I just love boxing. What a Wicked Weekend!

Was that an EPIC weekend or what? Holy cow what a 48 hours! A little taste of everything, wars, upsets, boxing clinic and great punches, Sweet Science is back baby!

Takahiro Aoh opened this Wicked Weekend with a surprisingly dominating win over Vitali Tajbert to crown the 5th Japanese world champion and the 2nd at 130lbs. The 6th came shotly after in a fantastic high level box-brawl between former outstanding BW Hozumi Hasegawa and unbeaten Mexican boxer-puncher Juan Carlos Burgos, and Hozumi put on a great exhibition overcoming some tough moments to win a wide UD and the vacant 126lbs WBC belt - and that was still only Friday!

Carl Froch opened Saturday dominating Arthur Abraham from start to finish, using reach, movement and output to win a near-shutout, and the WBC SMW belt. No one saw THIS kind of complete performance coming, and these boxing skills - particularly the ones that helped him catch Abraham coming in and resettng is feet to keep distance - will bring a lot of goodies vs. Andre Ward if Froch gets past Glen Johnson, a guy we just can't ever count out. I didn't see the Ward fight but read that it was anything but a shutout and the scores in Oakland didn't really reflect on the fight, but Andre won nontheless, more and more becoming the Bernard Hopkins of his generation.

And what can you not like about HBO's best triple-header for quite some time now? Jason Litzau won a split decision in a close fight he was given little to know chance of winning vs. former P4P-er Celestino Caballero (fighting well over his comfort zone at 130), and Andre Berto just made the potential Manny Pacquiao showdown interesting with a 90 second blowout of Freddy Hernandez. If Floyd's on vacation and Pac's vacating not to face Sergio Martinez, why not fight Berto at 147, put me down for that fight!

And boy oh boy we waited for the FOTY for nearly 12 months, but finally we got the war that defines 2010. What a great great fight between two warriors who don't have the expression 'giving up' in their book. Marquez started very well, but given his last few fights and the flush left hooks he took, it was just the matter of time before Katsidis was able to sell his money punch that landed him this very fight, and down Marquez went from that shot in round 3. But he's no elite fighter for no reason: as always, JMM adapted to the shot and the same calibre of left hook never landed again. But Katsidis never stopped coming and started to take over around half mark and inflicting a lot of damage on the old warrior. At that point it looked like Marquez is short on room and power to stop Michael coming in, despite the Mexican landed a lot of shots off the ropes. But he was bullied by the stronger, shorter punching fighter and it was hard to discourage the Greek-Australian with anything. It all changed in the 9th where a battleworn Katsidis was caught by a big right uppercut in an absolutely wicked JMM combination, and a left uppercut followed by a right hook shook him to the bone a little later. Michael was never given a chance to recover as Marquez couldn't stop landing punches, and the ref stepped in while Katsidis was still standing on his feet. No protest to the stoppage, and Michael didn't seem clear afterwars, hope he's okay. What a warrior! But damn Juan Manuel Marquez is something else, that man can fight, and just snatched he Fight of the Year award in an instant classic.

I just love boxing. WAR SWEET SCIENCE!

 

Non stop boxing till the end of the year.

 

I'd love to see Litzau fighting Japan's Uchiyama for the WBA title, I think it could be a very good fight and Jason deserves a shot.