Marcos Maidana defeats Josesito Lopez via TKO

Lopez’s big right hand.

For me, la pregunta going in to Marcos Maidana (34-3) vs Josesito Lopez (30-6) was not who was going to win the fight (June 8th). Obviously that matters a lot and is deeply important, especially if you’re emotionally attached to either boxer. The question for me was, “Will this fight live up to the hype?”. Pos, the answer was clear and I’m happy to say, “Si!”.

At first, it seemed like Lopez had the idea of trying to outbox the hard-hitter from Argentina. Midway through the fight, Lopez decided that he wanted to go mano-a-mano with Maidana. The fourth round came and that’s where the fight went to another, much nastier, level. Lopez badly hurt Maidana, landed a barrage of brutal bombs to the point that a 10-8 scorecard was perfectly reasonable.

Lopez was having his success by brawling, a strategy that some thought was suicidal in design. Also, Lopez was doing much better than a lot of people anticipated, landing some great power punches on Maidana. But Maidana showed some resilience, came back in the sixth frame and scored a thunderous knockdown on Lopez. When Lopez got back up, Maidana went to work with humongous shots on our beloved Mexican-American brawler. After receiving one bomb too many, the referee wisely stepped in to stop the bout. It was a justifiable decision but Lopez felt it was premature.

Lopez has reached a point in his career where he’s going to be admired for going all out against Victor Ortiz, Maidana and Canelo Alvarez. He fell short when fighting the latter two, but he fought valiantly and fought with the type of spirit we admire in a boxer. Wherever he goes and whatever he decides to do next, we’ll follow him. As gutsty and as exciting as he is, he deserves no shame for losing this fight of the year contender.

Other memorable boxing bouts that evening included Alfredo “Perro” Angulo (22-3) vs Erislandy Lara (18-1-2) and Chad Dawson (31-3) vs Adonis Stevenson (21-1).

The fight with Angulo and Lara was another great fight that evening. Lara was using great, precise counters to Angulo’s volume and aggression. Angulo managed to score two dynamic knockdowns during the course of the fight. However, Lara was tough enough to survive those vulnerable moments and destroy Angulo’s eye enough for the fight to be stopped in the tenth frame. A nasty and unexpected ending to a great fight.

Stevenson went in there and landed a huge left hand early in the first round against Dawson. The referee stopped the fight at 1:16, sensing that Dawson could not continue and awarding Stevenson the WBC and The Ring light-heavyweight championships. Great moment for Stevenson, he made sure to show the world how happy he was with his memorable celebration.

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