris done but been potentially dangerous? In that sense, to me, pitting a fighter like Ortiz against Harris is tantamount to a bomb squad technician who’s not so much able to defuse a bomb with his eyes closed but is good enough trying to disable a pipe bomb that was assembled half-assed. Dangerous but just barely. As for Ortiz, it’s really the next challenge that will truly test his in-the-ring mettle. However, whether or not he considered Harris a legitimate threat is one thing. Ortiz got in the ring and wasn’t as gun-shy as the commentating team made him out to be. This fight was the right kind of confidence builder. Ortiz calling out Marcos Maidana was proof of that.

We now interrupt this “Logic” for something you’ll really like, Bullwinkle…

OK, so you’ve probably had it up to here with the “plain event” in Mosley-Mora so I’m gonna say VERY little about it, other than I found HBO’s Jim Lampley’s issue with the scoring interesting. Lamps, who said judge Kermit Bayless “needs more schooling” (for scoring the fight 115-113 for Mora), Dr. Lou Moret “should know better” (for scoring the fight 114-114, a draw) and “This decision sucks” (Coyote-speak for “This whole fight sucked”), should ask himself, “Was it really that much of a travesty?” A draw decision has never been better embodied better before Mosley-Mora. It basically serves as Our Sport’s deus ex machina: Neither guy won; let’s just pretend it never happened. What’s to carp about? This is especially key when your favorite editorially anal-retentive canid thought it was far more interesting that Lampley didn’t catch his own mistakes when he referred to referee Raul Caiz Jr. as “Victor Caiz” after Victor Ortiz wasted Vivian Harris and mentioned that Moret had Diego Corrales “leading by three before he was knocked out by Jose Luis Castillo in their amazing first fight.” How do you mess THAT one up especially when it was one of the greatest, most thrilling fights of the decade (much less with a graphic in front of you…then again, it WAS on Showtime)? Don’t get me wrong, Howlers; I’ll never stop being a fan of Jimmy Lamps but I can’t help but being concerned about the pro-Shane stance. However, I do somewhat agree with Larry Merchant when he said he wouldn’t care to watch Mora fight again. Nice guy, very intelligent guy, even but for an armchair philosopher, his peaceful stance (he even admitted to in not wanting to hurt Mosley) flies in the face of what Our Sport stands for. OK, enough of this negativity, let’s rap about music…

When I first encountered Chris Casso, I found a very cool Max-Fan who’s been stuck-on-stupid for boxing for years. An amateur fighter as a pup, Chris suffered an accident which KO’ed him for awhile, even putting him in a coma for a stretch. What I didn’t know when he first started following Maxboxing on Facebook was that Chris is a very talented musician and frontman for the hard rock group Stereo Transmitted Disease. Recently, as a nice little motivation for a potential merchandising design for the band, Chris sent me a copy of their debut album and I thought it would be nice to share my thoughts on the slab with you fine readers. At the very least, it’ll be a pleasant palate cleanser to the anathema which was Mosley-Mora.

The first track on the album, “Generation Nothing,” is as heavy and anthemic as you like it. It’s strategically the perfect way draw you in to an absolute ocean of sound that you won’t mind drowning in. Yes, it’s one of those songs you have to test your car stereo with and harkens back to the days of Shotgun Messiah’s (remember them?) pulse-pounding “Heartbreak Boulevard” but lays out how our present-day youth have little identity to speak of. Lyrics like “They say the revolution starts inside your head. John Lennon did it all and he never left his bed” and “If ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was a new song today, they’d chop it into pieces for the radio play” are part of a clever assemblage of historical relevance vs. modern-day apathy. Fans of Filter and their lead singer Richard Patrick will seriously dig the sonic “A Place Called Home” as Casso vocal range knows no bounds. “You Got Fingered” (minds outta the gutter, you guys) opens with a mood-setting Zeppelin-esque drum opening (think “Moby Dick” done up sweet by drummer Tom Walling) that John Bonham would’ve been proud of. Before you know it, the song explodes into another car-crankable tune (complete with a screaming guitar lead-in) Velvet Revolver might wish they wrote. “She’s Made of Gold” features deep swagger and tight gang vocals with a fantastic female R&B backing vocal (and I apologize for not knowing who supplies it. It was a perfect garnish) to bring it all home. “Medicated Children of America” has that better-than-Velvet Revolver feel and touches on our youth being doped-up and dumbed-down and “Doin’ Time” is a rollicking mesh of what made groups like Hanoi Rocks and Iggy and the Stooges so much fun. Look, don’t take my assessment of STD’s effort as a copycat collection based on my comparisons. In fact, it’s a commentary of just a few of the band’s influences, subconscious or not, that they have no problem outdoing at their own games. As I’ve mentioned Casso and Walling already, I’d be remiss in leaving out the vicious dual guitar attack of Dave Lenat and Mike Thatcher and the sneaky-yet-silky thump of bassist Kjell Benner. These guys are elements in this “disease” that you might not wanna get a vaccination for. Go check ‘em out and be a fan at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Stereo-Transmitted-Disease/85475048430?ref=ts

And that’s how I felt about Mosley-Mora.

Check yourself before you BoxRec yourself…

I’ve had it. I’ve simply had it. In months past, I’ve contacted an admin at BoxRec.com in order to flesh out a nagging pop-up ad/virus issue with their site. No matter which browser I’ve used, there was some sort of virus which attacked my Flash or Java capabilities, mainly from one of the ads affiliated with the site “Red Orbit” (notice I’m not supplying you with a link, just a name). I was assured their site was virus-free, as they had assured fellow writer Brad Cooney, owner of www.8countnews.com (Brad even write a short piece detailing his own grievance of the site on August 11th and you can find it right here: http://www.8countnews.com/news/125/ARTICLE/2805/2010-08-12.html). As I cap off this edition of “Promethean Logic,” I’m currently scanning my laptop AGAIN.

I’m saying this right now; I’m done using BoxRec as my resource site until the site gets its house in order. And that royally sucks because for the breadth of free records for those of us who rely on hard statistics to support our articles (and I do it seven days a week as Managing Editor for Maxboxing.com), it’s undeniably a terrific place to go. But I also have a job to do and I’m damn good at it. That’s why I’ll finesse my way around it and get our stats another way.

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Questions? Comments? Complaints? Contact Coyote at artofthepaw@yahoo.com or visit him at www.facebook.com/CoyoteDuran or www.myspace.com/coyote_duran. Please visit www.coyoteduran.com or www.facebook.com/CDCreationNation to check out Coyote’s original art.

* Special Thanks To MaxBoxing.





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