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Showtime ShoBox Recap Part 2
 

September 12, 2009

Pechanga Resort & Casino-Temecula, California

 

  

This is part 2 of a 2 part recap of a special ShoBox designed to showcase 2 boxers that will face off on November 21 in the opening round of Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic to crown an undisputed champion at 168 pounds. The first part featured Mikkel Kessler knocking out Gusmyr Perdomo at 51 seconds of round 4 to retain his 168-pound title on same day tape delay from Herning, Denmark. This is part 2 featuring Andre Ward.

 

 

 

Before this match begins there is going to be an interview with another Super Six participant, Andre Dirrell. In the opening round of the tournament, Dirrell will be challenging Carl Froch for the Englishman's 168-pound title, in the champion's hometown of Nottingham, England on October 17. Dirrell began by assessing Kessler's performance that had just aired. The young American said that Kessler had a solid 1-2 and it was clear that Kessler works hard on it. To call Kessler merely solid is a major understatement. Dirrell said he is going to beat Froch in the opening round with his pure boxing skills and speed. The American said he is not going to work for a knockout in the match. (The tournament uses a points system with an extra point awarded for a knockout victory. An explanation of the scoring system will be revisited on October 17.) Dirrell said he has faced boxers with power like Froch before, but Froch has never faced anyone with his speed. That styles clash could make for a terrible match to watch if Dirrell has his way.

 

 

 

Catch-Weight (172 pounds) 10-Round Match:

Andre Ward (19-0, 12 KO's, 171.25 pounds) vs. Shelby Pudwill (22-3-1, 9 KO's, 170.25 pounds)

 

 

Ward has had the most decorated amateur boxing career of anyone from the United States in more then a decade. Ward's amateur boxing career concluded when he took home the gold medal for the United States in the 178-pound division at 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.

 

The Oakland, California resident has very few professional matches for a boxer this far into his professional career. That is because he was forced out of action for nearly 6 months in 2008 due to an injury sustained playing pick-up basketball. (For this reason, playing pick-up basketball is a contract violation for most major team sport athletes.) Basketball is the number 1 sport in Oakland, the town which has produced all-time great NBA players Bill Russell and Jason Kidd to go along with several other NBA all-stars. However, Ward has promised to not play anymore basketball until his days as a competitive boxer are over.

 

Ward's last match was a dominant 12-round unanimous decision over Edison Miranda to retain his 2 fringe 168-pound titles on May 16, 2009 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (Oracle Arena) in Oakland, California. Ward dominated from the beginning of the match. In response, Miranda fought dirty. Miranda used a head butt to cut Ward early in the match and tried every manner of foul to draw Ward into a brawl. Instead, Ward stayed calm and used his superior technique on the outside and on the inside to prove Miranda was completely out-classed by the young boxer. The match was Ward's first professional match in his hometown and a major success in another way. It was a success at the gate, drawing over 7,000 fans. Ward was accompanied to the ring by the greatest lead-off hitter of all-time, Hall of Fame baseball player and Oakland native Ricky Henderson. The match was a true event in Oakland that was attended by many other current top athletes in the city highlighted by NFL's Oakland Raiders' starting quarterback JaMarcus Russell and received lots of local media attention.

 

Ward is The Ring magazine's number 9 contender to their vacant championship at 168 pounds.

 

Pudwill is here to get knocked out in highlight reel fashion. He has an artificially inflated record that makes him appear as a more legitimate opponent, then he is. Almost all of Pudwill's wins have come in Minnesota and North Dakota. Those states do not have legitimate commissions or much boxing talent. There ridiculous mismatches that would never be permitted in states with a real commission are the norm. Pudwill has boxed 3 times in states with more serious boxing commissions. Pudwill is 0-1-1 in the state of Washington. Then on March 16, 2006, the eve of St. Patrick's Day, "Irish" John Duddy defeated Pudwill via technical knockout at 1:51 of round 1 on an Irish themed card at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York.

 

His last match and only since his loss to Duddy was an 8-round unanimous decision victory over Anthony Osborne on December 6, 2008 at the Community Center in Mandan, North Dakota. Anyone looking for evidence that the North Dakota commission is completely corrupt can just look at this match. One of the judges' names is Jack Pudwill. In fairness, Jack Pudwill came up with the same score for the match as the other judges. Still, no legitimate commission could possibly have a judge related to a boxer they are judging. That is not even allowed in high school speech and debate competitions.

