Winners & Losers:
Final Thoughts on Mohegan Sun/Showtime Special event

By Christopher “The Swami” Connor
 
This past Saturday saw the spectacular wins by Sergio Mora & Paul Williams, blow out win by Kelly Pavlik, and a huge win by Juan Manuel Lopez to cultivate everything. So here are my Winners & Losers for the HBO & Showtime fights.

WINNER: WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION; Good riddance to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as he became more glorified prostitute/money chaser than boxer lately. With Williams destructive win over Quintana, boxing fans are now giddy with the possibilities. Williams vs. Cotto/Margarito winner should be a fight of the Decade candidate. Add in Joshua Clottey, Zab Judah, Shane Mosley, a rising Andre Berto, Demetrius Hopkins and Uri Nuzhnenko and you got the makings of a great series of fights.

LOSER: LIGHT MIDDLEWEIGHT REPUTATION; Congrats to Sergio Mora for being on his a game and making many writers (including me) eating crow but his statement about the division was stupid and arrogant. Jeff Wald privately must have been shaking his head as one of the few bargaining chips they have is that Mora is a young champion at 154. But when the champion admits that he has no respect for the division, it clearly takes the luster off a rising division and its fighters.

LOSER: DAN RAFAEL; Its bad enough that Rafael dogged the Mora-Forrest match up earlier saying it was a mismatch (there were hundreds of others whom thought that). But when he hypes up Pavlik-Lockett, guarantees that Floyd is done for good, and basically seems to be shilling for the Arums & Golden Boy's of the world, it makes Rafael seem less reputable and more like a salesman for the big promoters of the American Boxing scene.

WINNER: JEFF MAYWEATHER; The low key Mayweather member might actually be the better trainer of the group as his newest charge Bowie Tupou made a big statement with a TKO win over Otis Tisdale. The Tongan heavyweight showed more polished body punching and a new jab in his arsenal and ringsiders could see Jeff Mayweather in between rounds telling Bowie to box more earlier. With trainers such as Emmanuel Steward and Freddie Roach maybe on their way out, Jeff Mayweather could be the next "it" trainer in 2009.

LOSER: STEVE MOLITOR; First the young Canadian has broken from his promoter and perhaps signing with Murad Muhammed. But Molitor couldn't have been happy seeing Lopez beat Ponce De Leon as the chance of a unification fight with a more limited fighter disappeared. "Molitor and his people were confident they could beat Ponce and thought that a fight with him could happen in Montreal possibly in September." One boxing scribe said. Now Molitor has fights with more difficult champions in 6'1 Cellestino Caballero, super fighter Israel Vazquez or Lopez.

WINNER: SHOWTIME; While HBO has had more money to through around, Showtime has been coming up aces with excellent fights. From Tim Bradley's upset over Junior Witter, the thrilling contest between Chad Dawson over Glen Johnson, the Vazquez-Marquez trilogy, the SHOBOX cards have been off the chart. Last Saturday showed another beauty as Mora-Forrest was an exciting battle and Williams TKO win was an impressive blow out.