There was no massacre last night for sure. What was dubbed as “St. Valentines Day Massacre” came off more like a sucker punch. I can’t fully blame one person for the lackluster fights that we saw but I can say thanks that none of it was PPV. The card promised 3 fights and after a challenge finding a location to stage the event we would see struggles with placing opponents and finally on fight night trouble officiating and scoring. Fight #1 saw the rising star Alfredo “Pero” Angulo taking on a late sub in the vet Cosme Rivera. Rivera looked good in rounds 1 and 2 as he stuck and moved well. It appears Pero will struggle against movers and Rivera moved until he just ran out of gas in round 2. He did manage to cause a cut over Pero’s right eye but after the gas ran out Rivera was a sitting duck and Pero took him out in round 5. I don’t think we learned anything new about Angulo in this fight other than keeping him away from a guy like the Champ Paul Williams for now.
Fight #2 carried a lot of expectations and delivered almost none of them. In a clutch filled 12 round fight Kermit Cintron taking on hard punching Sergio Martinez. Cintron has lost twice to Margarito and Martinez once but neither fighter looked very good in this scrap. It took several rounds for either fighter to do anything but finally in round 7 Martinez landed a wicked straight left and Cintron went down thinking he was butted? The ref counted to ten and appeared to waive off the fight but Cintron was up and the fight continued. Controversy, welcome to the show, where were you? The fight continued and Martinez looked to gain the upper hand but in round 12 Martinez was deducted a point for a rabbit punch and that resulted in the judges seeing this as a majority draw. Cintron really needs to look good in his next fight or it could be curtains for his pro career. Martinez will need to regroup and be more aggressive in the early stages of a big fight.
The main event saw Nate “can’t make the weight” Campbell take on Ali Funeka from Africa who has never fought in the States. Nate had to follow the taller Funeka and dropped him in round 2. Funeka had no quit though and rallied back but got dropped again in the 11th and that sealed the deal for a majority win for Campbell who as someone in his corner reminded him after the fight, “you don’t go home with nothing anyway”. Nate lost his belts before the fight as he could not make weight and will now move from 135 to 140. Good luck!!!
Photo by AP