  

Pudwill is unranked by The Ring and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 216 boxer in the world at 168 pounds.

 

At 25-years old, Ward is 9 years younger then the 34-year-old Pudwill. Ward has the height advantage standing 6' 1" tall, while Pudwill stands 6' tall. The Californian has the reach advantage with a 73" wingspan, compared to the 70" wingspan of the North Dakotan. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, Ward is naturally bigger and should be the heavier competitor in the ring. Ward is naturally left handed, but both boxers will employ the orthodox stance.

 

California's modified version of the unified rules of boxing are in effect for this event. All of the judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are from California. The referee is Pat Russell, who is having a rough hair day.

 

Ward is very active in winning round 1, 10-9. The young boxer is clearly working to fine tune his game, and still end this match quickly. Ward threw a plethora of hard body shots in round 1. That is new for Ward. Ward was warned for going low a few times in round 1, but these are things Ward is supposed to fine tune during a tune-up match. The Californian dominates Pudwill in winning round 2, 10-9. It is pretty clear that Ward has no respect for Pudwill's power and is treating this match as a high level sparring session. With 1:48 to go in round 3, Pudwill takes a long combination and goes to a knee attempting to grab Ward. Pudwill is up at the count of 6, but badly hurt. Against a boxer, so far superior to him as Ward, it is doubtful that Pudwill will last 30 more seconds. There is blood coming from a cut under Pudwill's left eye, when the action is resumed with 1:37 to go in the round. The referee calls timeout with 1:35 to go in round 3, immediately after ruling Pudwill fit to continue. The referee wants the doctor to look at the cut under Pudwill's eye, which is being ruled to have come from a punch. After a roughly 10 second delay for Pudwill to recover, the doctor rules that Pudwill can continue. The extra time Pudwill was given to recover here will probably be irrelevant. It was probably a good idea for the referee to have the doctor check on Pudwill. With still 1:00 to go in round 3, the North Dakotan's face is a gruesome mess. The referee saw the miserable shape Pudwill was in and 2 solid punches from Ward caused him to move in to stop the contest with 47 seconds to go in round 3, That is a good stoppage. Ward even motioned to the referee that he did not want to hit Pudwill anymore.

 

The official outcome courtesy of the always "Classy" Jimmy Lennon, Jr. is that: at 2:16 of round 3 the referee has called a stop to this contest, making the winner by technical knockout, and still undefeated, Andre "S.O.G." Ward. The win moves Ward to 20-0 with now 13 wins coming by way of knockout.

 

Ward said in his post-match interview that he is healthy and will be fine to face Kessler on November 21. The American then proceeded to avoid cutting a promo on Kessler. In a very classy move, Ward sent a shout out to ShoBox' normal play-by-play commentator Nick Charles, who is not at this event, but receiving treatment for cancer in Houston, Texas. Ward's cutman, Jacob "Stitch" Duran had "Nick Charles" written on his gloves, also as a show of support for the Showtime broadcaster.

 

The Californian was excellent in this match. Ward continues to improve and show new skills every time in the ring. Based on this match against very low level opposition, it is very hard to determine how Ward will do against Kessler. It looks like Ward will eventually be the top 168-pounder in the world, but that may still be a few years away. However, Ward will get the chance to become the top ranked 168-pounder in the world in a match tailor made for him to win. He will return to action on November 21 against Mikkel Kessler at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Ward may never get a better opportunity to be the top boxer in the division. The young boxer does need some serious work on his promo skills if he is going to be involved in big money matches. Ricky Henderson would be a great mentor on how to cut promos. No one could tell people how great Henderson was better then Henderson, plus he did it in the third person. That made those promos even better.

 

Pudwill put up a good enough resistance to make the match entertaining. Unfortunately, he was completely over-matched. He is going to be suspended for a long-time following this match, because of the cut and knockout. Pudwill can probably do well boxing on shows promoted and judged by his family for a long time, for whatever that is worth.

 

 

 

This match was a glorified sparring session. The entire event is an easy skip.

 

 

 

News and Notes: In sad news, Irish boxer Darren Sutherland was found dead on Monday in London. Sutherland won a bronze medal for Ireland in the 175-pound weight class at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Sutherland was scheduled to box in England on October 16 when he was found hanged. There are no other details available at this time.

 

In happy news, The Mayweather/Marquez 24/7 mini-series to promote Saturday's pay per-view between Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez has aired its first 3 installments. It has been a mixed bag. Mayweather tried to be somewhat of a babyface for the first 2 episodes. That was not that entertaining. When Mayweather was in full fledged heel mode, the first episode was really at its best. That would be when Mayweather gave people a tour of his new mansion in Las Vegas, that is reportedly fully paid for, as are all of his expensive cars (2 of which are currently in the possession of the Las Vegas police as part of their investigation into a shooting at a skating rink). Mayweather found way to spend money on his house, that seemed unimaginable. Mayweather showed off his 1,000 square foot walk-in closet. That is larger then my brother's apartment. Mayweather's house has silk wallpaper! That is such an extravagant waste of money and impractical, because it is probably so hard to keep clean that it is awe inspiring. Another highlight was Mayweather rolling dice on his pool table with his father, Floyd Mayweather, Sr. It was a ridiculous sight that can only come from the Mayweather family. Here is the link to the first episode: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4443300

 

The second episode featured Marquez as the star. The bits that got cut out of that season of TUF where everyone kept eating gross stuff ended up in this show. Marquez would clearly could have been a star on Fear Factor as he opened the show by drinking raw quail eggs. He then closed the episode by drinking his own urine. All of this is far grosser then it reads, and the health benefits of this are suspect at best. It was also heavy on Marquez' training. There will be a lot more on that in the actual recap of the event.

 

Mayweather saw that and realized he had to up his game for episode 3, and was a full fledged heel for the entire episode. It opened with Mayweather watching episode 2 of 24/7 and telling his children that he would be fighting "Pee-Pee Mouth". Mayweather then told the camera that he would not drink urine for all the money in the world, but Marquez could drink his, "silverback gorilla piss." Mayweather then proceeded to cut money promos on Marquez for the rest of the episode. HBO also found time to work in some cute footage of Roger Mayweather's son working out in the boxing gym. Roger's 4-year-old appears to employ the southpaw stance and have a lot of natural handspeed. If he wants to box, Roger's son probably could be very good.

 

At the Amateur World Boxing Championships on Thursday, 4 officials from Mongolia were expelled. They were expelled for trying to bribe a referee with a watch. The referee did not accept the gift and reported them. Considering the brand of watch is not listed in the report, it was probably a relatively cheap watch, not something like a Rolex. That made it relatively easy for the referee to refuse. For future reference when giving out bribes, the better the bribe the less chance of it being reported.

 

Oscar De La Hoya decided to have 1 more boxing match following his knockout loss to Manny Pacquiao. The video of that match can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/thelife/news/story?page=goingviral/091009

 

Showtime used a new announce crew for this event of Al Bernstein on play-by-play and Steve Farhood and Antonio Tarver on color commentator. For the first night of the Super Six they are going to shake things up, again. Steve Albert, who had been the play-by-play broadcaster for Showtime Championship Boxing from 1987 until this year when he was replaced by EliteXC play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson, will team with color commentator Farhood to call the October 17 Jermain Taylor-Arthur Abraham match from ringside in Germany. The usual Showtime Championship Boxing duo of Bernstein and Johnson will call the Dirrell-Froch match live from Nottingham.

 

Finally, Showtime needs to desperately update their closing credits for ShoBox. It seems to only feature guys signed to exclusive deals with HBO or who Showtime should not be taking credit for making stars in 2009. It would be hard for them to work in many more Ricky Hatton clips into the credits. There was also an abundance of Robert Guerrero and Paul Williams highlights in that video package. It is highly doubtful any of those boxers will be on Showtime in the next few years. Also, Showtime probably should disassociate themselves from the Jeff Lacy hype they created several years ago, not showcase it. These could easily be replaced with the plethora of Vic Darchinyan highlights they have.

 

 

 

The next recap will be of Saturday's mega-event, the Mayweather-Marquez PPV.